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SHE may have missed out on a Grammy award to Christina Aguilera, but Scots singer KT Tunstall is achieving national recognition in America - all due to the country's equivalent of TV show The X Factor.
Tunstall has already achieved some recognition in America through the success of her debut album, Eye to the Telescope, which went platinum last year in the US and has clocked up global sales of 3.5 million.
But the 31-year-old, from St Andrews, is now on her way to national celebrity status in America after one of her songs, Black Horse and the Cherry Tree, was sung by a contestant on reality TV show American Idol. The programme, created by X Factor judge Simon Cowell, is Amer-ica's top-rated programme and draws audiences of 33 million.
Tunstall licensed American Idol contestant Katharine McPhee - a runner-up on the show - to perform the foot-stomping track. Widespread interest in the song has catapulted it into this week's top ten list of adult contemporary songs compiled by American chart company Billboard.
Tunstall said: "My status as a musician in America is pretty much cemented by Katharine McPhee, which is really interesting and funny for me because I've never been polite about how I feel about shows like that.
"When she sang that song, less than one per cent of the population knew it. I was doing quite well but it was a totally underground song at the time. Then she does it. And it worked." Exposure on American Idol formed the cue for Tunstall's music to be used in a rash of mainstream television shows.
Excerpts from tracks were subsequently used in Ugly Betty, Grey's Anatomy and Will & Grace. The singer's breakthrough hit, Suddenly I See, was used in the opening scene of last year's fashion satire film The Devil Wears Prada.
Until the American Idol explosion, the Scot's music had received airplay largely on alternative college-circuit radio, although she had received exposure on music television channel VH1.
Radio industry expert Paul Robinson said television had hoisted Tunstall into the big time: "The thing about radio in the US is it is all basically local. Acts tend to break in and then they gradually get national coverage.
If you suddenly get national television coverage, that's a huge kick."
While Tunstall lost out in best female pop vocal performance at the Grammys, her record label in America has pronounced itself delighted with its Scots star. Jason Flom, chief executive of Virgin Records in the US, said of Tunstall: "I'd love to clone her. She is the kind of artist that you look for and you dream about when you're in this business."
"While Tunstall lost out in best female pop vocal performance at the Grammys, her record label in America has pronounced itself delighted with its Scots star. Jason Flom, chief executive of Virgin Records in the US, said of Tunstall: 'I'd love to clone her. She is the kind of artist that you look for and you dream about when you're in this business'."
Mr. Flom, KT Tunstall has not only been cloned --she's been PERFECTED! ....."KH McPhee" not only sings like a "multiple-clone" of Mariah, Celine and Whitney, she can dance like Gene Kelly and act like Julie Andrews! What more can anyone ask for?!?
Katharine McPhee fans around the world