English singer and actress Jane Anne McDonald was born on April 4, 1963 in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. Her breakthrough came in 1998, when she took part in the BBC series The Cruise. She then signed to independent label Focus Music International to record an album of covers and a Christmas single. The first, Jane McDonald, was an immediate success, topping the charts in the UK. A TV presenter, she nevertheless persisted with her singing career, releasing a second opus for the Universal Music TV label. Inspiration reached No. 6 in 2000, while its two successors, Love at the Movies in 2001 and You Belong to Me in 2005, reached No. 24 and No. 21 respectively, and seemed to begin a relative decline. But this was immediately halted with the release of Jane, No. 7 in 2008. Thereafter, Jane McDonald took a six-year break from the music scene, only to return in 2014 with The Singer of Your Song, an album that failed to find its audience, being the artist's only album to date not to enter the charts. In 2017, Hold the Covers Back marked a timid return to the UK charts (#69), while Cruising with Jane McDonald returned to the top 10 (#6) in 2018. Its successor, logically entitled Cruising with Jane McDonald: Volume Two, reached no. 24 in 2020. A year later, the English singer kept up the momentum with Let the Light In, which reached No. 21. In 2023, she returned to success with the song "Believe in Christmas Eve", charting at No. 41, then came back three years later with the album Living the Dream.
