Skip to content
Entertainment
Link copied to clipboard

Bensalem native Christina Perri’s sudden success after ‘Jar of Hearts’

And who do you think you are Running around leaving scars Collecting your jar of hearts And tearing love apart

And who do you think you are

Running around leaving scars

Collecting your jar of hearts

And tearing love apart

You're gonna catch a cold

From the ice inside your soul

- Christina Perri, "Jar of Hearts" It can't be easy to be an overnight singing sensation, a genuine, honest-to-goodness pop-culture phenom.

"It feels pretty amazing," says Bensalem native Christina Perri, 23, who in less than a month catapulted from obscurity to stardom with her remarkable self-released song, "Jar of Hearts," an alternately ferocious and mournful indictment of an inconstant lover.

It must be a torment, stardom. All that pressure. All those expectations. Those fawning fans and obsequious talk-show hosts.

"I keep pinching myself and wondering if I'm going to wake up and none of it would have happened," Perri says from Los Angeles, where she moved two years ago. The Archbishop Ryan grad was working as a waitress when she was discovered.

She wrote "Jar of Hearts" in December while visiting her parents. It was a dark time, says Perri, who had weathered a failed one-year marriage in Los Angeles only to be confronted by her very first love back home. He had broken her heart. Now he wanted her back.

"I actually went through this and wrote the song coming from a real place and about a real guy," she says.

"Jar of Hearts" helped Perri heal in more ways than one: It shot up the digital charts after it was featured June 30 on Fox's So You Think You Can Dance.

Within a week, it was No. 28 on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs with 48,000 downloads. All without any radio play or a record contract.

As of Wednesday, it had sold nearly 225,000 copies - and Perri had been signed by Atlantic Records.

Perri isn't exactly new to the music business. Her brother Nick, 26, is the former guitarist for Shinedown.

But her rise to stardom has been remarkably rapid. And it's a testament to the otherwise outlandish idea that - once in a while, at least - anyone can achieve the mythical trifecta of overnight success, fame, fortune.

Perri's stunning success, which already has spawned countless news stories, is genuinely rare, says Atlantic chairwoman Julie Greenwald.

"She got a lot of attention very quickly," she says. "I don't ever remember when it ever happened before. . . . Except maybe for Susan Boyle."

Then there's Perri's voice.

"Her voice is so unique," Greenwald says of the singer's rich, textured, smoky tones. (Perri's singing voice is no artistic affectation - it's natural.)

Greenwald says she was most impressed that Perri isn't just a vocalist but also a serious songwriter who also plays the guitar and piano: "She already had five songs down when we signed her. She's in this amazing writing zone."

Last week, Atlantic flew Perri to London to begin work on a debut album, due out in late October or early November. And there already are plans for a series of live performances in September with Jason Mraz.

"I might get to sing 'Lucky' with him as a duet, which is pretty much a dream come true for me," Perri says.

Tom Gates, who co-manages Perri with Ryan Chisholm at Bill Silva Entertainment, discovered her in February, shortly after she had recorded the song and shot a homemade video.

"I first saw her sing in her living room on YouTube," he says. "It had only, like, 115 views, but it blew me away. It's how I felt when I first heard Coldplay and Sarah McLachlan."

He sounds in awe of his discovery.

"There's an unbelievable amount of karma in play here. I mean this is so rare."

Perri's story is classic Americana. And, it's genuinely heartwarming.

She was born into a solid middle class family. Her parents, Mary, 55, and Dante, 67, who have been married 32 years, met at a Frank Sinatra dance night at the Marriott on City Line Avenue.

The Perris, who are both hairdressers and business owners, began their careers with a small salon next to their house.

“I was so traumatized - by hair,” Perri says, laughing. “I helped wash hair on these little old ladies who hadn’t showered in three weeks.” She makes fun of her reaction: “Eeeewww!

Her mother says she encouraged her children's interest in music - though she always thought they would grow out of their aspirations for stardom.

"They were always musical, singing and dancing as far back as I remember. They were mostly into Michael Jackson," Mary Perri says. "And they were always putting on these shows for anyone who would watch them."

Christina seems as forthright and genuine as they come.

But her story, as she tells it, sounds as if it came straight from the Biography Channel, E!'s True Hollywood Story, Extra!, Entertainment Tonight, and countless other celebrity shows.

Perhaps that's the shape the American success story must take.

"I'm so excited to be doing what I've always dreamt," she says.

Her quest, she says, began when she decided to drop out of the University of the Arts when she was a junior and follow that dream.

"I moved to L.A. when I was 21, literally with nothing but a suitcase and my guitar," she says. "I come from a large Italian family. I had no family in L.A. I was scared. I'm telling you I was sad. . . . But I knew something was pulling me out there."

Her mother says she was impressed by Christina's determination.

"She seemed to pick herself up by her bootstraps, and always had a job to support herself," Mary says. "She was determined that she was going to stay out there and make a go of it."

She adds that her daughter is too "down to earth" to allow such fleeting things as fame get to her head.

"Her brother has been in the music business for nearly 10 years, and we rode that roller coaster ride with him," she says. "Christina knows success can go as easily as it comes."

But, admits Mary, she's loving the ride.

“Before you called, I heard Christina will be on Jay Leno [on NBC’s The Tonight Show] tonight,” she says. “I just e-mailed all my peeps - as they call them - to let them know to tune in.”