CONTENTS All Eyes on Ed 4 Growing Up 8 Chasing His Dream 14 Making It 18 Recognition and Rewards 22 What’s Next 28 Timeline 29 Glossary 30 Find Out More 31 Index 32 Words that are defined in the glossary are in bold type the first time they appear in the text
All Eyes on Ed Ed Sheeran is a British pop singer-songwriter known for such hit singles as Thinking Out Loud and Photograph He blends many different styles of music into his songs such as folk hip-hop dance soul and rock He classifies his overall sound as acoustic soul with hip-hop influences His musical influences range from folk pop singer Bob Dylan to rapper Eminem Irish folk music has also had an influence on his music He often listened to this style of music when he visited his Irish grandparents 4 Many of Ed’s songs are about things that have happened in his life such as love heartbreak growing up and becoming famous
Finding Success Ed’s first single hit number one on the iTunes chart before he ever signed with a record label He has sold millions of records had more than 150 nominations and won 76 awards for his music He has performed at the closing ceremonies for the 2012 London Summer Olympics and had a song appear in the movie The Hobbit The Desolation of Smaug 5
