With hits such as 'Moving On Up', 'One Night In Heaven' and 'Search For The Hero' and albums like Elegant Slumming, Bizarre Fruit and Fresco achieving massive worldwide success, Heather became one of the seminal British voices of the 1990s, with the band winning the Best British Dance Act Award at the Brits in 1994 and 1995, as well as the Mercury Music Prize for Elegant Slumming. Then, after taking a well-earned break, Heather decided to take a chance and try going down the solo route.

'The decision to make a solo album was a creative one, a challenge that gave me the chance to be more involved in the writing process,' she explains. 'I wanted to show that I was not just a voice, that there was another side to me.' One of the first songs to emerge from Heather's new-found creative freedom was 'Proud', co-written with Peter Vetesse.
It was to become the lead track from her debut solo album of the same name - and the song that was to catapult her career into a whole new realm.

'It just came out!' is how Heather describes the creative process behind 'Proud', accompanied by one of her deeply infectious belly-laughs. 'I've always been interested in the human condition and what makes people get out of bed each morning. It's about a sense of self and a sense of pride, what you do that makes you feel good about yourself.'

And it's that uplifting, life-affirming theme that has made the public take 'Proud' to their collective hearts and has seen it become the soundtrack to a whole host of very special events. When Britain won the Olympic bid, Heather was there singing 'Proud', as she was at the 60th anniversary of VE Day in Trafalgar Square, the launch of Queen Mary 2 and the celebrations following England's victory at the 2003 Rugby World Cup.

And when Oprah Winfrey was looking for a song to sum up the work she'd been striving to achieve over her twenty-year career, she got in touch with Heather, who somehow managed to squeeze in a trip across the Atlantic to perform on the show slap bang in the middle of her last UK tour with M People ('If Oprah calls, you go!' she laughs, adding that the first lady of chat was 'very sweet to me').
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