A SINGER from Saltdean has won BBC Music’s Sound of 2020.

The award recognises artists tipped for success in the coming year.

Soul singer Celeste Waite joins previous winners Adele, Haim and Ellie Goulding.

The 25-year-old had humble beginnings. She spent her teenage years in Saltdean, working in pubs and charity shops to make ends meet. She also started playing gigs in Brighton.

The BBC said her “entrancing voice and jazz-steeped songs” made her “the runaway winner”, after votes were counted from 170 music critics, broadcasters and previous nominees including Lewis Capaldi and Billie Eilish.

Celeste said she was delighted. “I’m really, really happy,” she told the BBC.

“It’s like all of the work that went in throughout the year wasn’t invisible. I can’t wait now to see what the rest of the year will look like. I’m so thrilled and so excited.

“There’s an element of heightened expectation. You really want to make sure you live up to it but, ultimately, it’s really encouraging to know you’re on the right track.

“Hopefully it’ll mean more people will hear my music. At the moment, there are people listening to it but it’s not, like, everyone in England, so I hope that will widen out.”

Celeste said she was first inspired by Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald, whose music was played in her family home.

She told the BBC: “None of my family played a musical instrument, but there was such an appreciation for lyrics and melody. On a Friday night, we’d put music on and my step-dad would pick it apart, he’d be like, ‘the strings in this part are nuts’. So without really thinking about it, I began to take note of those things myself.”

She then found her own favourites, including jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, blues singer Koyo Taylor and jazz composer and keyboard player Sun Ra.

But the first song she remembers singing, when she was 15 or 16, was Elton John’s Your Song.

“It’s quite a funny choice of song for someone that age,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.

“I asked my mum to come into my room and told her ‘don’t look at me, don’t stare at me but I’m going to try and sing this song.

“And then I remember her looking quite surprised and quite pleased.

“That’s when I remember having the confidence to try a bit more.”

She wrote her first song, Sirens, when she was 17, in tribute to her Jamaican father who died of lung cancer. The track was released on YouTube and caught the attention of her manager.

Celeste said: “I’ve hit the ground running in January and I’m not going to stop. I’m still working on my album and I’m aiming to complete it by the end of this year. I’m just hoping everything will align.”