NIMBIN, AU  [Thursday Sep.23.2004]  /WMQT.com/ -- Though the States are just getting to know Diana Anaid through her US debut "Beautiful Obscene," the singer-songwriter's first album was released in her native Australia in 1997.

Anaid started making music at an early age as a way to cope with a difficult childhood and adolescence. Her mother died when the singer was still an infant, and Anaid's father dealt with the death by drinking. Afterwards, the family spent several years moving from place to place, and Anaid and her two brothers eventually wound up in foster homes. It wasn't long before Anaid was on her own.

To deal with her life, Anaid started writing music at the age of nine and taught herself to play guitar when she was a teenager. Anaid tells the Weekend Australian, "All I ever did was sing to make myself feel better when I was young." She says music was "the only thing she had to hold on to."

After years of rootlessness, Anaid found a home in the Australian hippie community of Nimbin, where she still lives today with her 10-year-old son, Stone.

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