Jamie Cullum was born in August 1979 in Romford, Essex. After spending his teenage youth playing guitar in rock bands such as Raw Sausage and The Mystery Machine, he released his first album, “Jamie Cullum Trio—Heard it All Before”, in 1999, of which 500 copies were made, and due to their rarity, originals have since sold for as much as £600 on eBay. The success of this first album resulted in Cullum being invited to appear on Geoff Gascoyne's album “Songs of the Summer”, and after graduating from the University of Reading in 2001, Cullum released a best selling second album, “Pointless Nostalgic”.

In April 2003, Cullum signed a contract for 3 albums with Universal, and his third album, “Twentysomething”, produced by Stewart Levine and released in October 2003, went platinum and became the number 1 selling studio album by a jazz artist in the UK. Awards started to come his way, with the British Jazz Awards "Rising Star" in 2003, and a 2004 BRIT Award nomination for "British Breakthrough Act".

Jamie Cullum's fourth album (and his third major label album) was entitled “Catching Tales”, and was released in September 2005, again produced by Stewart Levine. At the 2005 BRIT Awards, Cullum was nominated for 2 awards, "Best Male Artist" and "Best Live Act", and in the same year he was nominated for a Grammy award. 2005 also saw him voted, by the listeners of BBC Radio 2, “Artist Of The Year” at the BBC Jazz Awards. In 2007 Cullum won the Ronnie Scotts Jazz Award for "Best British Male".

Cullum names his elder brother, Ben Cullum, as his biggest musical influence, and the 2 have collaborated extensively. Jamie has also worked with White Stripes, Kanye West and Pharrell (Cullum's vocals featured on Pharrell's debut solo album, on a track titled "You Can Do It Too"), and performed material by Massive Attack, Pussycat Dolls, Radiohead, Gnarls Barkley, Elton John, Justin Timberlake, John Legend and Joy Division, among many others.