Joshua Kadison (born February 8, 1963 in Santa Barbara, California) is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, and writer. Joshua grew up in Westlake Village, California, the younger of two sons. His mother was of Mexican-American Indian descent. At age 12 he started playing the piano and subsequently started to write songs. After his mother died, when he was 15, he received his drivers licence and left home (with the blessing of his father) to become a travelling troubadour. He later admitted that anger and confusion over his mother's death drove much of his songwriting during this time. He later wrote "Mama's Arms" about his pain over losing his mother as a teenager; it was featured on his first album Painted Desert Serenade. He did the rounds of piano bars across the United States for the next decade. Eventually in the early 1990s he caught the attention of EMI and they signed him.