Early Life and Musical Awakening Samuel Frederick Smith, born on May 19, 1992, in London, England, emerged from a relatively unassuming background to become one of contemporary pop music’s most celebrated voices. Growing up in the rural village of Great Chishill, Cambridgeshire, young Sam was encouraged by their parents – a truck driver and greengrocer father and a banker mother – to nurture a burgeoning talent for singing after impre…