Biography

Austin singer-songwriter Leonhardt was born into a musical family out of Ft Worth, TX, home to native sons Townes van Zandt and T Bone Burnett (a band mate of one of her uncles back in the '60s) helped develop her flexible approach to interpretation. Not allowed to listen to recorded music until her late teens, she spent long hours teaching herself piano and guitar after school and eventually listening in secret to Thelonious Monk on the radio in her room late at night. Composing and taking part in living room jams --harmonizing to Appalachian melodies or keeping time with old-time spirituals-- gave her a broad musical vocabulary, and became the groundwork she needed for keeping in line with her own vision: "Music brings people home to themselves."