Leigh Anne Bingham Nash (/liː/LEE;[1][2] born June 27, 1976) is an American singer and songwriter who is the lead vocalist for the Christian alternative rock band Sixpence None the Richer[3] and was also a member of Fauxliage. Her debut solo album, Blue on Blue, was released in August 2006. Nash has released two other solo albums in 2011 and 2015. Nash has two Grammy nominations: "Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal" in 1999 and "Best Rock Gospel Album" in 1998.[4] In July 2023, it was announced that Nash would be joining 10,000 Maniacs as their new lead singer.
Nash was born Leigh Anne Bingham in New Braunfels, Texas. She started singing country music and learning old country songs on the guitar at the age of 12. She had several years' experience singing in local cafes with a band and performed regularly at a Texan country & western dance hall. She met guitarist and songwriter Matt Slocum at a church retreat in the early 1990s.
Career
Leigh Nash and Matt Slocum formed Sixpence None the Richer (named for a line from the book Mere Christianity by the author C.S. Lewis) soon after and went on to record four full-length albums with the band. Their first album, released when she was age 17, was The Fatherless & the Widow. The album garnered critical acclaim and Slocum and Nash searched for new band members.[5]
Joined by Tess Wiley, Dale Baker, and J.J. Plascencio, the new band recorded This Beautiful Mess, which won a Dove Award for Best Album. Wiley quit the band after their US tour and the band released the Tickets for a Prayer Wheel EP and then signed to the Squint Records label following the demise of R.E.X.[6]
Leigh Nash with Jars of Clay in Toronto in 2009
The band's eponymous album was released in 1997 and the single "Kiss Me" in 1999. In 1999 they received numerous Dove Awards, including Best Artist of the Year. The band was also nominated for a Grammy Award. A second single, a cover of the La's "There She Goes", also hit the Billboard Hot 100, followed by a third single, "I Can't Catch You".
After the departure of drummer Dale Baker and bass player J.J. Plascencio, Sixpence None the Richer released Divine Discontent in 2001. Two singles from that album, "Breathe Your Name" and a cover of Crowded House's 1986 hit single "Don't Dream It's Over", charted on the US Adult Top 40 at No. 18 and No. 9, respectively.
In 2003, the band appeared on an episode of the final season of the ABC sitcom Sabrina, The Teenage Witch.
In 2004, Sixpence None the Richer announced their breakup by letter from Matt Slocum to CCM Magazine. After that, the band released The Best of Sixpence None the Richer. Nash and her husband left their Nashville home of 10 years and moved to Los Angeles.
Nash released her first solo record, Blue on Blue, in August 2006 on One Son Records, Nash's own imprint label through Nettwerk Productions. The first single, "My Idea of Heaven", was released to U.S. radio the week of July 14, 2006, and the song "Ocean Size Love" was to be the second single, but it was a promo release only. She has also recorded a song "Mirrors and Smoke" with the band Jars of Clay on their album Good Monsters the same year. She also performed the song "A Place for Us" (written by Bryan Adams) with Tyler James for the 2007 Disney film Bridge to Terabithia.
In 2007, Nash began a new band, Fauxliage, with Canadian band Delerium, which released a self-titled album on August 14, 2007. Nash, Megan Thompson and Kate York also started a Christian band called Thompson, York & Nash. They worked on a few songs that have been put on MySpace.[7] However, none of the songs posted on their MySpace page have been formally released.
In January 2008 Nash traveled to New Zealand for the annual Parachute Music Festival, where she performed acoustic covers of Sixpence None the Richer hits "Kiss Me " and "There She Goes". In late 2008, Nash toured with Delerium.
Nash has since rejoined Sixpence and worked on a new EP My Dear Machine EP,[8] and the Christmas album The Dawn of Grace. Guitarist Tess Wiley returned to the band to support them on a European tour.
Nash joined Open Wings-Broken Strings tour in late 2009, along with Ed Kowalczyk of Live and Art Alexakis of Everclear. In 2011 she released a worship album entitled Hymns and Sacred Songs, and in August 2012, she released Lost in Transition, her sixth studio album with Sixpence None the Richer.[citation needed]
On September 18, 2015, Nash released her album: The State I'm In.[9] She writes for BMG.[10]
In 2018, Nash released a cover of the Pretenders' 1986 single "Don't Get Me Wrong". In an interview, Nash stated that new music will be coming soon and will be crowd-funded.[11] On August 25, 2021, Nash announced The Tide, a six-song project, would be released September 24 and would feature collaborations with Vince Gill, Tanya Tucker, CeCe Winans, Ruby Amanfu, Raul Malo and Stephen Wilson Jr.[12]
In July 2023, it was announced that Nash would be joining 10,000 Maniacs as their new lead singer.[13]
In January 2024, it was announced that Nash would be leaving 10,000 Maniacs, with Mary Ramsey returning to the band as lead singer.
Inspiration
Nash has two distinct poles of inspiration: her work with Sixpence in the Christian music sphere and her childhood fascination with older female country artists like Tanya Tucker, Loretta Lynn, and Patsy Cline.
"I started singing country music and learning old country songs on the guitar when I was 12. I was really, really shy but just had this desire to get on stage and started calling clubs myself to ask if I could come down and sing," says Nash, who grew up in the Texas Hill Country town of New Braunfels.[14]
Before long, the adolescent Nash was singing Loretta Lynn and Tanya Tucker songs like "You Ain't Woman Enough to Take My Man" and "Texas When I Die" on alcohol-free, open mic Sunday nights, backed by a middle-aged band of town locals. Later in life her interest in pop acts like the Sundays, Innocence Mission, and the Cranberries provided more formative material for her songwriting and singing.
Personal life
Nash is the younger of two sisters. In May 1996, she married PFR drummer Mark Nash, whom she met while both bands were performing at the Cornerstone Festival in Illinois. They have one child (a son) together, who was born in 2004. The couple divorced in 2007.[15] Nash married musician Stephen Wilson Jr in 2011.
Sixpence None the Richer is an American alternative rock band that formed in New Braunfels, Texas, and eventually settled in Nashville, Tennessee. They are best known for their songs "Kiss Me" and "Breathe Your Name" and their covers of "Don't Dream It's Over" and "There She Goes". The name of the band is inspired by a passage from the book Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.
Matt Slocum is a guitarist, cellist, pianist and composer, known for his work as the principal songwriter and lead guitarist of Sixpence None the Richer.
10,000 Maniacs is an American alternative rock band that was founded in 1981. They have released nine studio albums, six EPs, and five live albums. They achieved their most significant success between 1987 and 1993, when they released four albums that charted in the top 50 in the US: In My Tribe (1987), Blind Man's Zoo (1989), Our Time in Eden (1992), and the live album MTV Unplugged (1993). After the recording but before the release of MTV Unplugged, original lead singer and songwriter Natalie Merchant left the band to pursue a solo career, while the remaining members continued the band.
Delerium is a Canadian new-age ambient electronic musical duo that formed in 1987, originally as a side project of the influential industrial music act Front Line Assembly. Throughout the band’s history, their musical style has encompassed a broad range, including dark ethereal ambient trance, voiceless industrial soundscapes, and electronic pop music. They are best known for their worldwide hit "Silence". The band is known to feature female guest vocalists on their albums since their 1994 album Semantic Spaces.
Tanya Denise Tucker is an American country music singer and songwriter who had her first hit, "Delta Dawn", in 1972 at the age of 13. During her career Tucker became one of the few child performers to mature into adulthood without losing her audience; she had a streak of top-10 and top-40 hits. She has had several successful albums, several Country Music Association award nominations, and hit songs including 1973's "What's Your Mama's Name?" and "Blood Red and Goin' Down", 1975's "Lizzie and the Rainman", 1988's "Strong Enough to Bend", and 1992's "Two Sparrows in a Hurricane". Tucker's 2019 album While I'm Livin' won the Grammy Award for Best Country Album, and "Bring My Flowers Now" from that same album won Tucker a shared songwriting Grammy for Best Country Song.
This Beautiful Mess is the second studio album by American band Sixpence None the Richer, released in 1995. The recording was produced by Armand John Petri, who also managed the band from 1993 to 1997. This Beautiful Mess surpassed 50,000 copies sold during its first year of release and laid the foundation for Sixpence's self-titled breakout album two years later. This Beautiful Mess won the 1996 Dove Award for "Alternative/Modern Rock Album of the Year." The songs "Within a Room Somewhere" and "I Can't Explain" were both minor hits on the Christian music charts.
Sixpence None the Richer is the third studio album by American band Sixpence None the Richer, released in 1997. It was certified platinum by the RIAA on February 9, 2000, for a million certified units in the United States and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Gospel Album.
Divine Discontent is the fourth studio album by American band Sixpence None the Richer, released on October 29, 2002.
"There She Goes" is a song by English rock band the La's, written by the band's frontman, Lee Mavers. First released in 1988, the song reached number 13 on the UK Singles Chart when it was re-issued in 1990.
The Best of Sixpence None the Richer is a greatest hits album of American band Sixpence None the Richer, released in 2004. It contains all their most successful songs as well as various rarities, covers and three new tracks that had originally been intended to be released on Divine Discontent but were shelved.
"Kiss Me" is a song by American pop rock band Sixpence None the Richer from their self-titled third album (1997). The ballad was released as a single on August 12, 1998, in the United States and was issued in international territories the following year. Several music critics compared the song to works by English alternative rock band the Sundays, and it was nominated for a Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 42nd Grammy Awards.
Tess Wiley is an American singer-songwriter.
Blue on Blue is Leigh Nash's debut solo album and consists of pop songs. Nash began working on the album a year after Sixpence None the Richer disbanded. Produced by Pierre Marchand who is best known for his collaborations with Sarah McLachlan.
Fauxliage is a musical project consisting of Canadian electronic musicians Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber, both of Delerium and Front Line Assembly, and Leigh Nash of Sixpence None the Richer in 2007. The vocals are performed exclusively by Nash.
The Dawn of Grace is a Christmas album by the alternative rock and indie pop band Sixpence None the Richer. The record was released on October 14, 2008.
This is the discography of American pop rock band Sixpence None the Richer. To date, the group has released six studio albums, three compilation albums, five extended plays, and fourteen singles. They gained mainstream popularity in 1997 with their self-titled album, producing the hit single "Kiss Me", which was an international hit. The song topped the Australian charts, and reached the top five in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the band's native United States.
"Out of My Hands" is a song by Christian rock act Jars of Clay that appears on their 2010-released album, The Shelter. The song, which was the first radio single released in support of the album, features vocal contributions from Mike Donehey of Tenth Avenue North and Leigh Nash of Sixpence None the Richer. The single peaked at No. 27 on Billboard's Christian Songs chart on September 25, 2010. "Out of My Hands" was co-written by two members of the band's touring ensemble, Gabe Ruschival and Jeremy Lutito.
Lost in Transition is the sixth studio album by the band Sixpence None the Richer released on August 7, 2012, via Tyger Jim label. It is the first album full of mostly original material since 2002's Divine Discontent. The interim period included several new tracks for a greatest hits album, several solo projects for lead singer Leigh Nash, a 2008 album containing mostly Christmas standards, and the My Dear Machine EP. "My Dear Machine", "Sooner Than Later," and "Give It Back" all appeared on the EP, although the latter two were completely re-recorded. Although not classified as country, a few songs are noted to have a country style in their sound, particularly the tracks "Sooner Than Later" and "Go Your way" in the latter half of the album. Nash, who grew up in Texas, would go on to release a solo country album in 2015 titled The State I'm In.
"Innocente (Falling in Love)" is the first single from Delerium's album Poem featuring singer Leigh Nash of the pop band Sixpence None the Richer.
While I'm Livin' is the 26th studio album by American country music singer Tanya Tucker. It was released on August 23, 2019, by Fantasy Records. The album was produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings. It is Tucker's first album in a decade, since 2009's My Turn, and her first album of original material since her 2002 album, Tanya. The album earned Tucker the Grammy Award for Best Country Album at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in addition to winning Best Country Song for "Bring My Flowers Now" which was also nominated for Best Country Solo Performance, and the all-genre Grammy Award for Song of the Year. Rolling Stone placed the album at number one on the publication's list of the 40 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2019 and number 24 on their list of the top 50 Albums of 2019. Tucker promoted the album throughout 2019 with the While I'm Livin' Tour and continued to support the album in the first quarter of 2020 on the Bring My Flowers Now Tour, a partnership with CMT's Next Women of Country. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the remainder of the tour to be postponed until July 2021.
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