Leigh Nash is perhaps best known as the pixie-like singer with the heavenly voice from
Sixpence None the Richer, a CCM group that enjoyed considerable fame in 1999 with the single "Kiss Me." She had started the band at age 14 with schoolmate
Matt Slocum. Nearly half her life later, at age 27,
Sixpence None the Richer split, albeit on good terms. Before the band called it quits,
Nash had often considered working solo, if and when she would be band-less. Though the end of
Sixpence left her a little distraught,
Nash realized it was time to move on, and she and her husband moved from Nashville to Los Angeles. Soon after,
Nash gave birth to a son. She decided to return to her roots a little, which consisted of Christian and country music, though she remained in touch with her pop influences.
Nash's original musical inspiration came from classic country heroines
Loretta Lynn,
Patsy Cline, and
Tanya Tucker -- whose songs she used to learn on guitar long before the
Sixpence days. With motherhood as an inspiration, she recorded
Blue on Blue and moved back to Nashville to join Movement Nashville, a recently formed collective of musicians geared toward expelling the myth that Nashville's music scene consists only of country and Christian music.
Blue on Blue was released in August of 2006. ~ Megan Frye