Bio - LEAH BARLEY MUSIC

Vancouver based alt-country singer/songwriter Leah Barley was born in Saskatchewan and raised in Ontario where she spent the summers barefoot and surrounded by music at her family cottage in Muskoka. Acting and dancing since grade school, it wasn't until she moved to Canmore, Alberta in her early twenties that she experienced and fell in love with bluegrass and old time country music.
After buying herself a banjo, she was writing and performing at open mics within two months and has been on a roll ever since.

After moving to Vancouver in 2010 and teaching herself how to play guitar, Barley released her first EP Fly Away, then Close Your Eyes in early 2014, Come Home in 2016, her first full length album Bring Out Your Dead in fall 2020, and just recently, a fourth EP, Awkward & Heartbroken, was released in February 2025.

With over 15 years of performing under her belt, Leah has been compared to artists such as Norah Jones, Amy Winehouse, and Janis Joplin. She's toured parts of Canada, recently performing at Woodstove Festival, The Burnaby Blues & Roots Festival, and Dunn Folkin Around. She also performed at JUNOfest (2018), at CBC Music in Vancouver (2017 & 2016),

You can find Leah performing solo or with her band, Ross Fairbairn on stand-up bass, Tom Tischer on drums, and Allan Haley on pedal steel guitar and electric guitar, all over Vancouver and the lower Mainland. With plans to tour in 2025 to celebrate the release of Awkward & Heartbroken, she just might be in a City near you soon!

Awkward & Heartbroken release party pictures by Heather Horncastle Photography