Brandi Carlile

Singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile's work incorporated the influences of alt country, folk, and rock. She plugged away for a good while, slowly building an audience, until things finally blew up for her in a big way.

Born on June 1, 1981 in Ravensdale, Washington, Carlile began writing songs and singing while in her teens. After coming up on the Seattle music scene, she released her self-titled debut album on Columbia in 2005, but sales were modest. The follow-up record, 2007's T-Bone Burnett-produced The Story, gained a wider audience and higher chart placing, with the title track becoming a minor hit.

A decade later, benefitting from Carlile's subsequent success, the album would achieve Gold status. 2009's Give Up the Ghost did better still, hitting No. 26 in the Top 200. Overseen by another star producer, Rick Rubin, the album featured an appearance by Elton John (an early hero of Carlile's) on "Caroline."

A big breakthrough came with Carlile's next album, 2012's Bear Creek, which went all the way to No. 10 and gave the singer/songwriter a No. 4 hit on Triple A radio with the single "That Wasn't Me." Carlile earned her first Grammy nomination, for Best Americana album, with her next record, The Firewatcher's Daughter.

The album, which marked her departure from Columbia and the beginning of her relationship with ATO Records, included an appearance from Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, and charted No. 9 on the Top 200 while hitting the top spot on the rock and folk charts. But Carlile's time with ATO was to be short-lived, as she shifted over to hotshot Nashville producer Dave Cobb's Elektra-distributed imprint, Low Country Sound, for her 2018 album, By the Way, I Forgive You.