Christine Leakey - Be You (Zoltan Rozsnyai on cello, 1997)

<p>Once upon a music time, a 10 month baby named Christine began to whistle. Then at 3, she sang made up songs to her dog. She took piano from a belching nun at 9, and taught herself guitar at 22.<br /><br />Since then, Christine has formed bands, written hundreds of songs, appeared on radio and TV, toured, recorded and produced her own music, collaborated with other recording artists, released her music on a label in Europe and in an award winning documentary. <br /><br />After the dissolution of her bands, Christine began to focus on her solo work with a goal to record a full length album. She had shared the stage with a variety of acts ranging from chamber music to mainstream like Ween, Junior Kimbrough and Iggy Pop. Iggy&rsquo;s reaction to her performance at the Detroit State Theatre was, &ldquo;Wow, wow, wow!&rdquo; While things were looking promising musically along with some recording offers, everything came to a halt when an injury left Christine unable to play guitar.<br /><br />Christine is now back on her musical path and ready to release her debut solo album, Tapping Trees in a Trinket Box of Treasure. Its lush cinematic, dreamy, pop elements put a fresh spin on fusion that beg a new definition with every listen.<br /><br />Her album features: Chris Gartner and Great Bob Scott (Thinbuckle), Maurizio Guarini (Goblin), Maryem Tollar, Ernie Tollar, Ravi Naimpally, Linda Ronstadt's Artistic Director and Pianist Jon Gilutin, 60's EMI/Abbey Road Studios veteran Mark Wirtz, and many others.<br /><br />In addition to the album featuring a whole array of organic wind, reed, string and world instruments, this album also features a very rare collection of vintage and museum quality keyboards including the Chamberlin, Mellotron, Optigan, Orchestron and ARP 2600. <br /><br />"Tapping Trees in a Trinket Box is what would happen if Karen Carpenter went into outer space with Tom Waits and gave birth to Syd Barrett."</p>