One Breath/Carpe Diem

Leslie is a So. Cal.-based singer songwriter who’s original music supports Xela AID Partnerships for Self Reliance (www.xelaaid.org) serving communities in Guatemala. Her “music with something to say” in the poignant style of the ballads of the 1960s has been heard from intimate coffee house venues to rallies in Times Square.

Leslie started playing the accordion at age 6 after a Milton Mann salesman knocked on the door of her So. Cal. home. Her parents made payments on her Contessa accordion and several years of lessons, and the tattered receipt for the last payment is among her most prized possessions.

Her parents bought her a classical guitar when she was 11, which got more use as she became intrigued with the ballad and cause singers of the day, the Four Big Js—Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. Others who influenced her singing, and later her songwriting style, included Cat Stevens and Peter, Paul and Mary.

The guitar became Leslie’s best friend after her mother’s untimely death during Leslie's early teens. She began writing songs to express her feelings, and to help chart her journey. At 15 (passing for 21) she began singing and playing at a local dinner house, and the same year was awarded a music scholarship to Chapman College. Against the backdrop of intimate interactions with audiences in the evenings, she tried to fit into the college’s rigid, classical music focus (she was assigned to learn opera and classical guitar), but found it stifling and stayed just one semester.

Leslie troubadoured for several years, including a stint in Hawaii opening for Hawaiian bands (she learned to sing and play a few local standards in Hawaiian). Still dealing with the death of her mother, and two other family members at about the same time, she took a break from the mainstream to do some soul searching, ending up spending 12 years in a spiritual community where she was introduced to and deeply influenced by both Eastern thought (Buddhism, Alan Watts) and the work of Carl Jung.

At the same time, Leslie finished college and became a journalist focused on science and technology. In her travels, she spent time with edgy thinkers including Ram Das, Timothy Leary, John Lily and Tony Lily (wife of John) who had once been married to Watts. In the mid-80s she lived several months at the Lily compound in Florida writing up research on interspecies communication using computers that Lily was pioneering with dolphins. Her perspective was further broadened when work took her to Europe, and she traveled extensively in England and Greece. She traveled to South America to make a film about genocide in the Amazon (“Yanomami: Keepers of the Flame”), and as an avocation, worked with Mother Teresa’s organization coordinating outreach to the poor. The latter landed her in Guatemala during that country’s 30-year civil war.

When she finally returned to writing music in her mid-30s, Leslie’s unique set of experiences resulted in a body of work that included insightful songs about her own spiritual journey, as well as astute observations about the state of the world and our human predicament. Her first album, “The Weaver’s Way,” was released in 1993 to raise money for the charity Xela AID Partnerships for Self Reliance (founded by Leslie in 1992). It was a compilation that included her own songs and those of like-minded folk artists including Jeff Joad and the Joads, Andrew Lorand and Mark Humphreys. The album was re-released with an updated slate of songs in December of 2011, including two from long-time British social activist Pete Sears.

The album “One Step at a Time” features much of her early work, including a number of well-crafted love songs (“If it Were up to Me,” “All Your Love Songs,” “Eyes Open Wide,” “Shining Child,” “Three Little Words”) that find counterbalance with her songs of self awareness (“Sailing Song,” “One Step at a Time”) and social conscience (“There Go I,” “Christine,” “We Can Change this World”). The combination is uplifting.

“I Could Have Never Come this Far” continues in Leslie’s tradition of commentary on social issues (“Got to Believe,” “Not in Our Name,” “One World,” “The Only One”) and self exploration (“If a Star Chose Me,” “Always Be Seen”), with a continued deepening of insight as evidenced in the title track (“I Could Have Never Come This Far”).

Her latest work, “Carpe Diem,” includes “’Cause We Were Here,” penned after her pilgrimage to a stone cottage near Ephesus in modern-day Turkey believed to be the last home of the Virgin Mary; and “One Breath,” an especially insightful and charming melody about the nature and preciousness of time. Both have received enthusiastic support from audiences at recent appearances and are joined by 11 additional songs that Nashville producer Tom Manche counts “among Leslie’s best yet.” Singer-songwriter Jeff Joad calls “The Man Who Loves Christmas Songs,” arguably, “the best song Leslie has ever written.”

Each of Leslie’s releases includes a cover of a song especially loved by Leslie; including “Give Yourself to Love” by Kate Wolf, “May the Light of Love” by David Roth, and “A Still, Small Voice” by Robert Franke.

Leslie's paid profession is as a communications specialist with a focus on natural and cultural history and science. She is the proud mother of one — Oscar, from Guatemala, who joined her family in 1995. Leslie lives with her wildly adventurous and supportive husband Mel (who appears as “Bubba Chubb” on two songs on Carpe Diem); her uppity cat, Xela; and best dog, Jazz the Dalmatian. She believes that we change the world for the better one person at a time (starting with ourselves), and that joy should never be postponed. She always eats dessert first.