When people ask me how long I've been singing I usually ask, "For money?" which makes them laugh. But I mean this seriously, because I don't remember a time when I didn’t sing.

I sang in school choirs, summer camp trios and a band in high school called “The Dry Heaves”. After singing with the acclaimed Youth Pro Musica as a child, I started to study voice which I did with several teachers, and then went off to discover my own style.

I loved living in NYC, where I sang demos for anyone I could and finally got into singing jingles and album sessions. That’s where I met and worked with one of my biggest musical influences; Roger Bartlett.

Roger played with Jimmy Buffet back when it was just the two of them in a station wagon (that would be the sweaty station wagon tour or Jimmy Buffet and the Coral Reefer). He had been in NY a while writing, performing and playing sessions as a guitar player. He had a great home studio and could record and play a many instruments, so I hired him to produce a couple of song demos and we got to be great buddies.

He’d help me with guitar and coach me on my writing and we’d play and sing together at…well…every opportunity we could find: The Speakeasy, The Bitter End, The Bottom Line, etc. We did showcases for RCA and Warner Brothers, played in band competitions and even made a CD.

Things were great but I after a while, I felt I needed a change. I decided to go to the west coast.

Shortly after arriving I started forming a band made up of players who came from diverse musical backgrounds; jazz, afro-cuban, classical and rock. We worked for a long time just seeing what my songs would sound like with all kinds of different instruments and vibes. It was an incredible time and I felt like I was in heaven.

We called ourselves Lost Borders; Baird Miller on acoustic/electric guitars, Michael Strunk on drums/percussion and Pete Wilde on different basses and me. The combined talent of these guys is huge and I love the way they layered my songs with emotion and texture. We made our own CD called, “Leslie Ellis and Lost Borders, Standing at the Moment”, and started touring (this would be the sweaty Honda tour).

We started getting a name for ourselves locally and had a standing gig a one of the local micro breweries. I toured to support the album release for radio by playing solo shows or opening for other artists at venues like the Freight and Salvage, The Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, CA), Passim's (Cambridge, MA) and the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in New York State.

I also sang a lot of TV and radio jingles in California and started working with Walter Afanasieff at WallyWorld, SONY Music. I’d go to the studio and sing demos for Walter for artists like Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Tony Braxton and Faith Hill. I even got to sing a song he was sending to Celine and Barbra where I had to sing both parts. This was somewhat confusing but fun! Barbra and Celine each put this song on their albums released later that year. I also sang on a ton of records.

The greatest day was when Walter called and said he wanted me to come in and sing on a new Celine song which was going to be in the soon to be released film, Titanic. He wanted me to sing along with her in mirrored harmony; it was so exciting. When Walter and Celine won Record of the Year for 1998 this, the love theme from the film Titanic "My Heart Will Go On", I got to the Grammy too. It was a thrilling time.

While I was still in CA, I also sang live with Thomas Dolby and he released the concert as an live album entitled “Forty”.

I started writing with Steve Seskin (“Life’s a Dance”, “Grown Men Don’t Cry”, “Don’t Laugh At Me” and many others) whom I had met through some other musicians. We wrote some great songs together and I sang a song he had written with Ronny Cox called “Six Times around the Sun” for the CBS mini-series, Perfect Murder, Perfect Town about Jean Benet Ramsey; very sweet and very sad.

After a while I realized that for what I wanted to do, I needed to be in Nashville. So, after several trips to visit, write and play, I moved to Music City. While I’ve had fun and amazing opportunities everywhere I’ve lived, things are coming to life here in Nashville more than they ever have.

Two years ago I was invited to play a writer’s round at the Bluebird Café and I was seated next to hit songwriter Casey Kelly (“Cowboy Rides Away”, “Somewhere Down the Line”, “Soon” and tons of others). I, of course, embarrassed myself by getting a little bit too excited about meeting the writer who had created some of my all time favorite songs.

After that night, we started writing and playing together; some of my songs and lots of his amazing songs. I really feel that I have found the perfect writer for my voice after all these years, demos, sessions, etc. I do love writing and singing my own songs and I especially love it when other artists record them (Bellamy Brothers,David Ippolito, etc.) but Casey has a whole library of songs, written especially for me (though he didn’t know it at the time he wrote them).

Nowadays, I get to sing with Casey all over the country and abroad; this past year we played at the Dark Season Festival in Kristiansand, Norway with Todd Cerney (“I’ll Still Be Loving You”, “Good Morning Beautiful”, and many more). Casey and Todd have played together for years and invited me to perform with them, which is a huge honor for me.

So, I live in beautiful Nashville, TN and I write, play and sing music with Casey and sometimes Casey and Todd and sometimes Casey and Todd and Wood Newton (“Private Malone”, “What I Didn’t Do”; again, there are many others)…nice work if you can get it!