Album Notes

Leanne Bugat, or otherwise known as Lee, was born in Melbourne, Australia, into a musical family with her father being known as Australia’s Roy Orbison back in the 50’s & 60’s. It comes as no surprise that Leanne was born with music in her veins.
During the last 20 years or so, live performances have been a big part of Leanne's life. She began by learning to play the clarinet, saxophone and then taught herself to play the guitar. This combination of instruments allowed Leanne to perform in school productions. There are many venues that Lee has performed in such as pubs, clubs, community events, festivals, parties, weddings, choirs and she has also been know to have busked.
At the age of 18 Leanne and her sister were chosen to do backing vocals for Diana Trasks' national Australian tour. Unfortunately due to circumstances out of Leanne’s control the tour was cancelled. This would have been a great jump start for Leanne’s career but was not forthcoming.
Leanne wrote her first song in her 20’s and from people’s response she decided that she would write more songs. She didn’t yet own her own guitar and was writing her songs with a beaten up old nylon string guitar.
Years had passed and Leanne had started to obtain a larger repertoire. Leanne moved back to her home town, Warburton where she grew, both as a person and as a performer. Leanne started busking and only performed her songs. Shortly after, she was approached to join a band and agreed to do so.
Leanne gained a great deal of exposure throughout the Yarra Valley performing in the band, Jukebox Jackaroo’s. Lee performed at many functions outside of the band and continued to appear at open mic sessions. This is where Leanne gained the courage to perform her original music and started to become more arrogant. When Leanne got behind the microphone it was her performance and she was the one telling the story. Leanne demanded the crowd’s attention and they would listen. If anyone dared to say, “Sing us something we know” Leanne would start singing nursery rhymes such as "twinkle, twinkle little star", or "baah baah black sheep".
The inspiration for her songs doesn’t come from one or two artists as her musical influences come from a wide range of music. Most of all, Leanne’s music is written from the heart and inspired by books, conversations, dreams, movies, and her own experiences.
Leanne’s greatest ambition was to record her work but could not afford to do so. Leanne’s partner loved her voice and had complete faith in her ability as a performer that it was decided that something had to be done. They came up with a solution and Leanne finally accomplished her long time dream.
Recently Leanne received the honour of being named winner in the prestigious USA Song of the Year (http://www.songoftheyear.com/winners.htm) song writing contest finishing in first place in her category. Song of the Year is an international song writing contest. The Song of the Year judges are some of the biggest names in the music industry, including many Grammy Award winners.
Song of the Year is excited to recognise Leanne for her exceptional song writing ability for the song "Without Condition". Leanne competed against song writers from all over the world for this honour.
Leanne also won another award in the Song Of The Year contest in September 2005 finishing in the top four as a finalist with her song “Smile”. The other song that Leanne entered was “Energy” and was named as a runner up.
Leanne is currently working on a collaboration with another artist and she is also wanting to get back in the recording studio to produce another album so stay tuned.