Brennen Leigh among Wonder Women of Country to play Hamilton Studio

Brennen Leigh was the first to play the Hamilton Studio Listening Room last year, and now the old-school country artist is back as a part of the troubadour trio, Wonder Women of Country.

Long before she officially teamed up with Melissa Carper and Kelly Willis, Leigh had known of their talents. While living in Austin, Texas, Leigh had seen Willis play around town for years and admired her skills “mostly from afar.” Meanwhile with Carper, the two first met around 2010 and had become friends over the years of playing and writing songs together.

In 2021, the three ended up “serendipitously” booked for the same festival. While Leigh was immensely impressed with Willis’ full-band performance, Willis was simultaneously impressed with a different trio featuring Leigh and Carper at the time. In fact, Willis was so impressed that she asked Leigh and Carper if they’d like to join her for a few shows as their own trio.

The three country-western musicians soon began performing together across the country as simply “Kelly Willis, Brennen Leigh, Melissa Carper” before management requested the newly successful venture come up with a proper title – and thus Wonder Women of Country was born.

With Leigh on lead guitar and mandolin, Carper on the upright bass and Willis on rhythm guitar, they learned and reimagined each other’s songs and played to loving crowds that all had one question in common – where were the group’s own recordings?

Sooner than later, they had been asked enough.

“The fun thing about Wonder Women of Country, is everything,” Leigh said. “We have so much fun together … you didn’t have to twist my arm to hang out with them in the studio for a week.”

The three spent about seven days together in Austin’s Bismeaux on the Hill studio recording the six track EP in December 2023. Each artist wrote or co-wrote about two songs each, played nearly every instrument and sang every harmony on the project. They also cover John Prine’s classic tune, “I Have Met My Love Today.”

The song that perhaps best embodies what Wonder Women of Country is all about is the track “Won’t Be Worried Long.” Much of the trio’s initial bonding came from their love of classic country, and the song stemmed from a group conversation about why much of the country scene they have devoted their entire lives to no longer sounds like what they fell in love with. From there, they discussed what exactly makes country music so special to each of them and wrote a song about it.

“The three of us come together over that idea,” Leigh said. “What we love about old music, old country music, old rock and roll music, and just the things that we grew up on that we cling to in hard times.”

For Leigh, the storytelling of classic country is truly what stands out. Among the discourse of what proper country/Americana actually is, she doesn’t define country with a need for pedal steel guitar or the fiddle or Southern roots. Instead, she believes country is all about the meaning, more than anything else.

“It doesn’t exclude people that are going through hard times, and it’s not escapism, it’s stories about real people,” Leigh said. “That’s really what has kept me hooked my entire life, is that I could relate to it.”

The trio’s EP was released in early 2024, not long after Leigh was the first to perform at the newly opened Hamilton Studios Listening Room, which has become one of Spokane’s premier concert venues. Now, she is more than excited be back on Tuesday with the Wonder Women of Country as they embark on their “Pacific Northwest Tour.”

“It just has, what I call, the positive trickle-down effect of someone who put it together with love and care, and you can just really feel that when you step into the room,” Leigh said. “You can tell the difference between a venue that was created by music fans and music lovers and a venue that wasn’t.”