{"id":4981,"date":"2012-02-29T00:28:42","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T07:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=4981"},"modified":"2012-02-29T00:54:20","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T07:54:20","slug":"sonia-leigh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/02\/sonia-leigh\/","title":{"rendered":"SONIA LEIGH"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"SONIA LEIGH\u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\n

HOMETOWN:<\/strong> Atlanta, Ga.
\nINFLUENCES:<\/strong> Bob Dylan, Melissa Etheridge, Bruce Springsteen
\nALBUM:<\/strong> 1978 December, <\/em>out now
\nWEBSITE:<\/strong> sonialeigh.com<\/p>\n

\n

Sonia Leigh first began playing guitar at age 10, learning chords from her father. \u201cI\u2019d come home every day and practice after school and use his guitar,\u201d she says. \u201cFinally he saw I was getting good and he was actually tired of me using his guitar, because I\u2019d be playing and he\u2019d be wanting to play. So that\u2019s when I got my own. Then I started writing. I was writing songs as soon as I could make chords\u2014lyrics and everything.\u201d By 14 one of her songs caught the attention of a major-label producer, which in turn led to a management deal when she was 17.<\/p>\n

Encouraged, she set out on her own to pursue a musical career. \u201cWhen I left home I had 50 bucks, a garbage bag full of clothes and my guitar,\u201d she recalls. \u201cAnd that\u2019s it.\u201d She worked several jobs, joined a band and began making a name for herself in the Atlanta\u00a0music scene. Among the friends she made there was Zac Brown, then a rising star in the jam-band world and today a platinum-selling country hitmaker. \u201cI was watching what Zac was doing and I loved his music,\u201d she says. \u201cSo if he was playing and he wanted me to play, I was there. Even if I wasn\u2019t playing, I would go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown eventually signed Leigh to his Southern Ground imprint and co-produced her new major-label debut, 1978 December<\/em>. \u201cI\u2019m nothing without all the people who have been there for me,\u201d says Leigh, who will hit the road with country star Eric Church starting in February. \u201cI\u2019ve got keys to just about everybody\u2019s apartment in Atlanta, because I\u2019ve slept on everybody\u2019s couch. But I\u2019ve kept at it because I really do truly feel that this was the calling on my life. I always knew this was what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SONIA LEIGH\u00a0 HOMETOWN: Atlanta, Ga. INFLUENCES: Bob Dylan, Melissa Etheridge, Bruce Springsteen ALBUM: 1978 December, out now WEBSITE: sonialeigh.com Sonia Leigh first began playing guitar at age 10, learning chords from her father. \u201cI\u2019d come home every day and practice after school and use his guitar,\u201d she says. \u201cFinally he saw I was getting good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[83],"tags":[2864,3124,10160],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4981"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4981"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4984,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4981\/revisions\/4984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}