Birdie Busch

Emily "Birdie" Busch launched her recording career in 2006 with The Ways We Try after setting aside her prior role as a downtown Philadelphia restaurant hostess in favor of the acoustic textures and softly sung lines that define her style. Raised in Collingswood, NJ, she studied at the University of Miami, then relocated to Philadelphia, where composing songs offered greater personal fulfillment than her earlier service work. She completed work on that first album during spring 2005; Bar None Records issued it the next January, earning acclaim from outlets including the Village Voice, which called it "one of the slyest neo-folky records in recent memory." Turning to her second project, Penny Arcade, Busch recruited producer and multi-instrumentalist Devin Greenwood—the same collaborator behind her 2006 debut—to shape an energetic successor to the more personal The Ways We Try. Penny Arcade arrived in September 2007 and included her frequently demanded interpretation of Steve Miller Band's "Wild Mountain Honey."