Grey Delisle

Multi-talented singer/songwriter, actor, autoharpist, and comedian Grey DeLisle entered the world on August 24, 1973, in Fort Ord, CA, just outside Monterey. A mother who performed as a singer and musician alongside a truck-driving father devoted to country music supplied the background that would define her path, and rumor holds that she had already composed her first song by age five. Following her parents’ divorce, her mother overcame drug addiction and alcoholism through a born-again Pentecostal conversion whose strict exclusion of secular music from the household sent the young DeLisle to her grandmother Eva Flores Ruth, a vocalist who had appeared with salsa great Tito Puente.

While still a teenager, DeLisle relocated to Los Angeles and began performing in theater, even testing a standup comedy act that highlighted her natural gift for voice impressions. Those impressions quickly translated into voice-acting roles across an extensive list that includes The Fairly OddParents, The Powerpuff Girls, Rugrats, Grim & Evil, Dexter’s Laboratory, and numerous other animated series and films. Music remained central, however; in the late ’90s she joined the all-girl cowpunk band Side Saddle, then founded her own independent imprint, Hummin’bird Records, which issued The Small Time in 2000, the live recording Bootlegger, Vol. 1 in 2003, and Homewrecker in 2004.

Over time she cultivated a sparse, literate neo-Appalachian approach that recalled the work of a weary and goth-haunted Dolly Parton, prompting Sugar Hill Records to sign her; the label released Graceful Ghost in 2004 and Iron Flowers in 2005. In 2002 she married guitarist Murry Hammond, a member of the band Old 97’s, and their courtship and wedding were documented in an episode of the TLC series A Wedding Story.