Priscilla Ahn

Growing up amid the countryside surroundings of Bernville, Pennsylvania, Priscilla Ahn cultivated her abilities as a folksinger, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who handles guitar, bass, harmonica, ukulele, and the occasional kazoo. She first picked up guitar at age 14 and took part in choirs as well as school musicals all through her high school period. After finishing her studies, this emerging tunesmith began appearing at open mikes throughout Philadelphia, New York, and New Jersey while still living in Bernville. The repeated drives of more than 80 miles each way grew wearying, so she relocated to Los Angeles, where a shared bill at the Hotel Café sparked a friendship with fellow musician Joshua Radin.

Radin soon landed a contract with Columbia Records and asked Ahn to accompany him on tour, though she stepped away briefly to cut a self-titled EP alongside producers Joey Waronker and Gus Seyffert. A 2007 showcase in New York City caught the ear of Blue Note Records, which signed her on the spot. The label put out her first full-length album, A Good Day—again produced by Waronker and Seyffert—the following June, after which Ahn crisscrossed the country as a headliner while several tracks from the record landed in episodes of Grey's Anatomy, Ghost Whisperer, and additional television programs. Once she had supplied material to assorted compilations, among them the Frank Sinatra tribute His Way, Our Way, she concentrated on shaping her next project. Writing sessions shared with Inara George, Sia Furler, Eleni Mandell, and Charlie Wadhams guided the record toward an intimate, whimsical sensibility, and Ethan Johns stepped in to produce the album that became 2011's When You Grow Up.