When Richard Leigh was two and a half years old, both of his parents were killed in a tragic accident. He was fostered by multiple family members until finally finding his home, at age eight and a half, with the ex-wife of his much older half-brother. When she, his adoptive mother, remarried, she legally adopted him at the age of 15.

After taking up the guitar as a boy, Leigh wrote his first song at age 10. When he graduated high school, his adoptive mother said, “Please go to college,because no woman is going to want to live with a guy who sits around on the couch and plays guitar all day and doesn’t make any money.”

Halfheartedly, Leigh stumbled through school, switching majors from Forestry to Liberal Arts and later on to a subject that he felt more passionate about, Theater. All the while he was writing songs and performing in coffee houses. In 1974, he moved to Nashville to make it as a singer-songwriter. “I thought, naively, that all singers wrote their own songs,” he said. “I got down there and found they needed songs because singers didn’t always write them. Turned out I was pretty good at making them up — better at that than singing.”

Within two years, he had his first country #1, “I’ll Get Over You,” for Crystal Gayle. But it was the follow-up song he wrote for Gayle that changed Leigh’s life. The country and pop smash “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” won Song of the Year CMA and Grammy Awards (as well as a Best Country Vocal Performance Grammy for Gayle), and became one of the most-performed country songs of the twentieth century. There began a two-decade-and-counting run of hits (including eight #1s and 14 Top 10s) for such artists as Ray Charles, Don Williams, Tammy Wynette, Ronnie Milsap, Alabama, and Kathy Mattea. One of Leigh’s biggest hits was also one of his most personal songs. “The Greatest Man I Never Knew,” recorded by Reba McEntire in 1992, was written after Leigh found a clipping of his dad’s obituary.

In 2000, the Dixie Chicks took Leigh’s “Cold Day in July” into the country Top 10, giving him hits in four successive decades. Leigh has attributed his success to an unwavering drive. “I’m just of average talent, of average intellect, nothing ever stood out about me except my strong desire,” he said.

In addition to writing, these days Richard Leigh teaches acclaimed songwriting workshops and plays house concerts around the country. He and his wife live on a farm outside of Nashville.

Listen to Richard on Spotify