Brandi Carlile's main creative partners are the twin brothers Tim and Phil Hanseroth, who have played on all her albums and performed on all her tours (Tim's primary instrument is guitar; Phil's is bass). They're her main co-writers as well; most of the songs in Carlile's discography were written by the three of them together.
Her breakout hit was "
The Story" in 2007, which was the title track to her second album. It's one of the few songs she didn't co-write - the song was written solo by Phil Hanseroth. In 2011, it was revived in the
Grey's Anatomy episode "Song Beneath the Song," where Sara Ramirez sings it in a scene where her character is getting married. Her version was released as a single and charted at #69.
Her parents divorced when she was young. Her mother, Teresa, raised Brandi and nurtured her musical talents, taking her to a local live-band karaoke night where they would duet, and eventually, Brandi sang on her own. Brandi's father died in a shooting when she was 12.
Carlile's first writing partner was her teddy bear when she was about 5 years old. "You'd squeeze its stomach and it would play different lullabies, but only the music to them, like '
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' and '
Mary Had A Little Lamb,'" she said in a Songfacts interview. "I didn't know what any of the lyrics were, and I made up these really complex songs to it. I don't remember how any of them went, but I had all these lyrics to these little lullaby songs that came out of my teddy bear, and I just sang with them. Then as I got older, and I started actually hearing what the songs were, I didn't fully believe it. I was like, No, no, no, that's not how this song goes."
Carlile is always looking for that "big note" when she sings. Growing up, she was transfixed watching vocal powerhouses like Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, and Aretha Franklin hit those notes, so she tries to bring that experience to her concerts.
"I've lived out my big note fantasies," she said at the Grammy Awards in 2023. "I would stay up late to watch Whitney land that note or see if Celine Dion could really do that live."
She married Catherine Shepherd, executive director of the Looking Out Foundation, in 2012. They met over the phone in 2009 to coordinate some charity work, then struck up a relationship when they met in person a year later. Carlile told Howard Stern that Shepherd is her "best friend, arch-rival, and the person I love to be around the most."
They have two daughters: Evangeline (born 2014) and Elijah (born 2018).
She's a huge Joni Mitchell fan and played a key role in Mitchell's return to the stage at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival, where Joni performed for the first time since 2000 (Mitchell suffered a brain aneurism in 2015). Carlile met Mitchell when she was invited to a "Joni Jam," an informal jam session at Mitchell's house. Carlile facilitated her return and was by her side on stage for support. Carlile was also on stage for Mitchell's 2024 performance at the Grammy Awards of "
Both Sides Now" in what was a Joni Jam of sorts, with Allison Russell, Blake Mills and Lucius among the performers.
Grammy voters love Brandi Carlile. She won her first batch of awards in 2019, taking three of the six she was nominated for. She won two more awards in 2020, another in 2021, three in 2023, and another two in 2024. In her down year - 2022 - she had five nominations.
She was a musical guest on
Saturday Night Live in 2021 and again in 2022. Her second episode, with Steve Martin and Martin Short hosting, drew the highest ratings of the season. For that one, she played "
You And Me On The Rock" and also a much older song: "The Story." She chose that one because of the way the song has resonated with listeners over the years.
Brandi Carlile's childhood in rural Washington gave her a solid foundation. Growing up in a single-wide trailer with her family, she learned to appreciate the simpler things in life. "I'm never gonna know how to be anything other than poor," she told CBS News, emphasizing that her humble beginnings will always be a part of her.
Carlile produced Tanya Tucker's 2019 album While I'm Livin' and wrote most of the songs on it with the Hanseroth brothers. Before working with Tucker, Carlile got some advice from Rick Rubin, who produced Brandi's 2009 album Give Up The Ghost and had some experience working with country music legends, having produced Johnny Cash.
