Once in a while, you experience a moment during a live show when the music, the crowd and the feel converge. Whatever the artist is throwing down gets you deep, right to the core.

Singer/songwriters create this moment of lucidity by getting personal with the music. Not the “I-wrote-some-lyrics-that-tell-a-story-about-me” kind of personal, either. It happens when the singer’s life and story comes pouring out through his pores. No words needed. A single note speaks volumes.

When Leslie Bowe hits stages this summer to promote his new album, Gypsy, audiences will experience an artist sharing a deeply personal account of his life. “The record symbolizes where I am right now both musically and personally,” he says, adding, “I’m not holding anything back this time around.”

Bowe’s fans in Pittsburgh, where he started and is still a big favorite, are no strangers to Bowe’s soulful style—and few would suggest that he ever held anything back. Since relocating to Chicago, a whole new audience is regularly astounded at the energy and selfless insight he brings to the stage. He is having the same impact at shows in front of new fans in Philadelphia, too.

Bowe has been familiar with the mechanics of music for a long time. As a child, he was drawn to the music his father and uncles, members of a group that sang acapella gospel and Sixties music. When they realized he could handle both melody and harmony with equal ease, he became part of the group.

Later, while a college student, he took piano, playing songs he found in the music books and singing at the same time. “I got tired of playing everyone else’s music, so I started writing my own” he says, adding, “problem was, everything I wrote sounded like something I’d heard before.” Bowe says it was a “beautiful day” when he came up with a melody that he realized was unique and his alone.

Since then, there have been plenty more beautiful days. Bowe produced two previous albums, Through My Eyes and Wings of Your Dreams, both of which are available on CD Baby. His new album includes the track “This Time,” a line from which provides listeners with a clue about what really drives Leslie Bowe.

“This time,” he sings in the refrain to a peaceful, laid-back, rhythmic ballad, “gonna make it on my own.”

It’s a message that resonates with his fans, which range in age from kids to seniors but tend to cluster around the 25+ Adult Alternative demographic. They approach him after shows with stories about how his lyrics have helped them get through a tough time in their life when their faith was all but gone.

“That’s when I’m certain my singing and songwriting is an instrument,” he says, “my voice to the world. It’s what I’m supposed to be doing.”
If his audience is quiet when he starts, it doesn’t last long. “I like to break any silence barriers that might be there when I get on stage,” he says. “Pretty soon, the audience is talking back and forth with me as if I was standing in their living room.”

All things considered, Leslie Bowe’s growing audience makes sense: this is a singer and songwriter who deeply feels his music, connects with his audience, and is in possession of a message that resonates with people from New York City to L.A. Most importantly, his artistic and personal integrity rings true with fans looking for honest, uncluttered music.

That might explain his description of the ideal gig. “If someone was open to anything in the music and lyrics and let themselves go, they could be the only one in the audience,” he says. “I would play forever.”

The important thing for Bowe is to keep playing—but the location really doesn’t matter. “Like a gypsy, I’m very happy where I am right now in my life but ready to pick up and go whenever or wherever life will call me,” Bowe says. “I’m going to enjoy every step of the way - one song at a time.”