Lenny LeBlanc

LENNY LEBLANC

Lenny LeBlanc is a Shoals-based singer-songwriter who grew up in Daytona, Florida, where he got his start in music playing bass in local bands. Following his graduation from high school, fellow Daytona native Gregg Allman invited LeBlanc to join his road band for pre-tour rehearsals in Macon, Georgia. When Allman’s touring plans fizzled, another friend from Daytona (and Allman’s former bandmate in The Hourglass) Pete Carr convinced LeBlanc to join him in Muscle Shoals.

After a year of working odd jobs and performing in a cover band at the Alabama-Tennessee state line, LeBlanc got his first gig as a session musician, playing bass on a demo for Peanutt Montgomery at Broadway Sound Studio. By 1974, he had been drafted by the Swampers into their “Studio B” rhythm section, and within a year, he had signed a solo record deal with Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records.

Following the release of his self-titled debut album, LeBlanc teamed up with Pete Carr to form LeBlanc-Carr. The group recorded its first and only LP, Midnight Light, in 1977, and scored a #13 pop hit with the single “Falling” (written by LeBlanc and Eddie Struzick). After touring as an opening act for Lynyrd Skynyrd, the duo parted ways and LeBlanc signed a new solo deal, this time with the Swampers-owned subsidiary label MSSS-Capitol Records.

It was while LeBlanc was working on his second album for MSSS-Capitol that a phone call from a troubled friend prompted a conversion to Christianity.

“I was trying to write songs for that pop record. I’d start a song out, and it would be a pop song. Then, by the time it got to the chorus, it would be about Jesus. And I thought, ‘Gosh, Capitol’s not going to want these Jesus songs.’ And they didn’t. But… I really wanted to write songs about this God who had changed my life.”

With his Capitol contract suspended, LeBlanc went two years without a record deal before signing with Christian label Heartland and launching a hugely successful career in contemporary Christian music. He has continued to find success in the realm of secular music, too, composing country hits for artists like Sawyer Brown, and co-writing “Old Timer” with Donnie Fritts for Willie Nelson’s 2017 album God’s Problem Child.