Missy Higgins

Missy Higgins came into her own (musically speaking) by mistake. She had written and recorded "All for Believing," a beautifully haunting piano ballad when she was 16 years old. The song itself was a homework assignment for a music class that she had procrastinated on, waiting until the very last minute to complete it. But it was at her sister's urging that she entered that song into a contest, eventually winning first place and getting the tune played on Los Angeles radio station KCRW, a move which prompted Warner Bros. to hand her a pen and contract. Two EPs and a full-length album later, her sometimes dark and always beautiful folk-tinged songs garner her many a positive comparison to Kate Bush and Tori Amos (although perhaps Vanessa Carlton's emotive inflections may be a closer association).