Leon Timbo

Some write music as a creative release. Others feel compelled to perform. For country-soul singer-songwriter Leon Timbo, music is used as a form of growth and healing. Timbo has long regarded music as an indispensable aspect of his life for as long as he can remember. Growing up the son of two pastors in Jacksonville, FL, music was integrated into his life from the very start, as a way to communicate spiritual experience. “I grew up listening to the blues while splitting time between low-income spaces and those defined by people living in abundance. I’ve balanced those spaces, plus how they made me emotionally feel, in my creativity,” Timbo says. Along with his parents, his grandmother Virginia was one of the first to introduce him to music by singing Ray Charles styled songs to him as a kid and later buying him his first guitar at the age of 17. From there, his musical aspirations took flight.

At sixteen, Timbo began singing and by age twenty, he began playing the guitar and performing in a serious way, inspired by artists Bill Withers, James Taylor and Tim Miner. By 2005, after cutting his independently released album Soul Sessions, Timbo was successfully touring across the U.S. on an almost non-stop small venue circuit, building a loyal fanbase from coast to coast. After years of spreading his Gospel roots, Timbo set his eyes onto Country and Americana territory with his 2021 release, Lovers and Fools. The 8-track EP explored themes of love, loss and letting go. “Lovers and Fools came from my hardest relationship process, and it came about as a result of handling my grief,” Timbo says of the record. “I recorded this album in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Nashville. This musical experience was like a coming of age. This album gave me the freedom to authentically be me,” he continues.

Timbo’s country sound incorporates equal measures of vintage soul, gospel, folk, R&B and even modern blues making for a unique experience that some have described as "transparent soul." As Timbo outstretched his wings musically, he never lost sight of his roots. Leon tells Holler Country: “What I know is the church and the Black experience in church. Extending from that into an Americana performer - and authentically being able to be my most whole, most authentic self in that - allows me to blend my faith with other aspects of my humanity,” he says.

Today, Timbo gears up to release the follow-up accompaniment to his 2021 record, with the release of Lovers and Fools Vol 2 this June 2022. The album will be released on MNRK Music Group with support from Brooklyn Basement Records. Timbo is currently on the road supporting the new music and has just finished touring with 2x-Grammy Award-winning bassist, Marcus Miller, during his residency with Blue Note New York, which included two sold-out shows. Timbo will continue touring with Miller along with The Black Opry as well as playing festivals, including American Roots Festival and Newport Folk Festival, throughout the summer.

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