Haley Jonay

Inspired equally by the moodiness of Lorde and the songcraft of Sara Bareilles, not to mention the savviness of Taylor Swift, indie pop singer/songwriter Haley Jonay steadily released digital singles, EPs, video clips, and albums in the 2010s.­­­ Born on Friday the 13th in February 1998, Jonay was drawn to music as a child. She wrote her first song when she was seven, learning to play the piano around the same time, picking up guitar at the age of 12 and ukulele when she was 14. At the age of nine, she saw Miley Cyrus in concert as Hannah Montana and decided music was her destiny. When she was 16, Haley Jonay released her eponymous debut album in 2014. The patriotic single "Heart of a Soldier" appeared in 2015, but it was "All the Bright Places," a single based on the Jennifer Niven novel of the same name, that helped Jonay gain traction on streaming services in 2016. Her second album, Wilderness -- which was written, performed, and recorded by Jonay herself -- arrived in the summer of 2018. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine