Meaghan Smith

The daughter of a two musicians, Canadian singer/songwriter Meaghan Smith grew up listening to a variety of older genres of music -- jazz and swing chief among them -- as well as contemporary sounds, which helped fuel her own eclectic compositions. Her debut EP, 2008's The Cricket's Quartet, found the songwriter embracing everything from jazzy torch songs to elements of hip-hop, and she promoted the disc while touring alongside k.d. lang in 2009. That same year, she placed songs on the TV shows One Tree Hill and Grey's Anatomy and worked with T Bone Burnett on a cover of the Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man," which wound up on the soundtrack to the film (500) Days of Summer. All that activity led up to the release of her debut album, The Cricket's Orchestra, which arrived in October 2009 on Sire Records. ~ William Ruhlmann