Tina Lear

Tina Lear descends from the renowned vaudeville performer John (Ole) Olsen, one half of the Olsen and Johnson duo whose Broadway hit Hellzapoppin defined the late 1930s and early 1940s. Her childhood unfolded in Switzerland, where she enrolled at the Geneva Conservatory at age four to study piano. As her family relocated repeatedly throughout those years, she persisted with lessons aimed at a concert career until an encounter with Joni Mitchell redirected her ambitions toward songwriting and singing. Composition became her focus at the California School of the Arts, after which she enrolled at Brigham Young University. At eighteen she relocated to Los Angeles, enrolled in the Warner Bros. Acting Workshop, and began appearing at venues including the Troubadour. Marriage to painter and sculptor Harry Jackson prompted an eighteen-year hiatus from professional pursuits. In the 1980s she resumed performing, earning the Best Songwriter Award at the Columbia Folk Festival and placing as a finalist in the New Folk Songwriting Contest at the Kerrville Folk Festival. Her debut album, Classified Ads, appeared in 1996. After settling in Seattle she balanced stage work with studies at Bastyr University, completing a B.A. in Applied Behavioral Science. Full Moon Big Circle, her second album, followed in 1998, and The Road Home, her third, arrived in 2000.