Brandi Carlile, A Voice That Breaks You Open and Puts You Back Together

Rarely had a voice touched me, transformed me, filled me with both joy and sorrow as much as Brandi Carlile’s. This queer artist, blending gentle rage, raw vulnerability and political power, has become much more than a singer: an architecture of community on which an entire generation of LGBTQIA+ people can lean.

A lesbian voice in the spotlight

At 44, Brandi Carlile is now one of the most visible lesbian artists in the United States, a multiple Grammy winner and headliner at major festivals. Her musical universe, somewhere between folk, Americana, rock and country, speaks to anyone who has ever felt “out of place,” on the margins, too sensitive or too intense.

On stage, she refuses to stand alone at the center. At Red Rocks, in front of a sold‑out amphitheater, she invited Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig from Lucius, British singer Yola, Grammy‑nominated Allison Russell and rising Black country artist Brittney Spencer, turning a concert into a manifesto for queer and women’s voices. “Brandi doesn’t just invite you on stage,” Russell sums up. “She makes sure people hear you.”

“Lift as you climb”: lifting others as you rise

What makes Brandi Carlile so central for an LGBT audience is not just what she sings, but what she does with her visibility. She sums up her mission in a simple motto: “Lift as you climb” – lift others as you rise. In an industry still dominated by men, she co‑produces Tanya Tucker’s comeback with the album While I’m Livin’, which earns two Grammys, and she works to bring artists like Yola, Allison Russell and Brittney Spencer out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

On and off stage, she thinks of her career as a shared scaffolding. Yola says it powerfully: “Brandi has turned her career into scaffolding for others. She’s building something we can all stand on.” That sentence captures Carlile’s emotional impact: listening to her music means feeling allowed to exist fully, but watching her act means understanding that no rise makes sense if it doesn’t carry others along.

The Looking Out Foundation: music as a lever

In 2008, Brandi Carlile founded the Looking Out Foundation with twins Tim and Phil Hanseroth, an organization that turns the power of music into concrete support for the most vulnerable. Two dollars from every concert ticket go to the foundation, which has raised several million dollars for grassroots causes, from LGBTQ+ rights to racial justice, from refugee support to disaster relief.

Run day‑to‑day by her wife, Catherine Shepherd, the foundation funds small local organizations – LGBTQ+ centers, shelters, youth programs, feminist initiatives – wherever “a few thousand dollars can truly change a life.” For an LGBT community often weary of big speeches with little effect, this quiet, determined work gives substance back to the idea of solidarity: “This isn’t charity from above. It’s solidarity. She understands that change comes from the ground up.”

Resources:

• Official website: BrandiCarlile.com
• Foundation: Looking Out Foundation

A queer icon of faith, wounds and repair

Brandi Carlile’s story is also that of a queer child marked by rejection, who turns shame into a tool for collective healing. Growing up in poverty with an alcoholic father, school bullying and the weight of a religious environment hostile to her orientation pushed her to make music a refuge, then a weapon. In her songs, this journey feeds ballads about rejection and broken faith but also about reconciliation with oneself – raw material in which many lesbians and queer people recognize their own scars.

Today, she lives in Washington State with her wife Catherine and their two daughters, Evangeline and Elijah, and fully embraces her status as a figure of hope and healing for the LGBTQ+ community. Whether on the Grammy stage, at a queer festival or during a benefit show for refugees, Brandi Carlile reminds us by her mere presence that our joy, our pain and our resilience belong at the center, not at the margins.

If her voice shatters you as much as it does those who discover her, it is no accident: Brandi Carlile doesn’t just sing for us, she sings with us – and she puts her power where it matters most, in the service of a community that refuses to apologize for existing.