Article Contributed by jbleicher.com
Published on 2026-10-24
Singer-songwriter Leanne Binder has announced the February 12 release of her new album, Hellfire & Holy Water, alongside the arrival of its lead single and title track, available now on all major streaming platforms. Produced by Grammy winner Lee J. Turner and featuring a Nashville-based group of musicians that includes guitarists Jon Conley (Kenny Chesney) and Audley Freed (The Black Crowes, Sheryl Crow), the album brings together muscular, seventies-inspired guitars, Southern blues grooves, and deeply personal songwriting.
For the Youngstown, Ohio-raised artist, whose career has been defined by extraordinary perseverance and a lifelong commitment to making music on her own terms, Hellfire & Holy Water represents both a creative breakthrough and a deeply personal statement about the strength and vulnerability that have carried her through a lifetime in music.
The title track offers a powerful introduction to that duality. Written as a kind of self-portrait, “Hellfire & Holy Water” confronts the assumption that gentleness and strength are mutually exclusive. There's the woman who has fought for every opportunity, booked her own tours, stood her ground in rooms full of men, and refused to accept that her career had an expiration date. And there's the woman who still believes in kindness, forgiveness, and the possibility that people are fundamentally good.
“I think all of us at our very best should have a little hellfire and a little holy water in us,” Binder says. “You have to survive.”
Musically, Binder wanted the song to reflect that fierceness, pushing Turner toward the sound of seventies Marshall amplifiers, Humble Pie, and Grand Funk Railroad. With Jon Conley's guitar work driving its heavy blues-rock sound, the track gradually builds toward an extended, spontaneous ending that emerged as the musicians followed her instincts in the studio.
When Turner pointed out that the song was running six minutes, Binder wasn't concerned. “It's the blues, baby. It can be six minutes.” That uncompromising spirit has defined Binder's career from the beginning.
Leanne Binder’s voice was built twice. The first time in the halls of a conservatory, the second in the wreckage left behind.
By seventeen, the Youngstown-raised singer had already spent years studying classical music, her extraordinary voice earning her a place in a university vocal performance program. But the demanding training nearly ended her career before it began. By the time she returned to her original teacher for summer lessons, she could barely speak. Her teacher warned that continuing on the same path could permanently cost Binder her voice.
She left school and began the painstaking process of rebuilding it. “I remember looking at Mrs. Raridon, and she said, ‘I will not give up on you. You do not give up on you.’”
The experience changed her relationship with singing. Opera had never quite been the destination she imagined anyway. She loved Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Queen, and the physical, unrestrained voices of rock and blues. She wanted to sing like Robert Plant, without being told that a woman should sound or behave a certain way.
By nineteen, she was fronting bands, writing original songs, and handling her own bookings. As the only woman in many of those groups, she learned quickly that being accommodating could come at a cost. There were contracts to negotiate, musicians to manage, club owners who tried to withhold payment, and plenty of people willing to underestimate her.
That independence would become both her greatest strength and an exhausting necessity.
Over the years, Binder built an international career through sheer determination, personally contacting European radio stations and organizing her own overseas performances. Her efforts eventually brought appearances at Liverpool's legendary Cavern Club and the Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival, along with a growing network of international supporters. Back home, she weathered near-miss record deals, personal upheavals, and periods when making music barely paid the bills. Through it all, she continued writing, recording, and performing, eventually opening a vocal coaching studio to support herself and help other singers navigate the challenges she had experienced firsthand.
An important turning point came when Binder connected with Grammy-winning producer Lee J. Turner in Nashville. Their collaboration began almost by accident, when she traveled to record a Christmas song she had written for her late father. The two discovered an immediate musical understanding that would grow into an ongoing creative partnership.
“He gets what I'm doing,” she says. “He understands the soul and the blues and the rock part of who I am.”
Together, they made 2025's I Got Something to Say, an independent release that gained substantial radio traction, particularly in Austin, where Binder's combination of Southern rock, blues, and Americana found an enthusiastic audience. Encouraged by longtime supporters, including radio personality Cornel Bogdan, she began to consider what might happen if she invested everything she could into the next record.
She had spent years doing much of the work herself, once personally emailing some 500 radio stations in search of airplay. Now she was saving money from performances and voice lessons, assembling a team, and making a decision that felt both exhilarating and frightening.
“I'm not 25, 35 years old,” she says. “I should be thinking about retirement and that kind of stuff.” Instead, she decided to take another swing.
The result is Hellfire & Holy Water, a record that embraces the full range of Binder's musical and emotional instincts. Building on the creative relationships established during I Got Something to Say, Binder and Turner assembled a group of accomplished Nashville musicians to bring her vision to life, including Jon Conley, who played the majority of the album's guitar parts, and Audley Freed, whose work with The Black Crowes and Sheryl Crow made him a natural fit for the album's blues-rock foundation.
Across the album, Binder explores the relationship between strength and vulnerability, anger and forgiveness, independence and connection. The songs draw from her own experiences navigating the music industry, difficult personal relationships, and the challenges of building a career without the support of a major label. But even in its darker moments, the record is grounded in her belief that kindness, gratitude, and perseverance remain essential to finding a way forward.
Those convictions have become increasingly important as she's grown older. During a difficult divorce, Binder began a daily practice of finding something, however small, to be grateful for. Sometimes it was sunshine. Sometimes it was her dog. She wasn't interested in pretending that difficult things hadn't happened. She simply refused to let them determine everything that came afterward.
That perspective also informs the risks she's taking with Hellfire & Holy Water. For a woman who came of age in an industry that often treated youth as a prerequisite for success, investing so much in a new album at this stage of her career is its own act of defiance.
“I've earned the grit in my voice,” she says. “I've earned the heartache in the song because I've lived it.”
She hopes the record reminds other artists, particularly women, that creativity doesn't come with an expiration date. There are still songs to write, people to reach, and chances worth taking, even when the outcome is uncertain.
And for all the years she's spent pursuing a career that has rarely followed the path she imagined, Binder remains remarkably clear about what keeps her going.
“With a deal or without a deal, I still wake up in the morning and I still sing and I still play my guitar because that's who I am.”
Perhaps that's the clearest expression of Hellfire & Holy Water. The fire is what keeps her fighting. The water is what allows her to let go. After a lifetime of learning when to hold on and when to release, Leanne Binder has made an album that leaves room for both.
In support of the upcoming album, Binder is continuing a busy schedule of live performances throughout Northeast Ohio, with a run of fall and winter dates that will bring her to venues across Youngstown, Boardman, Kinsman, Columbiana, Lake Milton, and the surrounding region. The schedule includes performances at Mastropietro Winery, Boardman Park, Halliday's Winery, Peter Allen Inn & Event Center, and several other local venues, with dates running through a New Year's Eve performance at Sundog Ciderhouse & Winery in Columbiana. Additional performances and touring plans surrounding the February release of Hellfire & Holy Water will be announced as they are confirmed. For more information and upcoming dates, visit leannebindermusic.com.
Hellfire & Holy Water Track Listing
Hellfire & Holy Water
Dandelion Sugar
Didn't I
With a Little Love In It
Dirty Little Secrets
Lightning in a Bottle Kind of Woman
Mad Ship
Hallelujah to the Moon
Mississippi Burning
Leanne Binder — Upcoming Tour Dates
October 24 — Peter Allen Inn & Event Center — Kinsman, OH
October 30 — Brew Lounge Beer Company — Columbiana, OH
October 31 — Dessert Bar at Gorant Chocolates — Youngstown, OH
November 13 — El Jalapeno II — Austintown, OH
November 20 — Halliday's Winery — Lake Milton, OH
November 27 — Crickets Bar and Grill — Youngstown, OH
November 28 — Peter Allen Inn & Event Center — Kinsman, OH
December 4 — El Jalapeno II — Austintown, OH
December 5 — Halliday's Winery — Lake Milton, OH
December 11 — Brew Lounge Beer Company — Columbiana, OH
December 18 — Dessert Bar at Gorant Chocolates — Youngstown, OH
December 19 — Crickets Bar and Grill — Youngstown, OH
December 31 — Sundog Ciderhouse & Winery — Columbiana, OH
