Music like Grant-Lee Phillips

Grant-Lee Phillips (born Bryan G. Phillips; September 1, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He led the group Grant Lee Buffalo in the 1990s, afterwards launching a solo career. He features as the town troubadour in Gilmore Girls.

Born in Stockton, California, Phillips began playing the guitar in his early teens. At age 19, he moved to Los Angeles where he worked tarring roofs to fund evening classes at UCLA and forming bands. He eventually dropped out of college and linked up with an old friend from Stockton named Jeffery Clark. In the late 1980s, Phillips lived on campus at CalArts with future wife Denise Siegel, whom he met at a party through a fellow student and first Shiva Burlesque bassist, James Brenner. Phillips informally took art classes, went to public lectures and film screenings, and immersed himself in the school's World Music program until 1990. Shiva Burlesque released two LPs, Shiva Burlesque (Nate Starkman & Son; 1987) and Mercury Blues (Fundamental; 1990). Brenner was replaced by Paul Kimble, thus completing what would be the basis of Grant-Lee Buffalo. But Shiva Burlesque made no commercial impact, and Phillips and Clark disbanded in 1990. Phillips began playing solo around Los Angeles under the stage name Grant-Lee Buffalo.