Feist

One of the more unusual success stories in 2000s' pop music, the singer-songwriter born Leslie Feist has gone from performing with a sock puppet and calling herself Bitch Lap-Lap to becoming the toast of the NPR set with two albums of cooled-down grown-up pop under her birth surname. As a singer, Feist — who was born in Calgary and moved to Toronto as an adult, with stints in Paris and Berlin — possesses a slurry, flexible voice that at times recalls Rickie Lee Jones.

Photo by Mary Rozzi