Virginia Leigh Owens is an American singer, songwriter, author, and blogger. She is known for performing Contemporary Christian music, but has more recently had her songs featured on WB, ABC tv shows, and independent films. Owens had three albums chart on Billboard albums charts in the 2000s.
Career
Owens was born in Jackson, Mississippi, with poor eyesight and has been blind since the age of three. She earned her bachelor of music education in 1997 from Belmont University, but found that most people were skeptical about hiring a blind music teacher. She entered the music business by writing songs for Michael Puryear's Final Four Publishing, which led to a number of labels competing for her, before she chose Rocketown Records. She concentrated in singing and songwriting and began making CDs, and has been producing them since 1999 with Rocketown Records, a label under Michael W. Smith. Owens won the Nashville "Lilith Fair '99 Talent Search", which earned her a spot singing at that year's festival, and the following year performed at the Sundance Film Festival. Her music has been featured on television shows, such as Roswell and Felicity. Owens has also received three Dove awards, including New Artist of the Year and Inspirational Recorded Song of the Year for "Blessed" with Rachael Lampa and Cindy Morgan. In 2005, Owens started a non-profit organization called the Fingerprint Initiative. The organization has worked in conjunction with other groups, such as Compassion International, International Justice Mission, and Habitat for Humanity. Owens was featured on national television, including NBC's Today Show and CNN, for her contribution to help rebuild New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Owens released Love Be the Loudest in 2016. In 2015, Owens released her first book, Transcending Mysteries: Who Is God and What Does He Want From Us?, co-authored with Andrew Greer. Owens' blog is the creator of "How I See It", a video series in which she invites people into her daily life as a blind person, and has served as an adjunct professor in the songwriting department at Belmont University. In early 2017, Owens created the Love Be the Loudest campaign, whereby a portion of album sales go to support non-profits.
