Michelle Jacquet Branch was born on July 2, 1983, to parents David and Peggy, in
Flagstaff, AZ. Unlike the bevy of
prepackaged crap that seems to be dominating these days, Michelle favors a simpler, almost (but not quite)
acoustic style, and wrote or co-wrote every song on her first mainstream album,
The Spirit Room. (She had an earlier, independent release,
Broken Bracelet, which can still be ordered directly from her father.)
When Michelle was 11, her family moved to Sedona, AZ, where she met her best friend and touring bassist, Jennifer Hagio. Shortly thereafter, Michelle turned to homeschooling so she could concentrate more on her music. She met record exec Jef Rabhan when one of her parents' friends was giving him a tour of a timeshare condo, and was signed two months later.
She has two "official" Web sites: michellebranch.com, owned and
maintained by her label, and loaded down with hideously ugly Flash animations; and michellebranch.net which appears to be owned and maintained by her family, and is rather more usable.
(I'm mostly basing this on the whois records - they point to Maverick Records and her dad respectively.)