Early career Austin got her start in music opening for
Johnny Cash in Australia at the age of 14. She later moved to the United States where she took up acting. She is most known in the United States for playing the role of Pippa McKenna on
The Facts of Life during its final season. In 1991, she appeared as "Lady Penelope" on episode No. 20 of the first season of the television comedy series
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. In the 1990s, she started a singing career, teaming up with Phil Radford in 1992, to form a duo,
Colourhaus, which released one album,
Water to the Soul. The song "Innocent Child" taken from that album was issued as a single, with "We Talk to the Angels" on the B-side, and it peaked at No. 50 on the
Billboard Hot 100. The Colourhaus song "Colour Me You" was on the soundtrack of the "Rookie of the Year" episode of the television series
Baywatch on 5 October 1992.
Nashville move Afterwards, Austin moved to
Nashville, Tennessee, to pursue a career in country music. Her first solo contract was with
Arista Nashville, with the album
Words being released in 1997. It produced singles in "Lucky in Love", "One Solitary Tear", "Put Your Heart into It", and "Innocent Man". "Lucky in Love" and "Put Your Heart into It" both reached Top 40 on the country charts with a peak of No. 34 each. Her second and final album for Arista was 1999's
Love in the Real World, led off by the No. 29 "Never Been Kissed", which was followed by "Little Bird". After RCA acquired Arista Records, Austin's publishing company, Reynsong Publishing, formed Wrensong Entertainment and signed to
Madacy Entertainment for her next album, ''
Followin' a Feelin''', which produced another single in its lead-off single, a cover of
Dolly Parton's "
Jolene". Later, she switched to the independent
Broken Bow Records label. Her fourth album of country music, titled
Streets of Heaven, produced her biggest country hit in its
title track. Following this single was "
Son of a Preacher Man", a cover of the
Dusty Springfield song, which was never included on an album.
Broadway years Austin moved to New York City in 2005 and appeared in the New York Musical Theater Festival's production of
Bonnie & Clyde.
The New York Times commented that she was "a sultry young country music singer who plays the notorious criminal Bonnie Parker and does for this musical what
Reba McEntire did for the 1999 revival of
Annie Get Your Gun. That twang in her voice provides some much-needed authenticity in excellent pop-country numbers like "Ain't Goin' Back." And it's easy to tell by her hip-swiveling poses that this is a woman who knows how to hold a stage." The following year, Austin performed in
Ring of Fire – The Johnny Cash Musical Show at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. She also performed in the production of
Warrior, a musical about the American-Indian athlete Jim Thorpe, where CurtainUp.com described her as "outstanding". She returned to Nashville in 2006.
Nashville return Austin co-wrote
Danielle Peck's 2007 single "Bad for Me", the title track to
Blake Shelton's 2008 album ''
Startin' Fires'',
George Strait's "Where Have I Been All My Life" off his 2009 album
Twang, and
Tim McGraw's duet, with wife
Faith Hill, "Shotgun Rider" off his
Let It Go album in 2007. Austin left Broken Bow in 2008. She was named one of 2011's "25 Most Beautiful People" by
Nashville Lifestyles Magazine. In summer 2011,
The Sundance Channel announced that Austin and her friend
Shane Stevens would be on the second season of
Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, which was filmed in Nashville and features women and their gay best friends. The season started 18 November 2011.
Circus Girl (2011) Austin's most recent album,
Circus Girl, her first in eight years, is described as a series of stories interpreted by a strong woman, about women, and for women. Austin feels it's something her female fans have been clamouring for, for quite some time. "The last few years I had been complaining about that fact that there weren’t any females speaking to women above the age of 30, so I started thinking about how I was writing my songs and came up with the idea for "Friday Night Girls"... I wanted to write a three-minute song with every
Sex and the City episode that had ever existed, so I did. I quickly noticed that the women in my audiences loved it and so I switched my songwriting focus for a while to concentrate on that audience, who are my peers, to speak to them", says Austin.
Circus Girl was released independently on 15 November 2011. ==Discography==