Blessed with a clear, expressive voice that can adapt to everything from jazz to rootsy punk, Julie Christensen is best known as a sought-after backing vocalist who recorded and toured with Leonard Cohen, Van Dyke Parks, k.d. lang, Rufus Wainwright, and many more. Not just a gifted accompanist, Christensen was a member of the seminal roots-punk group Divine Horsemen and has also enjoyed a well-respected solo career, writing literate, emotionally thoughtful songs and recording with musicians coversant in her blend of blues, jazz, folk, and country idioms. Christensen had been singing professionally for over fifteen years when she released her first solo album, 1996's Love is Driving, and since then she's recorded an album of standards (2006's Something Familiar), soulful R&B sessions (2000's Soul Driver), tough roots rock (2016's The Cardinal), and full-bodied acoustic material (2018's A Sad Clown) and letting her one-of-a-kind voice take the lead in every context.

Julie Christensen was born in Iowa City, Iowa on January 21, 1956. Her mother, a nurse, played keyboards, and was the organist at a neighborhood Protestant church. Julie and her mother would often sit at the family piano, singing together from a book of songs made popular by Judy Collins. Christensen first came to understand the power of music when she saw The Wizard of Oz on television for the first time, and was so moved by Judy Garland's performance of "Over the Rainbow" that she burst into tears. She soon began singing in church, and took part in local televised talent shows. Roots music was hard to come by in Iowa City, but Christensen got her first taste of the blues from a Bonnie Raitt album belonging to her brother, who was a member of a popular local band called Jonesin'. Julie discovered a wider variety of musical sounds and styles when she began tuning into an Iowa public radio station, and while attending the University of Iowa, she became a devoted fan of singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro, as well as the rootsy pop sounds of Linda Ronstadt. As she became more interested in country, folk-rock, and western swing music, she joined a band called Longshot, who gigged frequently at the Iowa City music venue Gabe's; she left college to devote more time to the band and join them on tour. After two years, Christensen left Iowa to study music at the University of Texas, and soon found her way into Austin's lively musical community. She began singing with one of Austin's best respected jazz bands, Passenger, and in 1981 she relocated to Los Angeles, where she discovered bands that were fusing the spirit and fire of punk with the influences of American roots music.

In 1982, she was singing back-ups with the band Top Jimmy the Rhythm Pigs when she met Chris Desjardins, who under the alias Chris D. was a music writer, producer, and leader of the band the Flesh Eaters. Desjardins liked her voice and kept in touch, and in 1984, when he formed the group Divine Horsemen, which took the lyrical frameworks of the Flesh Eaters and grafted them to a sound informed by country, blues, and folk, he invited her to sing with the group. Christensen and Desjardins' musical relationship became a romantic one as well, and they were wed in 1985. Divine Horsemen were prolific, releasing four albums between 1985 and 1987, but several of the group members were struggling with addiction, and in 1987 Christensen quit the band. Her marriage to Desjardins soon ended. Christensen supported herself doing jazz gigs, and in 1988, she was contacted by Roscoe Beck, the bassist with her Austin cohorts Passenger. After the band had backed Leonard Cohen on two concert tours, Beck was named Cohen's musical director, and he asked Christensen if she was interested in joining Cohen's touring ensemble as a backing vocalist. She sang with Cohen on the world tour following the release of his album I'm Your Man, which became one of Cohen's most successful releases, and the attention Christensen received helped her launch a solo career. She sang backing vocals on sessions with Van Dyke Parks, John Doe, Steve Wynn, and many more, and she signed a deal with Polygram Records. Christensen cut an album produced by Todd Rundgren, but when the label went through a corporate reorganization, they opted not to release it, and it remains unheard.

In 1992, Christensen married actor John Diehl, and they had a son. The following year, she joined Cohen for another international concert tour, and after completing her run, Christensen relocated to Ojai, CA, where she began work on her first solo album, 1996's Love is Driving, which included new recordings of several songs she wrote for the unreleased Polygram album. She released the album on her own Stone Cupid label, and Stone Cupid also became the name of her band. Under the Stone Cupid banner, she released a second album, Soul Driver, in 2000, while Something Familiar, a collection of covers of old standards, was issued by Household Ink in 2006. In 2005, Christensen appeared in the film Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, where she performed with the ensemble that accompanied a stellar variety of artists interpreting Cohen's songs, among them Nick Cave, Kate Anna McGarrigle, Linda Thompson, and Rufus Wainwright. Another set with Stone Cupid followed in 2007, Where The Fireworks Are, while she continued to do session work in her spare time with the likes of Rufus Wainwright, Robben Ford, and Lowen Navarro. Christensen began work on an acoustic project with her friend and mentor Kenny Edwards serving as producer. Edwards died in 2010 while in treatment for cancer, and Christensen shelved the project as she dealt with her grief. She would revive the project as an electric set with help from producer Jeff Turmes, and it was released in 2012 as Weeds Like Us. 2016's The Cardinal (credited to Stone Cupid) found her covering songs by Chuck Prophet, Kevin Gordon, Dan Navarro, and her old boss Leonard Cohen, alongside nine new originals from her pen. The primarily acoustic A Sad Clown saw release in 2018, and the following year, her former partner Chris Desjardins reunited the classic lineup of the Flesh Eaters for a new album, I Used To Be Pretty, with Christensen contributing backing vocals. Working with Desjardins went so well that they teamed up to cut a new Divine Horsemen album, 2021's Hot Rise of an Ice Cream Phoenix. Christensen next paid homage to one of her favorite songwriters, alt-country artist Kevin Gordon, with an album devoted entirely to his work, 2022's 11 From Kevin: Songs of Kevin Gordon. In 2020, after spending several years in Nashville, Christensen moved to New Mexico, where she reconnected with Terry Lee Burns, a talented bassist and arranger who she met through her brothers in the 1970s. The two decided to record an album, with Christensen and Burns both working in their home studios due to the COVID-19 pandemic, passing tracks back and forth on line. The finished album, The Price We Pay For Love, was released in 2023. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi