The Piano Man: Tom Leighton is Growing a Big Following at Local Venues
“I grew up in Saugerties, N.Y.,” Leighton says. “I was always musically inclined and sang in the chorus, but didn’t really start singing solo until high school. I was around 15 when I started taking voice lessons, which was the first time I was exposed to opera and certain forms that I would later work in.”
Growing up in a musical family was also a bonus, especially since Leighton’s school district did not have a robust arts program. “My dad actually played guitar and sang out in San Francisco, to make a living before he met my mom. My younger brother is a musician, singer, and music teacher in New York City, and my mom sang in the church choir, which we did together.”
All of this led Leighton to college at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., where he studied classical voice and music education. After teaching for a year in the Kingston City School District, his position was cut, which led him to audition for grad school programs, and a spot at the University of Wisconsin. “That’s where I earned my master’s and had my first professional gigs with the Madison Opera,” he says.
That experience was a revelation. “It was unbelievable,” Leighton says. “Up to that point I hadn’t worked in opera on that scale. I had done some smaller things, but nothing on the scale of grand opera.”
Performing in an opera is “thrilling,” he says. “To hear human voices singing over a full orchestra without any amplification … it’s something you can only experience and be able to describe if you do it in person.”
Leighton was a resident studio artist with the Florentine Opera Company in Milwaukee for 3 years.
After grad school, Leighton was hired as a resident studio artist with the Florentine Opera Company in Milwaukee, where he lived for three years. “That’s really where I cut my teeth on performing,” he says. “We were doing something in front of people every single day, including a tour of a children’s opera, including about 95 performances over a couple of months. Additionally, we participated in the main stage production, where you could do small roles and get to work alongside industry veterans, which was a really invaluable experience.”
From these performers, Leighton learned “something intangible that can’t be taught in school, like how to act in a rehearsal room, how to work in the business as a good colleague. And often you’re working on really short schedules in productions, so how to be efficient, just the nuts-and-bolts things that you don’t really think about until you’re there.”
His extensive education and experience also taught Leighton how to maintain his beautiful voice through all of the performances. “Part of it is technique and having studied singing pretty scientifically,” he says. “There’s a healthy way to sing and an unhealthy way to sing, so I have to be careful that I’m doing it the right way.”
After three years of singing with the opera full time, a visit to a friend led him to the Jersey Shore. “My best friend from home in New York, Jonathan Delgado, moved down to Wildwood where he took a job as the director of music at Notre Dame De La Mer Parish, so I started coming down here just to visit him,” Leighton explains. “But then I loved it! The opera only runs from September to May, so whenever there were holes in my schedule, I’d come here. The summer of 2016 is the first summer I spent here, and I was a waiter at Congress Hall.”
During that summer, Leighton discovered a new outlet for his talents. “We would go out and I saw all of these people playing guitars and singing in bars and there wasn’t much of a scene for that in other places I’ve been,” he says. “So, I was surprised by it, but then it gave me the idea to do it myself. I had learned to play guitar when I was 12, and I loved classic rock all through my teen years. It was the stuff my dad used to sing to me growing up, that was the music I loved. I thought … I’ve played this kind of music forever, that’s a lot more fun than being a server, so let me figure out a way to be more enterprising with it. The next summer that I came back to the shore, I really started to work the circuit and ultimately decided to focus on this as a venture, more than just something to fill the time.”
That turn of focus opened a new avenue for his career, and a whole lot of entertainment for folks at the Jersey Shore.
Leighton playing this summer in Stone Harbor.
“When I came down here full time, I was doing a lot of work at Notre Dame De La Mer, so that automatically puts you in front of a lot of people every weekend,” he says. “But the big thing came when I was playing at a fundraising event for Wildwood Catholic High School. The owners of the Burger Bar, who had kids in the school at the time, were there. After that, they reached out about having live music at the Burger Bar, which they had never done before.”
Leighton started in the summer of 2019, and after a summer off due to COVID in 2020, he’s been singing there regularly ever since. “It’s so much fun to play there, you have so much to play to,” he says. “You have the patrons in the restaurant and bar, but you also have everybody walking by outside, and oftentimes they’ll sit on a bench and hang out for a while or even come in.”
In that open-air 96th Street setting, Leighton sings an incredible variety of songs, while being his own one-man band, playing guitar, keyboard, and harmonica. He has a repertoire of more than 300 songs, but is always sure to pick a few favorites, as well as adjust to the environment and mood.
“There are certain songs that people want to hear when they’re out like ‘American Pie,’” he says. “And you know ‘Piano Man’ is going to kill it every night,” especially at 9 o’clock on a Saturday – that’s my all-time favorite party trick.”
I can attest that the party trick works, as I watched a crowd form out on the sidewalk on a recent Saturday night, lending a surreal scene as Tom Leighton sang Billy Joel’s timeless lyrics:
“It’s a pretty good crowd for a Saturday
And the manager gives me a smile
‘Cause he knows that it’s me they’ve been comin’ to see
To forget about life for a while”
“We love when Tom performs here,” says Kath Barclay, the general manager of the Harbor Burger Bar. “He always brings a fun atmosphere, and the people love him.”
Leighton surely knows how to get in-sync with the crowd and loves helping them make summer memories. “I love the sense of community that music can create. When you’re down here on vacation and you’re with your family and everybody’s in a good mood and you’re all singing together in a bar, I don’t know a better feeling than singing fun songs with a bunch of people,” he says. “So, I love being able to help make those moments for people.”
And opportunities to make those moments keep rolling in. He had two gigs at the Yacht Club of Stone Harbor this summer and he also performed in Sea Isle City thanks to Fran Urso, the co-chair of the entertainment committee at the Yacht Club of Sea Isle City who heard him performing in Stone Harbor and asked him to sing at the Yacht Club.
“He’s amazing,” says Urso. “When I first heard him, I thought there were multiple musicians, but then I saw Tom and realized it was just him – playing the piano and the harmonica at the same time. He’s the best find ever.”
Leighton has also been enjoying his performances at the Yacht Club’s Crow’s Nest bar and grill. “It’s really cool and very casual with an unparalleled view of the sunset and little stage area. It’s been a good summer there,” he says.
His performances at these venues have also led to gigs at private parties and events. “Those are really fun,” he says. “It’s often a lot smaller, like if I’m playing a big family part in the backyard, it’s really fun because you can connect with people on a more intimate level and it’s cool to feel like part of the party.
Leighton is also looking forward to two upcoming performances on Oct. 15 and Nov. 18 at Council Oak Steaks & Seafood, a fine dining restaurant at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City.
If you haven’t heard Leighton singing down the shore, you may have heard him on the airwaves thanks to a gig with iHeartMedia, where he’s recorded jingles, parodies, and spoken commercials that stream throughout iHeart’s 160 markets, 860 live broadcasts, and on its streaming platforms.
iHeart also afforded Leighton the opportunity to be a part of their “Hip Hopera” project along with his grad school friend, Danny Lopez. “This is one of the ongoing projects we did where we sang hip-hop songs, but very operatically, and with a lot of drama. It was a blast,” Leighton says.
From opera to “Piano Man” to jingles, and “Hip Hopera,” Leighton is as versatile as he is talented. And while he listens to all kinds of music, he definitely leans toward a particular genre. “My favorite is the kind of music that I would play at a lot of my gigs, which is like singer-songwriters from the 1970s and that whole Laurel Canyon era,” he says. “That’s really the music of my soul.”
Playing those songs for people at the Jersey Shore is an unexpected career twist for this classically trained vocal artist, but one he is thoroughly enjoying. “I really like when the place is packed, right around midway through and everybody’s in an active party mood. That’s really, really fun to keep that going and try and facilitate that,” he says. “But equally great is a late quiet night when it’s just a few tables and that’s when I get to sing quieter songs or more intimate things that people request. Then there are all the people walking by on 96th Street. So, I get to do just different kinds of music depending on the crowds.”
Ultimately, Leighton is as thrilled by the audience who appreciates his music as they clearly are to hear him. “I’m very, very grateful for the people who listen to me,” he says. “I feel very lucky to do what I do and to be able to find so much joy in my work. And I wouldn’t be able to do that if there weren’t people to hear it.”
And people are definitely listening.
Last Saturday night as I moved through a small crowd gathered on the 96th Street sidewalk outside of where Leighton was singing, I could hear his strong, clear voice above people singing along in the restaurant, at the bar, and on the sidewalk, all in unison …
“Sing us a song, you’re the piano man
Sing us a song tonight
Well, we’re all in the mood for a melody
And you’ve got us feelin’ alright.”
