Her debut album, The Burdens of Being Upright (1996), was a critical and commercial success and earned her two Grammy nominations, in addition to being certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) less than a year after its release.

Delays plagued the release of her second album, Down Here (2000), which failed to chart internationally; Bonham parted ways with Island a year after the album's release, after which she turned her attention to working with other musical artists, including The Blue Man Group when she appeared in their The Complex Rock Tour Live tour and live DVD in 2003.

[2] Her father was the city editor of The Eugene Register-Guard, and her mother was a music teacher; the two had met while Leach was attending the University of Oregon.

[2] While there, she took up various jobs at places such as the Atlantic Fish Company, a cassette duplication service, and wrote jingles for Pontiac and Toyota car dealerships.

[4][5] In 1995, Bonham issued her debut EP, The Liverpool Sessions, through the CherryDisc label, which brought her additional local acclaim; after its release, she signed to Island Records.

[2][4] After recording at Fort Apache Studio in Cambridge for several months, in 1996 Bonham released her debut full-length album The Burdens of Being Upright.

The album's first single, "Mother Mother", reached number one on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart (later known as Alternative Airplay chart) in June 1996, and remained there for a month; Bonham subsequently became the first female solo artist to achieve this feat, and was the last one to do so until Lorde reached the same position with her single "Royals" in 2013.

[16] The album received generally positive reviews,[17][18] but struggled to find an audience in a musical climate dominated by nu metal, and experienced virtually no radio airplay.

[12] The album and its only single, "Behind Every Good Woman" failed to appear on any sales charts worldwide, leaving her on uncertain terms with Island.

Along with Bonham, the players included drummers Waronker and Butch (of Eels), bassists Sebastian Steinberg (from Soul Coughing & Neil Finn) and Davey Faragher (having performed for Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow), guitarists Joe Gore (from Tom Waits, P.J.

Harvey) and Dave Levita (Alanis Morissette, Jewel) and keyboard player Mitchell Froom (Paul McCartney, Los Lobos).

The 11-track disc featured two studio tracks, a cover version of Beyoncé Knowles's "Crazy In Love" and an original titled "In My Other Life".

The rest of the songs are live tracks, which include some older favorites – "One Hit Wonder" and a new version of "Navy Bean" – covers ("Blue Jay Way" & "Kissing The Lipless"), and previously unreleased material ("Your World Turns Upside Down", "The Idiot In Me").

In celebration of Paul McCartney's 70th birthday on June 18, 2012, Bonham, Mike Viola and Danish singer Tim Christensen performed the Ram album with The Damn Crystals at Vega in Copenhagen.