Grammy-nominated Laurie Lewis
& Tom Ruzum with Scott Hufman
(in a trio that includes mandolin)
Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2004 - 7 p.m.
Free for Wenatchee Valley College at Omak students
$7 cover for all others. All ages welcome.
Make a reservation for this show by calling (509) 826-5836.
"Laurie Lewis is one hellacious hillbilly singer. She's got a pure, silvery voice that packs an emotional wallop without ever reaching for dramatic effect or flashy technique. It's a yearning, haunting instrument," says Robert K. Oermann, The Tennessean Showcase.
During the past two decades, this Berkeley, California-based band leader, singer, songwriter, fiddler, guitarist, and bass player has quietly established herself as one of the finest, most diversely talented artists in traditional music.
Laurie learned to play the violin as a child growing up in the San Francisco Bay area. As a teen in the '60s, she was exposed to the era's best folk music at the Berkeley Folk Festivals, hearing many greats, from Doc Watson, Jean Ritchie and Mississippi John Hurt to bluegrass revival group the Greenbriar Boys.
Almost as soon as she heard it, she fell under the spell of the first great innovators of bluegrass, including Flatt & Scruggs and the Stanley Brothers. She was especially attracted to the "spookiness" of the music of bluegrass founder Bill Monroe.
The early '70's were spent at fiddle contests, where she twice won the California State Women's Championship, and as a member of various bands, including tow of the areašs best: The Phantoms of the Opry and the Arkansas Sheiks.
Laurie's instinctive feel for the lyric content of bluegrass, traditional country, and folk material is a major reason for her popularity among lovers of the traditional repertoire.
She's also is highly regarded as an original songwriter her "Love Chooses You" is everything a country ballad should be, so much so that Kathy Matteašs interpretation on her "Willow in the Wind" is one of the high points of that best selling album.
Laurie is highly regarded as a singer (twice voted International Bluegrass Music Association "Female Vocalist of the Year"; her album "Love Chooses You" won the 1989-1990 "Country Album of the Year" designation from the National Association of Independent Record Distributors), lyric interpreter (her compelling reading of Kate Long's "Who Will Watch The Home Place" led to the song being named IBMA "Song Of The Year" in 1994), duet partner (she has recorded wonderful duet albums with fellow Good Ol' Person Kathy Kallick and Grant Street bandmate Tom Rozum; that album, "The Oak and the Laurel," was nominated for a Grammy as "Best Traditional Folk Album" in 1996), instrumentalist (she is an award-winning fiddle player and one of the best flat out breakdown fiddlers around and has lent her instrumental talents to countless recordings by her peers, including a recent appearance on Peter Rowan's Bluegrass Boy, on which both her fiddling and harmony singing fit hand-in-glove with Peter's efforts).
Visit the Laurie Lewis' website.
