LIS HARVEY
Gig Seeker Pro

LIS HARVEY

Band Folk Singer/Songwriter

Calendar

This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

Press


"Favorite Discovery"

"Lis Harvey is one of my favorite discoveries of the year, a smart, quirky, unique voice with things to say about love, life and death, and the freedom to choose. We should listen." - Pat Langston, NO DEPRESSION & PENGUIN EGGS


"Three Stars (Out Of Four)"

"[Porcupine's packed with] moving songs... lots of great guitar picking..." - MAVERICK MAGAZINE (UK)


"Romantic & Memorable"

"Think Victoria Williams meets Ani Difranco. [Lis Harvey is] a romantic, all right, but not the empty-headed sort. Fortunately, [Topography] has more than its share of memorable vignettes." - THE WASHINGTON POST


"Spring Stream Songs"

"Harvey's little-girl voice, edgy, start-and-stop vocal delivery, and crisp acoustic-guitar punctuation are well-suited to her oblique, stream-of-consciousness lyrics. [T]he material and performances on Topography are worth a bit of effort." - DIRTY LINEN


"More Than The Occasional Note Of Brilliance"

"[Lis Harvey's] a butterfly right out of the cocoon, surrounded by heroin freaks - like in her ["Porcupine"] song, where she sings about "shooting [up] through your lunch break" ... She's just this little creature, until you realize she's been spinning her voice around the room like a web and she got you. Her songs are personal and folksy, about life and love and all-night corner stores, but she's also got more than the occasional note of brilliance. Often, like in "White Linen Evening," it's a single line that sets the whole mood..." - THE CLEVELAND FREE TIMES


"Sophisticated Folk Pop"

"On her new studio CD, Porcupine, the diminutive redhead blossoms with charmingly sophisticated folk-pop creations that, if you're not careful, will attach themselves to you before you realize it. The songs on Porcupine are... crisp and filled with motion, the tunes dancing joyfully upon Harvey's jazzy fingerstyle guitar work.
I actually scribbled the phrase "delightfully charming" in my notebook to describe Lis Harvey's "White Linen Evening" before I realized the song was about a suicide... In any case, the song still delights despite its grim and weighty subject." - THE ISTHMUS


"Brickellian Wisdom"

"[On Porcupine, by Lis Harvey], 'Anything at All''s observation that 'we're all hopped up on free will' is as apt a summary of life's imperfection as anyone's attempted since Edie Brickell." - ALL MUSIC GUIDE


"Warm, Captivating"

"Hard-touring folk-popper Lis Harvey is capable of inspiring smiles even when singing about heartbreak or calamity. Her warm, inviting voice - often compared to Lisa Loeb's or Shawn Colvin's - conjurs airy, personal vignettes than can hold a room captive." - THE ONION (AV Club)


"Ass-Kicking"

"I got to get out the CD again, it kicked ass." - Jill Sobule, musician


Discography

2004 - Porcupine
2003 - Something On You (Limited Edition)
2002 - Topography
2000 - Human After All
1999 - Teen Angst (out of print- iTunes only)

-- ACHIEVEMENTS --
* 2006 KERRVILLE FOLK FESTIVAL "NEW FOLK" Finalist

* 2005 FALCON RIDGE FOLK FESTIVAL Emerging Artist

* 2005 MADISON AREA MUSIC AWARD for "Best Acoustic Album" (Porcupine)

* GUINNESS WORLD RECORD - "Fastest to play a concert tour in all 50 United States" (52 shows in 50 US states in 60 days)

* 2005 PRAIRIEFEST SONGWRITING CONTEST - Winner

* 2005 & 2006 TELLURIDE BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL "Troubadour Competition" - finalist

* 2004/2005 MADISON CitiARTS Signature Grant Recipient (supported by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS and the WISCONSIN ARTS BOARD)

* 2004 MINNESOTA FOLK FESTIVAL "New Folk" Performer & Finalist

* 2004 OTTAWA FOLK FESTIVAL Live Auditions Winner & festival performer, Ottawa Folk Festival's "One Fret Less" award winner

* 2003 JAM MUSIC MAGAZINE Awards Nominee:
"Best Female Artist"
"Best Folk Artist"
"Song of the Year" (for "White Linen Evening")

* 2002 ACOUSTIC CAFE'S "One To Watch"

* 2001 SIBL (SONGS-INSPIRED-BY-LITERATURE) Songwriting Contest Semi-Finalist

-- BIO, cont'd --

Born in Boston in the late seventies, LIS HARVEY grew up listening to a wild array of composers. Chopin, The Story, Paul Simon, Glen Philips, The Cure, Willie Nelson, and Juliana Hatfield are some of her more recognizable influences. Classical training and a fierce literary background also contributed to her repertoire. The result is alt-folk americana, with an indie exoskeleton - the kind of music you'd expect to find on repeat in a cab bound for Vegas.

An Erlendahle Records recording artist (her own label), Lis is also the founder of a benefit tour for women's shelters, Will Folk For Food. Her music can be heard on radio stations in the US and Canada, where her latest record charted among the TOP FIVE FOLK/ROOTS ALBUMS on the Galaxie Network. She has shared the stage with Denali, Alana Davis, Dayna Kurtz, Louise Taylor, Girlyman, Tracy Grammer, Melissa Ferrick, Ember Swift, Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons, and many others.

-- RADIO/AIRPLAY FOR "PORCUPINE" --

* One of the TOP FOLK ALBUMS of July, according to FOLK DJ in 2004 (two full months before the retail release), alongside Loretta Lynn & Natalie Merchant

* XM SATELLITE RADIO features "Porcupine" on Channel 51 - Unsigned - and on the RADAR Report.

* One of the TOP FIVE International Folk/Roots Albums of October 2004 (up from #8 in September) on the Galaxie Network (CBC's Canadian satellite radio)

-- DISTRIBUTORS --

iTunes
Goldenrod Music, Inc.
The Orchard
Borders Books & Music
Amazon
CD Baby
Folkweb

Photos

Bio

In 2002, Lis Harvey set a Guinness World Record (TM) with her "Fifty State Tour": 52 solo shows in 50 US states in 60 days. That story landed her on CNN, NPR, and next to a giant pencil in Ripley's Believe It Or Not. In the years since, Lis has performed over 500 concerts and recorded four albums of "charmingly sophisticated folk-pop creations that, if you're not careful, will attach themselves to you before you realize it." [Isthmus Weekly] Her live show, says Dirty Linen, is "worth [every] bit of effort." Her new album, "Any Two Cards," is due out in April of 2008. It is the follow-up to "Porcupine," which won the 2005 Madison Area Music Award for Best Acoustic Album and All Music Guide's endorsement "as apt a summary of life's imperfection as anyone's attempted since Edie Brickell."

(BIO CONTINUED BELOW)