Lizzie & The Makers
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Lizzie & The Makers

Brooklyn, NY | Established. Jan 01, 2011 | SELF

Brooklyn, NY | SELF
Established on Jan, 2011
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"A Smoldering Acoustic Set and an Electric Williamsburg Gig by Lizzie & the Makers"

The blues can be primeval, and otherworldly, and sometimes just plain chilling. Lizzie Edwards, frontwoman of Lizzie & the Makers, doesn’t limit her songs to a simple 1-4-5. And her subject matter extends a lot further beyond your usual soul/blues turf . Last week, her band’s flickering, blue-flame, semi-acoustic set at Pete’s Candy Store featured a song about a breakdown on the highway and all its ominous implications, along with a handful of angst-fueled oldschool soul ballads. But there was also a number drawing on the Orpheus/Euridyce myth, another inspired by the Rachmaninoff C Sharp Minor Prelude, and a sardonically moody, psychedelically enveloping one about getting fired from a well-known Brooklyn music venue. Lizzie & the Makers are plugging all of their amps in for their next show on August 26 at 9 PM at Black Bear Bar on North Sixth Street in Williamsburg (the old Galapagos/Public Assembly space), where you can expect the band to deliver their usual mix of thrills and chills. But in its own quiet way, last week’s show was every bit as intense.

Most high-voltage bands are completely out of their element in an acoustic setting. This band is all about dynamics, which explains why they didn’t lose any edge even if the volume was way down. And it gave Edwards and her harmony singers this time out- Mary Spencer Knapp and Sarah Wise – a chance to bring extra nuance and mystery to the songs’ darkest corners. Lonely Soul, with its eerie three-part harmonies, took on a Halloweenish tinge, bassist Tony Tino supplying a brooding pulse for this doomed exploration of abandonment in Greek mythology. Guitarists Greg McMullen and James Winwood exchanged solos, moving from elegant spirals to deep-sky psychedelia in Far from Home, the late-night breakdown scenario

In front of the band crammed onto the stage behind her, Edwards rocked a fire-engine-red vintage sundress. By halfway through the set, she was into her second glass of straight whiskey, but even in the evening’s tropical heat, it didn’t visibly affect her. The dusky ambience extended from the band to the crowd and held everybody in its grip. A darkly rustic oilcan slide guitar solo from McMullen lit up Hopeless, an uneasy nighttime street scene. You might not think that an acoustic version of a big barnburner would play up its underlying southern boogie feel, but that’s what the band did with Free. The most psychedelic of all the songs was the brooding, distantly Beatlesque anthem Sleep It Off, as woundedly imagistic as it was bleary-eyed in its allusive account of the aftermath of getting fired from the old Trash Bar. Edwards, who also worked at Pete’s for a time, knows her turf. They wrapped up the set with a soaringly crescendoing take of the full-tilt boogie The Bear and its tense wee-hours tale of averting disaster at the last second, something Edwards also seems to know something about. - New York Music Dailey


"Lizzie & the Makers Bring Their Incandescent Psychedelic Blues and Soul Back to the West Village"

Lizzie & the Makers are one of one of New York’s most distinctive, exhilarating bands. They jam, but they keep their solos short and spot-on, usually two or maybe three bars at the most. Their inspirations are classic Chicago blues and southern soul, but they also have a psychedelic side: they’re closer to Robert Cray – with a charismatic woman out in front of the band – or Led Zep than, say, Amy Winehouse. Intense frontwoman Lizzie Edwards might not only be the best blue-eyed soul singer in New York: she might be the best blue-eyed soul singer anywhere. She and her dynamic band make a return trip to the West Village on June 23 at 10:30 PM at the Bitter End. Cover is $10.

Their last gig there was a firestorm of smart, incisive playing and fearless, impassioned songs. They wasted no time in taking the energy to redline with the hard blues of Fight Song: Edwards’ smoldering chorus mantra was “I’m ready,” bolstered by the harmonies of Erica Smith and Sarah Wise, guitarist Greg McMullen adding a searing, shivery solo over John Deley’s similarly simmering organ.

Edwards led the band into the explosively slinky 3.5 with her signature, meticulously turbocharged alto vocals, part satin, part siren; it’s hard to think of any other singer with such a ferociously potent low register who can sound so pillowy and warmly enveloping as she goes up the scale. McMullen traded a couple of tantalizing bars with Stratocaster player James Winwood over the nonchalantly swaying groove of bassist Brett Bass and drummer Phil Cimino.

The three women built a whole darkly ecstatic gospel church worth of harmony in Free,. a defiantly swaying, altered boogie, Winwood’s wry sense of humor front and center as he put the bite on his bluesmetal licks. Deley’s organ and McMullen’s classic Muscle Shoals riffs fueled It’s Not Me, It’s You as Edwards channeled blue-flame cynicism: the way Deley voiced what would otherwise have been a blues harp solo was cool, and surreal to the extreme.

The band hit a jackhammer shuffle groove with Hopeless, Edwards and her choir reaching peaks that bands like Heart only dream of, the vengeance in Edwards’ “can you turn me away?” arguably the high point of the set. She brought a high-voltage psychedelic edge to Bonnie Raitt’s Real Man and then brought the lights down for the swaying, explosively crescendoing Lonely Soul and its searing blend of roadhouse rock and restless early 70s Zep.

The group channelled a surreally echoing angst, Abbey Road Beatles slipping unexpectedly into soul with Sleep It Off, then hit a defiant peak with Blue Moon as McMullen hit his wah pedal and screamed behind Edwards’ wounded wail. They wound up the set with the furious, fearless shuffle The Bear, a launching pad for Winwood’s most concise, purist playing.

Edwards, being one of New York’s most in-demand singers, gets around a lot. Besides this band, she leads a similarly adrenalizing gospel group, Lizzie & the Sinners, where she also sings alongside Smith and Wise. She was one of the highlights of the 50th anniversary of Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde fest at Hifi Bar earlier this month, where she raised the roof with a scorching take of Pledging My Time. And she was front and center on several numbers at this past week’s Squeeze cover night there, where C.P. Roth, Tom Shad and Dave Foster’s all-star band played the British new wave band’s classic Argybargy and East Side Story albums pretty much note-for-note, all the way through, no small achievement. - New York Music Daily


Discography

Still working on that hot first release.

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Bio

Lizzie Edwards

Lizzie is a born musician.  From age 4 she was trained as a classical pianist and has taken vocal lessons from the renowned Don Lawrence. Her Dad was a constant on the 60’s rock scene, acting as sideman for Chuck Berry and touring with Martha and The Vandellas and the Dave Clark Five. Her grandmother a classical harpsichordist and her grandfather an opera singer, a love and ability for all music truly courses through her veins.

With Lizzie and the Makers, she has rocked up and down the  East Coast and as far west as sunny Los Angeles.  Belting out original, soulful, and psychedelic blues and hard rock tunes evoking The Black Crowes,  Bonnie Raitt, Freddie King, and a hint of Led Zeppelin.

A staple of the NYC music scene and with influences ranging from Paul Butterfield to Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lizzie has been a guest at many NYC all-star jams at the Bitter End, and has brought the house down as a lead singer of her side project “Murderers' Row” which pays tribute to artists such as Paul McCartney, Mavis Staples, Bonnie Raitt, and Faces.


Greg McMullen

Greg describes his music style as "sonic deconstruction on electric/acoustic/resophonic/lap/pedal steel/bass guitars, and other devices..." Trying to bridge the gap between Arto Lindsay and Joe Walsh, Greg has played with Chris Whitley, Reeves Gabrels (David Bowie/The Cure), Meshell Ndegeocello, Trixie Whitley, Twilight Singers, Bonsai, Bentmen, Matt White, Speedbuggy USA, and the Glenn Branca Ensemble. He is supported by Ernie Ball/Music Man, Mesa/Boogie, Voodoo Labs, and Electro-Harmonix.


Brett Bass

Brett Bass grew up in Lubbock, TX where he played as many local bars as possible throughout junior high and high school.  In 1998 he moved to New York City and quickly began playing regularly on Bleecker street and the lower East Side with a variety of singers, songwriters, bands and pickup bands.


Bass has toured the country and world with a diverse list of folks including Bernie Worrell, Regina Spektor, Enrique Iglesias, Chris Barron (the Spin Doctors), Darlene Love, and Gregg Allman. The core of the Makers' backbone, Brett has quietly been a hammer to the railroad of down home, down hard rhythm section for Lizzie and the Makers from the get go.

Bryan Bisordi

Bryan began studying with master drummer Michael Carvin, and has since graduated from his school of drumming. He has also studied with Kevin Norton, Bill Goodwin, Amy Putnam, and Scott Ketron.

Bryan’s experiences have taken him all over the US, Europe, Japan and the Middle East, led to television and radio appearances on NBC, BBC (UK) and RTE (Ireland), and include performances at Lincoln Center, Terminal 5 and Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, Blue Note Jazz Clubs, and hundreds of other venues in NYC and around the country.

Bryan has performed with numerous live acts all over the world. These include Ron Pope, Great Elk and Hesta Prynn. As well as Liptalk, Janita (Engine House Records), Bonsai, Zach Berkman, Nell Bryden (Cooked Vinyl), Gyroscone, Danny Ross (Ammul Records), Big Plastic and Speedbuggy..

Band Members