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 "I
have fallen in love with her beautiful album" - Huw Stephens,
Radio 1
Lisa Knapp is a fast emerging and highly distinctive artist
from one of the most creative and active underground music scenes
of recent times. She merges a radiant style of traditional folk
and self-penned song, with fiddle, hammer dulcimer, strings,
banjo and sonic delights from the technological age. Wild and
Undaunted is her debut album and is due for release via Ear
to the Ground Records in April 2007.
Lisa was born and grew up in South London's Tooting area. She
was brought up in a musical family where sing-alongs around
the piano were common, the old Bush record player was put to
good use and the school provided her with violin lessons. Lisa’s
musical development led her through drum and bass, teenage raves,
acid house and an electric guitar bought to learn Jimi Hendrix
songs.
Then, in her teens, she came across folk music when she heard
a friend's record collection. She listened to the extraordinary
voices, the vivid stories and the superb musicianship of Annie
Briggs, Shirley Collins, Martin Carthy and Pentangle and she
was hooked. Soon, a wide-eyed Lisa found herself drawn to the
London folk clubs.
"At the time I was completely out of step with my friends and
was one of the few young people there. Yet there was a special,
all-inclusive vibe within the club that felt right to me."
She dug her violin out of the loft and started to play again,
joining workshops and classes, playing at Irish sessions at
Tir Na Nog in Wandsworth and Kilkenny Tavern in South Wimbledon,
and doing floor-spots at folk clubs leading to a festival performance.
[Lisa] "It went really well and I thought, 'I could do this.'"
Then, just as everything was falling into place, serious health
problems put music on the back burner for a number of years.
During this time she met her now partner, Irish fiddler, Gerry
Diver and had a child. Encouraged by Gerry, she gradually returned
to music and recorded her version of the traditional song "Blacksmith"
for his debut album Diversions.
Influential rock producer Youth (The Verve/U2/Paul McCartney)
heard the track playing in a studio on London’s Tin Pan Alley,
Denmark Street.
[Lisa] "It was completely by chance. At the time he was running
an alternative folk night in Portabello with Simon Tong from
the Verve. He offered to work with me."
[Youth] "Lisa has a rare and untamed quality to her voice, unheard
since the days of Judy Sill, Sandy Denny and Buffy St Marie. Tapping
deep into the well of tradition, she keeps her feet firmly on
the ground of the current singer songwriter/alt-folk renaissance,
creating a uniquely timeless sound, raw in emotion and feel.
Beautiful!"
In early 2006 Lisa started to record tracks for her own debut
album, Wild and Undaunted, discovering a way to voice the
material which was all her own. Included on the album is a version
of "Blacksmith" remixed by Youth as well as three original songs
resulting from his encouragement. However, the album is above
all a collection of folk songs, old and new.
[Lisa] "Many of the songs on my album are arrangements of traditional
folk songs. I love the fact that these songs have been sung
by generations of people before they've reached me."
Lisa looks like a young woman in her 20s but this belies her
experience. Actually now in her early 30s, she is finally ready
to emerge a remarkably complete artist in her own right.
In Autumn 2006 Lisa performs with traditional folk performers
including Spiers & Boden and Julie Fowlis, while also performing
with the "nu-folk" set, amongst others, the much feted The Memory
Band.
Lisa Knapp has certainly made a remarkable first album. Wild
and Undaunted takes the listener on an enlightening journey,
giving newcomers and traditionalists a real taste of where folk
has come from, and an insight into where it might be heading.
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