Lisa Carman

Lisa J Carman- www.lisacarman.com
Americana Folk Rock

 Lisa is an independent artist and an independent soul. Her musical roots are in women’s country, folk, blues, and rock, and as a lyricist she writes with a singular, vital force. Communicating intimacy, she has a voice that resonates powerfully with music lovers. Whether you hear her live, or listen in your truck or kitchen, you will be struck by her hard-won western strength as well as the softer-edge of vulnerability in her performances.

Two singles,  “In Love and Loss” and “Language of Love,” respectively won the Singer Songwriter category of the year and “Song of the Year”  in the 2015 New Mexico Music Awards (NMMA) in Albuquerque, NM.    The single “Something About” won for Lisa Carman Singer Songwriter of the Year in 2013 at the NMMA awards.  

A double record release in 2011 “The Pony I Rode In On” showcased the jazz influences she grew up with while “Coming of Age” celebrated true Americana.  “Same Sun and Moon” from Coming Of Age garnered her the second NMMA trophy for Americana Song of the Year in 2012.

Lisa was also the NMMA award winner for 2008 country song of the year, "Count Me In" and was chosen for Violet Femmes 2008 compilation CD, as a singer, songwriter, producer, and musician.

Carman grew up in the open country near Rochester, New York, where she learned to sing and play the piano in early grade school. By her teenage years, she was reading music and singing in a four-piece pop vocal group around town. In high school, Carman sang lead in a rock and roll band doing hit covers. “Being the only one who could sing, I had to learn the ‘guy’ songs as well as the female hits of the ‘60s,” remembers Carman.  Off to college in upstate New York, she became a voice major studying alongside the “opera divas”.

“I felt totally out of place. So my secret life was the gigging pubs in town,” she says. Before she was twenty, Carman got up the nerve to write her own material, and then replaced her electric guitar with a Yamaha 12-string. In 1977, Carman found a partner, Sally McCarthy. As a female duo, the two women played around western Massachusetts and New York, working the songwriting craft in earnest. Carman now played banjo and dobro as well as guitar, and McCarthy played guitar and bass.

Lisa Carman married and raised three children, leading to new experiences, the discovery of new strengths, and new material. She balanced her marriage and family life with her own singing and songwriting. In the 80s, Carman and her family started spending summers in Montana. “I was slowly being won over to the west and its vistas and ways of living.” It was during those summers that Carman began to work on a CD. In 1991, she released her first self-produced CD, Full Moon Montana, and despite the pull of the west, she continued to live and perform back east.

After a soul-searching breakup at the end of the decade, Carman relocated to Montana full-time. Now based in the geographical center of the state in Lewistown, Montana, Carman joined a touring rock band with great regional acclaim. She found a steadfast dedication to her music. Carman’s sophomore album, Naked Heart, was released in 2002. She was coming into her own.

All over again, she fell in love with the spiritual geography and the artistic inspiration of the American west. She told herself: “Write, sing, believe, and do it over and over and over.”

Change brought growth and growth brought change. Carman decided it was time to “up and move to Missoula and the city.” Out there, in the western part of the state, where the skies were as big as the mountains, Carman’s desire to record again was strong. With Heart Songs, she stepped out with the “living room recording” as she calls her 2003 album.

Carman recounts, “While I was in Missoula, I was turned on to an LA producer named Dan Marfisi -- smartest move I ever made... After prerecording the rhythm tracks, I left for his Jones House studio to lay down specials and all the vocals.” From Marfisi, she learned a great deal about recording and producing, and knew she had it in her to keep it up. The result was Tame Me (2004), a CD which was mixed and mastered by the singer-songwriter herself. This was different. This was a full production, pop-rock CD. Carman was now in her groove. The album is still her best seller.

Her latest album, The Way (2016), is new ground for Carman. The Way is a Christian Folk Rock album and a product of one of Lisa’s clients bringing his lyrics to lessons, and she composing the music, arranging and producing.  

Three new albums are in process featuring genres of Americana, New Thought, and “feel good” Folk. Stay tuned for releases in 2017!