Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands
Stoughton Opera House 381 E. Main St., Stoughton, Wisconsin 53589
Tickets $25
press release: Twenty albums and countless Grammy nominations in, ace fiddler Laurie Lewis can trace her musical origins back to the Berkeley Folk Festival, just down the street from where she grew up. “You could hear all kinds of music, and it just really grabbed me,” said Lewis of the festival. “It just totally busted my ears open and got me really excited about folk music.”
That excitement began in the 1970’s with the ear-busting folk music of legands Doc Watson, Jean Ritchie, and Mississippi John Hurt. That’s the same music that made Lewis pick up the guitar and the bluegrass banjo, eventually leading her down to Paul’s Saloon in San Francisco where she had an epiphany. “I saw fiddlers live,” she remembers, “and it knocked me out. I realized I could be a fiddler.”
Sure enough, Lewis was soon up on Paul’s stage playing bass for the Phantoms of the Opry. One gig led to another until she was fully ingratiated in the Bay Area bluegrass scene. But like most artists, it wasn't a straight shot to the spotlight. Lewis had a detour by way of Marin Violin, a shop she owned and maintained for eight years, all the while writing songs of her own. Eventually the pull of the music got to be too much. “If I just do this one recording,” she thought, “I’ll get my songs out the way I hear them in my head, and then I can go back to my violin shop.” Instead, the recording took her down her true path and she’s never looked back.
“Laurie Lewis continues to successfully walk the high wire above esoteric country, combining elements of bluegrass, folk and pure country to form her own seamless mix…Lewis is impossible to categorize.”-Billboard
On Thursday, March 15, Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands play the STOUGHTON OPERA HOUSE at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased online at www.stoughtonoperahouse.com or by calling 608-877-4400.