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“A powerhouse performer adding her unique voice and talent to the national discussion of the state of social justice in America.”
– The Kennedy Center
New Orleans Folk Rock Diva Lilli Lewis is releasing Americana, her third full album for Louisiana Red Hot Records. The album was co-produced by Lewis and iconic indie producer Mark Bingham (Peter Stampfel, Hal Wilner, Allen Ginsberg…). Notable guest artists include cellist Rick Nelson (Afghan Whigs, Polyphonic Spree), folk favorite Gina Forsyth, and Seattle Blues Legend Lady A. The album will be released on CD and across all digital platforms on October 29th.
Thanks to the perils of five pandemic-era hurricanes, Americana was recorded across more than twice as many spaces, with the bulk of the load performed in New Orleans at Marigny Studios (recorded by Rick Nelson), and at Bingham’s own Nina Highway in Henderson, Louisiana. After performing for a full house at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation’s last show before lockdown, Lewis conceived of her record amidst quarantine conditions that were presenting an indefinite pause in an otherwise booked-out performance year. Without the pressure of upbeat, danceable shows on the agenda, Lewis turned to an abandoned bag of narrative songs that she felt were just a bit too delicate for the New Orleans club scene.
The record returned Lewis to her folk and roots origins, and reflects two sides of her America, that of her father’s church, and that of the “white-gaze” world that existed beyond those walls. Reuniting Country with its gospel and blues roots, the record’s Country Soul excursion begins with the Texas-tinged, Eliza Gilkeson inspired “Copper John,” but quickly shifts into the Rufus-esque Country-funk anthem “Wrecking Ball.” If the heart of the record is found in its benediction “My American Heart,” a song Mandy Patinkin referred to as “like listening to light,” the soul of the collection may be “A Healing Inside,” an a cappella, grounded declaration that features Lady A, the Seattle based Blues legend whose name has been famously usurped by the Nashville band in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Of the collection Lewis says “these stories were meant to reflect the humanity of the forgotten, because in times like these, it feels like dignity can seem really hard to come by.”
Life & Work
Bio:
Trained as an opera singer and classical pianist, singer-songwriter Lewis has been a composer, producer and performing artist for over two decades. She released her first album The Coming of John in 2003, and has been known as the Folk Rock Diva since performing in the Folk Rock band The Shiz, which she founded with her wife Liz Hogan in 2009.
Lewis has issued three critically acclaimed releases on Louisiana Red Hot Records where she serves as VP and the Head of A&R: The 2018 solo piano album The Henderson Sessions, 2019’s We Belong by the Lilli Lewis Project, and the 2020 My American Heart Red + Blue EP, which found one reviewer comparing Lewis to opera singer Jessye Norman, if she had been part of the folk-rock genre. In 2020, Lewis also released a single she co-wrote, co-produced and performed — the “Mask Up” anthem for a public health campaign from Louisiana Red Hot Records and WHIV-FM featuring New Orleans favorites Kirk Joseph, Glen David Andrews and Erica Falls.
Since the shutdown, Lewis has performed a powerful set for the Kennedy Center’s Arts Across America virtual series, played “My American Heart” for a streaming voters’ rights benefit (where Patinkin became a fan), and performed for WWOZ-FM’s Piano Night virtual benefit. She also was selected to be a Folk Alliance International delegate for Global Music Match, an online collaboration showcasing 78 artists from 17 countries.
Lewis has spent the better part of her 20 year career carving out space for herself in the music industry as an African-American queer woman of size. The Athens, Georgia native has recently been lending her voice to the industry’s need to diversify its precepts by facilitating Folk Alliance International’s “Committing to Conversation” initiative to develop safe space for diversity within the Folk community, and by frequently serving as a panelist to discuss challenges and solutions for the industry’s stated interest in diversity, equity and inclusion.
Lewis has gone beyond discussion by spearheading the “Country Soul Phone Book,” a directory (currently in beta) built in response to media outlets who reached out and asked for a central location to find BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and disabled artists who are typically underserved in Folk, Americana, Country, and adjacent genres. Lewis is also co-producing an inaugural “Black Opry Fest” that centers the contributions and artistry of African American artists in these genres, as part of an ongoing effort to develop a sustainable ecosystem for artists who often feel isolated and marginalized. The virtual festival and conference is scheduled to occur October 28-31.
Also an active composer, Lewis was recently commissioned by Loyola University’s Opera Workshop to contribute 12 original compositions for a cycle of micro-arias entitled “Cura Personalis” including this work for Fats Domino’s talented young grandson, award-winning tenor Antonio Domino:
When Lewis featured in the Americana Music Association’s virtual “Black Equity in Americana: A Conversation” live-stream, she stated “Black artists and black art have been at the heart of Americana since its inception, and now we’re in a position to address what this means from a relatively new point of view. It’s as if we’re being invited to celebrate the reality of the genre and its participants in a more overt and direct way.”
The Recôncavo is an almost invisible center-of-gravity. Circumscribing the Bay of All Saints, this region was landing for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history. Not unrelated, it is also birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. —Sparrow
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay. They paid.
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. (that's me left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).