| |
Lisa Loeb
b. Lisa Anne Loeb, 11 March 1968, Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Singer-songwriter Loeb grew up in Dallas and attended Brown University, where she played in a band with her friend Liz Mitchell and Duncan Sheik. Relocating to New York she recorded a demo tape and toured incessantly with her band Nine Stories, comprising Tim Bright (guitar), Jonathan Feinberg (drums) and Joe Quigley (bass). She sprang to fame in 1994 when her friend, actor Ethan Hawke, persuaded the producers of the movie Reality Bites to use her song "Stay (I Missed You)" as its theme. The result was a US number 1 despite Loeb not yet having a recording contract. That situation was quickly rectified with the intervention of Geffen Records, who are alleged to have offered over $1 million for her signature. Some of the furor then died down while Loeb set about crafting her debut album, the first evidence of which arrived with the release of the US Top 20 single "Do You Sleep?" in September 1995. The accompanying album was co-produced with long-standing colleague Juan Patico and Nine Stories. The songs were drawn from over 10 years worth of writing, notably the very early composition "Garden Of Delights". In press interviews of the time she was keen to salute rock influences as diverse as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Fugazi, rather than the acoustic singer-songwriters with whom she has been most readily identified in the press. Tracks such as "Alone" and "It's Over" bore this out, though even the quieter selections were imbued with sarcasm and Loeb's confrontational instincts. Her sophomore set featured Quigley and new musicians Mark Spencer (guitar) and Ronny Crawford (drums). Introduced by the minor hit "I Do", Firecracker was a confident and mature collection that proved less popular than her debut. With Cake And Pie in 2002 she collaborated with songwriters of varied style, from Dweezil Zappa to Glenn Ballard.
External link
Lisa Loeb's Official Site
|
|
The bespectacled Lisa Loeb became every English major's dream date when "Stay," a single from the movie Reality Bites, made her the first unsigned artist to have a No. 1 hit single. She didn't remain without a label for long, and the Adult Alternative Folk-Rocker has since released two solid albums and had a moderate follow-up hit with "I Do." Loeb's catchy tunes are more grounded than Suzanne Vega's, but come across as more idiosyncratic and personal than Sheryl Crow's.
