Lisa Cerbone

Lisa Cerbone initially approached musical instruments in a secretive manner during her teenage years. She would linger until her younger brother’s band cleared out from their rehearsal space and then quietly experiment with the abandoned equipment. Frustrated by attempts to replicate existing material, she instead began composing original pieces. Over time she emerged as a highly regarded, inventive, and prolific singer/songwriter whose self-titled debut appeared in 1993. Atlanta-based Ichiban Records subsequently signed her and released two further albums, Mercy and Close Your Eyes. During this period she received consecutive Washington Area Music Association awards honoring her as alternative music’s Best Female Vocalist. Several of her compositions appeared in films and on series such as Homicide: Life on the Streets.

After earning a degree from the University of Maryland, Cerbone spent five years teaching in public schools. Growing discontented by 1992, she stepped away from full-time classroom duties yet continued working part-time as a writing tutor while redirecting her primary energy toward music with greater openness than before. She allotted herself a two-year window of intensive effort to establish a foothold in the industry. Savings from her teaching income financed her independent debut recording; within less than twenty-four months Ichiban Records extended a contract. The 1995 album Close Your Eyes constituted a reissue of that earlier debut, incorporating minor revisions. Mercy followed in 1997 as a live recording. Ordinary Days, issued in 2003 and produced by Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon, preceded the understated and elegant We Were All Together in 2008. She has toured throughout North America, sharing stages with Lori Carson, Ben Harper, the Cowboy Junkies, and Lloyd Cole. Originally from New Jersey, she resides with her family in Baltimore, Maryland, alongside her husband, guitarist Eric Jensen.