Liz Longley

Having established her base in Nashville, singer-songwriter Liz Longley fashioned an independent path that started with self-funded recordings, moved through contracts with two separate labels, and returned to full self-management once she concluded that retaining total authority was essential for operating in the modern music industry. Early releases on her own Luckelizz imprint, including 2007’s Take You Down and 2010’s Hot Loose Wire, earned her a following across New England, after which Sugar Hill issued her 2015 self-titled album—financed via Kickstarter—and the subsequent Weightless one year later, shortly before the label merged into Rounder. Her songs fuse folk, rock, Americana, and melodic alt-pop elements that resonate emotionally with audiences, prompting film and television placements of both original commissions and existing catalog tracks.

Longley spent her childhood in Chester County outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Piano and vocal studies began early; at nine she performed an original composition for her elementary-school classmates and was met with an immediate, enthusiastic response that she later identified as pivotal. While still enrolled at Downingtown West High School she started cutting demos, playing clubs, entering contests, and appearing at local festivals; during this period “Naked Trees” reached number one on GarageBand.com and remained there for several weeks.

After graduation she received a scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she focused on voice while continuing to write and record. Somewhere in the Middle, her first self-released album, was completed as a student. She also claimed first place in the Rocky Mountain Folk Fest Songwriter Showcase and shared victory in the Mountain Stage New Song Contest. Upon finishing her degree in 2010, Longley captured three additional songwriting honors—the BMI John Lennon Songwriting Scholarship Competition, the International Acoustic Music Awards, and the Chris Austin Songwriting Contest—while completing her follow-up, Hot Loose Wire. That set included two award-winning originals plus a cover of Van Morrison’s “Moondance” and entered regular rotation on Sirius XM.

Her profile expanded quickly as she shuttled between Boston and New York, supporting Shawn Colvin, Paula Cole, Nanci Griffith, and Amos Lee and accepting scoring assignments for screen projects. Songs appeared on the ABC medical series NY Med, and “This Is Not the End” featured prominently in the final episode of Army Wives. In 2011 she settled in Nashville and began co-writing sessions with Amy Stroup, Phillip LaRue, Peter Groenwald, and Blake Stratton; those collaborations yielded the six-song Inside This Song EP, released in late 2012.

Following further touring and writing, Longley launched a Kickstarter campaign whose $35,000 target rose to $55,000. She signed with Sugar Hill in 2014 and tracked the self-titled album at Ocean Way Studios alongside producer Gus Berry, engineer Gary Paczosa, and top session musicians. Lead single “Bad Habit” performed strongly digitally; the full album arrived in March 2015, after which she embarked on her first national headlining tour. Returning to the studio in winter 2016, she completed Weightless, issued the following August. Streaming charts embraced the advance track “Swing,” while a re-recorded “Rescue My Heart” had already been placed in ABC’s Switched at Birth and MTV’s Scream: The TV Series.

After nationwide and Canadian touring, Longley worked again in 2018 with producer Paul Moak. Concord/Rounder ultimately declined to release the finished album despite its quality, prompting her September 2019 Kickstarter to repurchase the masters; the campaign’s $45,000 goal was surpassed more than threefold. Funeral for My Past appeared in April 2020 on Tone Tree Music.