Biography
At age eighteen, Lucy Kaplansky stunned residents of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood beside the University of Chicago by bypassing college and traveling instead to New York City with her boyfriend to launch a career as a folksinger. Fifteen years afterward, having qualified as a clinical psychologist while also becoming a sought-after duet and harmony singer, she made the unexpected choice to abandon both her private practice and her staff position at a New York hospital in order to sing full time.
Attracted to Greenwich Village during the folk revival of the late 1970s, she performed regularly at Gerde’s Folk City. In 1982 she joined the CooP (later known as Fast Folk) and appeared on nine of its musical magazines alongside Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, John Gorka, Richard Shindell, and fellow artists. By 1983, however, Kaplansky had entered New York University to train as a psychologist. Already respected on the folk circuit for her crystalline harmonies, she contributed backing vocals to Nanci Griffith’s Lone Star State of Mind and Little Love Affairs, performed in New York clubs as a duo with Colvin, and completed her Ph.D. at Yeshiva University. When record labels expressed interest in the duo, Kaplansky declined; instead she accepted a post as staff psychologist at a New York hospital and opened a private practice, while Colvin issued her first three Columbia albums.
Intended both as documentation of Kaplansky’s earlier folk work and as an opportunity for Colvin to produce, the pair recorded Kaplansky’s debut, The Tide. The album contained three original songs by Kaplansky plus covers of material by Richard Thompson, Sting, and Robin Batteau. Released in 1994 by Red House Records, the record prompted Kaplansky to return to full-time touring. Over the next several years she performed across the coffeehouse, church-hall, and festival circuit, accompanying herself on guitar and appearing in concert with Shindell and Gorka. Red House issued her second album, Flesh and Bone, in 1996; produced by Anton Sanko (known for Suzanne Vega’s Solitude Standing and Days of Open Hand), it featured eight originals co-written with her husband, filmmaker Richard Litvin, along with duets involving Shindell and Gorka. Ten Year Night followed in 1999. Every Single Day appeared on Red House in 2001, Red Thread in 2004, and Over the Hills in 2007, each also issued by the label.
Attracted to Greenwich Village during the folk revival of the late 1970s, she performed regularly at Gerde’s Folk City. In 1982 she joined the CooP (later known as Fast Folk) and appeared on nine of its musical magazines alongside Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, John Gorka, Richard Shindell, and fellow artists. By 1983, however, Kaplansky had entered New York University to train as a psychologist. Already respected on the folk circuit for her crystalline harmonies, she contributed backing vocals to Nanci Griffith’s Lone Star State of Mind and Little Love Affairs, performed in New York clubs as a duo with Colvin, and completed her Ph.D. at Yeshiva University. When record labels expressed interest in the duo, Kaplansky declined; instead she accepted a post as staff psychologist at a New York hospital and opened a private practice, while Colvin issued her first three Columbia albums.
Intended both as documentation of Kaplansky’s earlier folk work and as an opportunity for Colvin to produce, the pair recorded Kaplansky’s debut, The Tide. The album contained three original songs by Kaplansky plus covers of material by Richard Thompson, Sting, and Robin Batteau. Released in 1994 by Red House Records, the record prompted Kaplansky to return to full-time touring. Over the next several years she performed across the coffeehouse, church-hall, and festival circuit, accompanying herself on guitar and appearing in concert with Shindell and Gorka. Red House issued her second album, Flesh and Bone, in 1996; produced by Anton Sanko (known for Suzanne Vega’s Solitude Standing and Days of Open Hand), it featured eight originals co-written with her husband, filmmaker Richard Litvin, along with duets involving Shindell and Gorka. Ten Year Night followed in 1999. Every Single Day appeared on Red House in 2001, Red Thread in 2004, and Over the Hills in 2007, each also issued by the label.
Albums
