Lisa Bastoni April 24, 2009

Lisa Bastoni got her first guitar from her grandmother at age 13. A native of Westport, CT, she grew up in an artistic family that encouraged her early attempts at writing and singing songs. After graduating from Skidmore College with a degree in Art History, she moved to Boston to work at an art gallery on Newbury Street. Music continued to lure, and Lisa began to hit all the local open mikes in earnest.

Lisa established herself in the thriving Boston music scene around 2001, when she quit her day job to perform on local subway platforms and on the corners of Harvard Square. Lisa’s experiences busking gave her the confidence to branch out and try to make a ‘go’ of living the life of a traveling singer-songwriter.

From 2001 through 2006, Lisa traveled all around the country, playing her music in clubs and coffeehouses from coast to coast. Lisa appeared in the 2002 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival Emerging Artist Showcase, and had a song featured on the Best of Boston compilation CD in 2004. Her debut album Your First Sweetheart (2004) was well received by reviewers and community folk radio stations in Boston and elsewhere. Her most recent album, the intimate Small Time Big Town (2006), was recorded in a friend’s apartment in Austin, TX.

In addition to her solo career, Lisa has toured with Naomi Sommers as the “organic slow-grass” duo Gray Sky Girls. She has shared stages with many notable musicians, including Arlo Guthrie, Lori McKenna, and Regina Spektor, to name just a few. From Club Passim in Cambridge, MA, to the Living Room and the Bitter End in New York City, to countless venues all around the country, Lisa has, in the words of one reviewer, “traveled all the hard roads and ended up more hopeful than bitter, which is a tremendous step.”

Official Website: http://www.myspace.com/perkscoffeehouseproductions