There are, of course, many songs in the folk tradition about 'women done wrong', 'damsels in distress' etc. But there are many, many wonderful songs about women who took life by the horns and made their mark. What fun to explore this theme with Judy Cook and Lisa Null, two of the finest female traditional folk singers on the East Coast! Judy and Lisa are known in the folk world as "singers' singers" - role models for aspiring traditional vocalists who study their technique and repertoire. They are the real thing - grounded in the song tradition, and full of the joy of singing.
Born in Virginia, Judy Cook grew up with singing from both parents and a love for music. “We sang at the table, we sang washing dishes, we sang riding in the car, they sang lullabies to us.” Judy’s sense of whimsy and joy of singing surely date from her earliest years.
As she took her place in the folk community, Judy began researching the songs she loved and discovered the wealth of written, recorded, and personal sources for traditional songs and ballads. She began performing professionally in the early 1990’s when people she met at song swaps began asking her to sing at their festival’s and coffeehouses. “My self confidence grew as I realized that there are a lot of people who love the songs I sing, and that I get such joy from sharing them with those people.” She has quickly come to be well respected on both sides of the Atlantic as a singer and propagator of the old songs. Her joy in singing, deep respect for the tradition, and sense of humor delight her listeners.
Judy’s first full length recording of unaccompanied traditional songs and ballads, “ If You Sing Songs…” was released in 1998, followed two years later by “Far From the Lowlands”. Her most recent CD is , Tenting Tonight: Songs of the Civil War. Visit Judy's website at http://www.judycook.net/ .
Lisa Null is known for her rich, skillful voice that cuts to the heart of a song. She researches forgotten gems, mining them from obscure sources and polishing them—many other performers acquire some of their best material when Lisa brings it to their attention.
Performing with guitarist Bill Shute throughout England, Canada, and America during the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lisa appeared several times on "A Prairie Home Companion" and at major venues such as the Philadelphia, Winfield, and Winnipeg Folk Festivals. She also developed concerts for the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History and co-directed folk festivals at the University of Maine, Wesleyan University, and metropolitan Washington. Lisa’s interests led her to co-found Green Linnet Records with Pat Sky. Originally dedicated to old Irish airs and piping tunes, the two soon broadened its mission to include traditional music of both America and the British Isles. Eventually, Lisa sold the company and returned to college and graduate school in order to study folklore and history. Her collecting efforts have taken her to such locales as Indonesia, Newfoundland, and Waterbury, Connecticut, and she taught several courses in American Musical Life at Georgetown University. Nowadays, she worries less about the scholarly side of folk music, and simply sings the old songs she loves best, from oral tradition to early Tin Pan Alley.
Since moving to Washington D.C. in 1991, Lisa sings mostly in small, intimate places where she can draw audiences into a deeply, shared experience. She is as comfortable with a British ballad as an obscure labor anthem or a Gene Autry cowboy song. The songs she has written herself pop up with some frequency in the repertoires of other performers. Her early Green Linnet recordings with Bill Shute (Feathered Maiden and American Primitive) have recently been reissued as CDs on Folk-Legacy Records of Sharon Connecticut (http://www.folk-legacy.com/store/Scripts/default.asp).
The rare singer develops an authoritative but humble presence when communicating the true spirit of a song. Lisa gets in touch with that spirit as few singers can.