Laurie Lewis (born September 28, 1950 in Long Beach, California), is an American singer and bluegrass musician.
In the early 1970s she played with The Phantoms of the Opry, a bluegrass band from the San Francisco Bay Area. When the Phantoms broke up she co-founded the Good Ol' Persons, an all-female bluegrass band with Kathy Kallick. In 1979 she founded the Grant Street String Band, also including Beth Weil, Tom Bekeny, Greg Townsend, and Steve Krouse. In the late 1980s, she formed "Laurie Lewis and Grant Street". Since then, she has recorded solo and duo albums, usually accompanied by mandolin artist and singer, Tom Rozum. Nowadays, she often plays under different names with a fairly regular roster of musicians, calling themselves "Laurie Lewis and her Bluegrass Pals," "the Guest House Band"; in 2006, she renamed her group Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands.
She has won a Grammy ("True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe," 1997), and twice been named Female Vocalist of the Year by the IBMA (International Bluegrass Music Association).
If you listen down the backroads of acoustic Americana, however, you'll soon realize this soft-spoken, sweet-singing California fiddler, singer and songwriter is something very special. "Judging by the respect she has among fans and peers in the industry," says IBMA executive director Dan Hays, "Laurie is one of the pre-eminent bluegrass and Americana artists of our time. She spreads her talent over several genres - bluegrass, folk, country - and with the recognition she has within all those fields, I would certainly say she's one of the top five female artists of the last 30 years.
