LISA NULL

Ballad singer extraordinaire 

Lisa Null is a mainstay and an inspiration for singers and folk music fans in Washington, DC and on the national folk music scene for more than 50 years. Lisa performs and collects traditional folksongs from North America, Ireland, and Great Britain. She is a strong singer whose indomitable spirit shines through every song she performs. Lisa brings a deep, scholarly interest to bear on her material and has a background in folklore and history, both of which she taught at Georgetown University for several years.  In addition to being a performer and teacher, she also is a “song-catcher” who traveled to Ireland to help record Seamus Ennis, the great folklore collector and master of the Irish bagpipes. Ennis urged her to explore the wonderful but neglected trove of American-Irish traditional song, which has formed an important part of her repertoire ever since. She also sings her own songs, a variety of historical and good-time “chorus” songs, and many old-timey country numbers.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Lisa developed an international reputation singing throughout the United States, Canada, and England. She has appeared several times on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.” In the early 1970s, she co-founded Green Linnet, the celebrated Irish music record label, in partnership with the folksinger and master uilleann pipe maker, Pat Sky. Green Linnet operated out of her house until the mid 1980s, when she moved from Connecticut to Washington, DC, and transferred ownership of the company to Wendy Newton.

A struggle with cancer and other health issues forced Lisa to put her musical career on hold for more than a decade. Now, Lisa is back! Researching, editing, and teaching voice from her Silver Spring home, Lisa travels all over the Washington, DC, area in her bright red mobility scooter. She is beginning to tour again and has recently played festivals ranging from British Columbia to North Carolina to northern New England. She just recorded a two-CD album of favorite traditional songs as well as some of her own newer songs and tunes. She calls the album, “Legacies” and it will be released on the Folk-Legacy label in 2015.