With all that guitar picking and doing graphic design with a mouse, I got bad carpal-tunnel and had to lay off for a while. While living in Big Sur, I picked up the guitar again and started learning some Peter Rowan and other finger-style guitar songs, like Dust Bowl Children. I really re-caught the bluegrass and old-time bug after going to Strawberry Music Festival for many years. I went through phases of playing the guitar, starting with acoustic at 9-12 and electric in high school, with a short stint with classical guitar in college. Our parents were also involved in local theatre and “Village Vaudeville.” Dad also played for dancers (his sister/our aunt was a ballet dancer), and we all performed in plays. One of my dad’s bands opened for BB King at the Stardust in Las Vegas where I got to meet BB, around age 13. The record player, 8-track, or radio was always playing.įunk and soul, Soul Train and American Bandstand often on TV, wacky parties with cocktails and singing. My parents could only agree on a few random albums like Neil Diamond, Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass, the Moody Blues, and James Taylor. My mom always played the Beatles and Neil Young, and funky aerobicize music like the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, Peaches and Herb, and the Bee Gees. On the stereo, our dad played a lot of show tunes, Harry Nilsson, Liza Minnelli, folk, rock, and bluegrass. My dad was basically a human jukebox, with a great memory for lyrics. I’m guessing you were exposed to a variety of styles. I ended up with his actual violin/fiddle. He used a light pink powder puff for a chin rest, and it had optional bridges-either an almond shell or a walnut shell for tonal variations. Our Grandpa Harry, my dad’s dad, made a one-string fiddle out of an old oil can and a broomstick. Us kids (three sisters) played piano starting at age 7, and got to choose what to play at age 9. Our dad played the most, and our mom played a little piano too.
It sounds like the entire family was musical. What was your first instrument and do you still have it?īesides the shared family piano where my sisters and I took lessons, I had a small classical nylon-string guitar that I started playing at age 9.
And when the music wasn’t live, the record player, 8-track, or radio was always on. Our house was always filled with music, mostly my dad playing and hamming it up with friends and neighbors stopping in, often unannounced, to play or listen, alongside all the weekly lessons and practicing. Then he started asking me to back him up on guitar while he played banjo. After we moved from Chicago to San Diego in 1970, he would drag us to Southern California bluegrass music festivals.
My dad is mostly a piano player, but he also played the banjo and learned from a Pete Seeger book while he was on the Navy ship heading to Okinawa in the ’60s. How did you come into the roots music fold? Berman co-founded the Crooked Jades with Jeff Kazor and the renowned all-woman old-time string band Stairwell Sisters. She also performs on clawhammer banjo, dobro, guitar, harmonium, and baritone ukulele. Bay Area based Lisa Berman is a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, known as a pioneer in bringing the Hawaiian slide guitar back to old-time music, and redefining its sound.