Lisa Knapp

Lisa Knapp

Lisa Knapp is an English folk singer, songwriter, fiddle player and multi-instrumentalist from Balham in south London. Born in 1974, she grows up in London and comes to folk music after listening to a wide range of popular styles, from house and dance to pop, as well as artists such as The Waterboys and Van Morrison, through a friend’s record collection. She also spends time studying traditional singers and songs from the early 20th century through to the folk revival of the 1960s and 1970s, including material held at Cecil Sharp House in Camden.

Knapp becomes active in the traditional folk scene through singing and playing fiddle at folk clubs, including regular appearances at Court Sessions Folk Club and an early solo performance at Lewes Arms Folk Club. She also plays Irish sessions and appears as a guest for Irish fiddler and multi-instrumentalist Gerry Diver at Hammersmith Irish Centre in London. She later records and performs with Diver, who is her husband and producer, under the name Lisa Knapp & Gerry Diver.

Recordings and releases

Knapp begins recording her own material in 2003. The first track she records is “Blacksmith”, a York broadside ballad published in 1825 and best known through a 1971 version by Steeleye Span. Producer Youth remixes the track, and the finished version appears in 2006 on his folk compilation What The Folk Vol. 1 on Butterfly Records.

Her debut album, Wild and Undaunted, is put together with Gerry Diver in autumn 2005 and released in 2007 on Ear To The Ground Records. The album receives radio play on BBC Radio 1, 2 and 3, is named Mojo Folk Album of the Year, reaches number 5 in the iTunes chart, and is HMV Choice’s album of the month for May/June 2007.

Her 2013 album Hidden Seam includes contributions from Martin Carthy and Kathryn Williams. Its opening track, “Shipping Song”, uses lyrics drawn from BBC Radio 4’s Shipping Forecast. Another track from the album, “Two Ravens”, wins Best Original Song at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2014.

In 2017, Knapp releases Till April is Dead – A Garland of May, a concept album centred on the month of May. In 2025, she releases “Hinterland” with Gerry Diver as Lisa Knapp & Gerry Diver.

Recognition and festival appearances

Knapp receives strong reviews for several releases, including a five-star review for Hidden Seam from The Observer and a five-star review for Till April is Dead – A Garland of May from The Guardian. After the release of Wild and Undaunted, she plays more than twenty festival dates in summer 2007, including Green Man Festival, Larmer Tree Festival and Cambridge Folk Festival.