Lissie

Lissie is the professional name of Elisabeth Maurus, an American singer-songwriter from Rock Island, Illinois. Her music is generally described as folk rock, and she also sits within country, folk and rock traditions. She is active as a solo artist and has also worked as part of Lissie & Øystein Greni.

Early life and background

Lissie is born and raised in Rock Island. Her father is a physician and her mother is an interior designer. She shows an interest in singing and music from an early age, and plays the title role in Annie when she is nine. During high school, she says music is an important way of coping with the pressures of that period. After leaving school in her senior year, she completes her education through an alternative outreach centre.

She spends two years at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, where she opens for visiting musicians, and later spends a semester in Paris before finishing her studies in order to focus on music.

Recording career

Lissie releases a four-song EP in 2007, and her self-titled EP follows in 2009. That EP is produced by Bill Reynolds of Band of Horses and issued by Fat Possum. One track, “Oh Mississippi,” is co-written with Ed Harcourt. The release draws some radio play on KCRW and is included by Paste magazine among its notable musical debuts of the year.

In 2008, Lenny Kravitz invites her to open for his Love Revolution Tour after learning about her through a MySpace page. Around the same period, she co-writes “The Longest Road” with DJ Morgan Page; the track reaches number 4 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Songs chart, and a Deadmau5 remix of it is nominated for a Grammy in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category.

Her debut album, Catching a Tiger, is released on Columbia Records in 2010. It is recorded in Nashville in 2009 and produced by Jacquire King. The album includes “In Sleep” and “When I’m Alone”; the latter is later chosen by iTunes UK as its song of the year for 2010. She also tours in the United Kingdom in support of Joshua Radin around this time.

Subsequent releases include the live album Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire, the EP Covered Up With Flowers, the EP Love in the City, and the cover EP Cryin' To You. Cryin' To You comes out independently in 2014 and features versions of songs by Judas Priest, One Direction, Danzig, Drake and Bob Dylan.

Back to Forever follows in 2013 and includes the singles “Shameless” and “Further Away (Romance Police)”. In 2016 she releases My Wild West, which includes the promotional single “Hero,” the lead single “Don’t You Give Up On Me,” and “Daughters.” Later that year she issues Live at Union Chapel.

Castles is released in 2018 and includes the singles “Boyfriend,” “Blood & Muscle,” “Best Days” and “Love Blows.” In 2019 she releases the piano compilation When I’m Alone: The Piano Retrospective, followed by the EP Thank You to the Flowers in 2020 and Carving Canyons in 2022.

Other releases and formats

Across her career, Lissie releases five studio albums, two live albums, a piano compilation album and six EPs. Her catalogue also includes a self-titled EP first issued in 2007 and re-released in 2013.