Listening to Laurie Lewis play the fiddle and sing is somewhat like punching in random numbers on a jukebox: You’re never quite sure what you’ll hear. It may be a traditional bluegrass tune, an original song or perhaps an Irish air.
Her selections are eclectic, a combination of bluegrass, folk, country, jazz and swing. No wonder some critics don’t know how to classify her. In their attempts, some have called her style “newgrass” or new acoustic music.
“I’ve been called new traditionalist, whatever that is,” Lewis said in a phone interview from her home in Berkeley, Calif. “I shy away from putting a label on what I do. By no means do we play only bluegrass. That’s why I hate categories. Everybody’s looking for definitions. I unfortunately try to defy them as much as I can.”
Lewis will showcase her mixed bag of acoustic music at 8 p.m. Friday at the Arts Center of the College of Du Page, 22nd Street and Lambert Road, Glen Ellyn (708-858-3110).
Lewis, who plays fiddle and bass, will perform her own songs as well as traditional bluegrass tunes. She’ll be joined by her band, Grant Street, which consists of Tom Rozum on mandolin and fiddle, Peter McLaughlin on guitar and Cary Black on bass.
“They’re all great harmony singers, so we do a lot of quartet numbers,” Lewis said. “Being that we’re all singing, it’s pretty exciting. Everybody is involved in the music. I like to have a very interactive band.”
Lewis has released five albums, including two solo releases and one with Grant Street. She recently has been recording on Chicago’s Flying Fish label. She’s back in the studio again, working on a third solo album that she was going to call “True Stories,” until she learned that the Talking Heads had already released an album with the same name.
She’s often compared to bluegrass musician Alison Krauss. “It’s very complimentary in some ways,” Lewis said.
“I think Alison is certainly a fantastic musician, a very gifted musician. But it’s kind of a sexist thing to keep comparing us. We both happen to play the fiddle and we both happen to front acoustic bands. Nobody compares two male bandleaders just because they happen to play the same instrument.”
Lewis was awarded the 1989-90 Country Album of the Year Award from the National Association of Independent Record Distributors and Producers. And last September she was voted female vocalist of the year by the International Bluegrass Music Association.
“I’m always surprised when I get these awards,” Lewis said. “I never expect them. I play the music I play, and I do the music I do, because I love it, and also because it’s my artistic outlet . . . It always kind of shocks me that there are a number of people that are paying attention and liking it.”
One person in the industry paying attention was country singer Kathy Mattea, who included Lewis’ original song “Love Chooses You” on her hit album “Willow in the Wind.”
Lewis, 42, began playing classical violin when she was 12. At 14, she picked up the folk guitar and banjo. “When I was in school, when they taught folk songs, I was always the avid one in class who learned all the words,” Lewis recalled. “They taught from a really great book which had tons of great old folk songs and fiddle tunes in it.
“I was exposed to so many different kinds of music and played so many different kinds of music. They all somehow find some little place in me where they stay, and they come out at odd times in my writing, when I really don’t expect them to.
“I’ve been influenced by everyone from Bill Monroe to the Beatles to Billie Holiday, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin and Carla Thomas. The list goes on and on and it stretches in many different directions.
“I love traditional music forms, the real visceral quality of early country music and bluegrass, and, for that matter, R&B and early jazz. There’s something that’s very raw and very creative. I really love that stuff.”
