by craig eddy
The fourteen year old cat gave me the once over making sure I was acceptable to have on the property. I had trekked up the half mile long dirt driveway to what might be called the Holler. Hidden outside the town of La Honda in a hidden magical homestead I found this months subject of The Face Of Local Music, Lisa Chupity. Lisa and Hubby Peter moved to the area about twenty eight years ago and live off the power grid in a quiet little paradise. Lisa has been captivated with music since she was six years old and first started playing the piano. At ten she started singing and at 11 picked up the guitar. At twelve she started playing reed instruments and stuck with clarinet until around thirty years old. Her main thing has been and continues to be the fingerstyle guitar. Lisa chooses guitar because you aren't stuck playing one note at a time like the reeds. Lisa loves playing in alternate tunings. That always makes it a challenge to watch her and try to figure out what the heck she is playing. She has played mostly as a soloist over the years. One exception was her best alltime gig playing to a sold out crowd with friend Rebecca Jaqua in France playing Americana, old time, and Bluegrass. Lisa really loves Jazz the most. Her main early influences were Joni Mitchell and Henry Mancinni. She studied under players like Pierre Bensusan, Lawrence Juber, Bill Culter and Bay Area resident Steve Coyle. Lisa started writing songs in 2004 and has a CD collection of great tunes entitled Grow Your Own, and she does, her own music, her own vegetables, her own power. Lisa is dealing with health issues that will keep her from gigging for now but she intends to focus more on writing songs in the future. You can look up Lisa on CD Baby, ReverbNation, and Itunes. Here's hoping we hear a lot more great music from up the Holler.
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