Laurie Lewis (born 1950) is a fiddler, singer, songwriter, and bandleader from Berkeley, California. She has made more than 20 albums since 1986, won IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year in 1992 and 1994, and received the IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award in 2024. She won the California women’s fiddle championship twice before she ever led a band.
Why Lewis matters
Lewis showed that a woman from California could lead a bluegrass band, fiddle with the grit of the first generation, and write songs the rest of the field would cover. She built her own label and produced other artists’ records. She also taught. Kimber Ludiker and Tatiana Hargreaves both name her as the reason they play this music.
Life and career
Lewis was born on September 28, 1950, in Long Beach, California. Her family moved often until she was eight, then settled in Berkeley. She started on piano and violin, then heard Doc Watson and the Greenbriar Boys at the Berkeley Folk Festival and switched to folk guitar and fiddle. After high school she set music aside, but kept her fiddle under the bed.
In her early twenties she found the Bay Area bluegrass scene. She played in the Phantoms of the Opry with Pat Enright, who later co-founded the Nashville Bluegrass Band. She then co-founded the Good Ol’ Persons, an all-woman bluegrass band, with Kathy Kallick. In 1979 she formed the Grant Street String Band, where her songwriting moved to the front. She also played bass and sang with Dick Oxtot’s Golden Age Jazz Band.
Her first solo album, Restless Rambling Heart, came out in 1986. Tim O’Brien produced it. That same year she began working with mandolinist and singer Tom Rozum, her duet partner for the decades that followed. She directed Bluegrass Week at the Augusta Heritage workshops from 1986 to 1996 and ran the Bluegrass at the Beach camp on the Oregon coast with Rozum from 1992 to 2005. She named her band the Right Hands in 2006.
The IBMA named her Female Vocalist of the Year in 1992 and 1994. Her recording of Kate Long’s Who Will Watch the Home Place won IBMA Song of the Year in 1994. She sang and fiddled on True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe, which won the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album and the IBMA Album of the Year in 1997. Her duet album with Rozum, The Oak and the Laurel, was nominated for a Grammy in 1995, and The Hazel and Alice Sessions was nominated in 2017. She released Trees in 2024 and O California! in 2026. The IBMA gave her its Distinguished Achievement Award in 2024.
Playing style
Lewis plays fiddle the way the first-generation bluegrass fiddlers did: strong tone, a steady shuffle, and breaks that stay close to the melody of the song. Her own website says she showed how a female fiddler could match the strength and grit of the early players. Sam Bush said her fiddling “could be from the 1940s or from 2010.”
She plays an 1893 violin by Jerome Bonaparte Squier, the Boston maker. She also plays guitar and upright bass, and on stage she often switches between fiddle and guitar depending on who is singing lead. Her band arrangements leave room for a second fiddle, and Brandon Godman holds that chair in the Right Hands.
Influences and legacy
Lewis learned bluegrass in a Bay Area scene that valued playing together over cutting contests. Doc Watson and the Greenbriar Boys pulled her into folk music. Alice Gerrard became a mentor and friend, and Lewis produced Gerrard’s album Bittersweet and recorded Gerrard’s song Sweet South Anna River in 2026.
As a producer, she finished Music from Rancho DeVille for guitarist Charles Sawtelle after his death and produced records for Scott Nygaard, the T Sisters, and Molly Walker and Jacob Groopman. Her 2020 album and Laurie Lewis paired her with Molly Tuttle, Tatiana Hargreaves, and Leah Wollenberg beside old friends like Kallick, Rozum, and Mike Marshall. She mentored Kimber Ludiker, and Hasee Ciaccio, her bass player, also plays on Ludiker’s twin fiddle record with Deanie Richardson. Kathy Mattea and Missy Raines have recorded her songs.
Signature tunes and songs
Who Will Watch the Home Place Love Chooses You The Point of No Return Haven of Mercy Bury Me Beneath the Willow.
Essential recordings
Restless Rambling Heart (Flying Fish, 1986) Love Chooses You (1989) True Stories (Rounder, 1993) The Oak and the Laurel, with Tom Rozum (Rounder, 1995) Trees (Spruce and Maple, 2024)
Awards and honors
California women’s fiddle championship, two wins IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year (1992, 1994) IBMA Song of the Year, Who Will Watch the Home Place (1994) Grammy nomination, Best Traditional Folk Album, The Oak and the Laurel (1995) IBMA Album of the Year and Collaborative Recording of the Year, True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe (1997) Grammy Award, Best Bluegrass Album, True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe (1997, awarded to producer Todd Phillips) IBMA Collaborative Recording of the Year, Follow Me Back to the Fold (2001) Grammy nomination, The Hazel and Alice Sessions (2017) IBMA Collaborative Recording of the Year, The Barber’s Fiddle (2020) IBMA Distinguished Achievement Award (2024)
Watch and listen
Lewis talks about and plays her 1893 Squier violin for Peghead Nation. Listen to the tone she pulls from it.
Lewis and the Right Hands play the Strawberry Music Festival in 2025. Watch how she runs the band from the fiddle and the guitar.
What to learn from Lewis
Learn Who Will Watch the Home Place from True Stories. It is a slow song, and the fiddle part shows how to play under a vocal without stepping on the words. The technique to steal is her singing while she fiddles. Most fiddlers stop playing to sing. Lewis keeps a light shuffle going under her own voice and fills the gaps between lines. Start with a simple song in G, hold a double stop under each vocal phrase, and add a short fill at the end of each line. It turns a fiddler into a bandleader.
Sources
Laurie Lewis, IBMA award recipients About, Laurie Lewis Laurie Lewis, official site Laurie Lewis, Trees, Bluegrass Today Laurie Lewis, Wikipedia Laurie Lewis’ 1893 Jerome Bonaparte Squier Violin, Peghead Nation, YouTube
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the bluegrass fiddle guide for more bluegrass fiddlers. Lewis mentored Kimber Ludiker and Tatiana Hargreaves. She sang on the Bill Monroe tribute beside Stuart Duncan and Bobby Hicks, and she recorded The Barber’s Fiddle with Becky Buller.