Liz Green

Liz Green’s introduction to music was an education in pop, via her Dad’s mix tapes. Ranging from the Stones and Chuck Berry to Jackson 5 and Elton John, they inspired Liz to pick up a guitar, although it took her another seven years to learn four chords! It wasn’t until she discovered finger picking that she began playing ‘properly’ and writing her own songs. The style she has developed goes some way to explaining her love affair with country and blues, but the overriding impression Liz leaves is one of a unique, natural performer with a remarkable, rich voice. Many have said that Liz’s voice sounds like it comes from a 30s American Deep South diva rather than a 26 year old northern English girl, a voice that could easily be emanating from the surface of a dusty old 78.

Since playing her first tentative gigs at Fuel café in Manchester, Liz has come rather a long way. Two years ago she won the Glastonbury Emerging Talent competition, leading to the unprecedented invitation to open on the Pyramid Stage at the 2007 festival. She has hit everyone’s ‘one to watch’ radars from the Observer Music Monthly to Zane Lowe on Radio One. Added to this, after gracing the Mojo BBQ at last year’s SXSW, Liz impressed so much that the magazine listed her number one in their top ten acts to watch in 2008 and invited her to support Rachel Unthank on a Mojo tour. She has released two critically lauded singles on Humble Soul, with sessions and airplay on BBC Radio 1,2,3 and 6 Music, alongside online, local and regional shows.

Last summer, Liz played numerous festival shows including a return to Glastonbury and an amazing set on the Big Top stage at End of the Road festival. She has played several shows supporting Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, The Handsome Family, Cave Singers, Juana Molina, alongside headline UK tours and festivals in the rest of Europe (France, Germany, Croatia).

In October of 2008, Liz was invited by John Cale to perform at the Royal Festival Hall as part of a tribute to Nico, alongside the likes of James Dean Bradfield, Mark Lanegan and The Guillemots, and arguably stole the show with her dark but tender rendition of Ari’s Song.
«Her delicate songs are a perfect knot of grassroots jazz, muddy blues and homespun folk, and recall the kiss of a needle on a brittle 78… you sense that once the world gets wind of her elegant, spooky songs there will be nowhere for Green to hide.» (Observer Music Monthly)

«Mid-Term Report No 1 Best New Act» (Mojo, June 2008)

«Lilting folk, spiked with venom and stalked by sadness» (Sunday Times)

«An enthralling other-worldly combination of Billie Holiday and Judy Garland» (Flux)

«Green could quite literally charm the birds off the trees… beautiful.»
(DJ Magazine)

«Part Joanna Newsom, part thirties-starlet» (Esquire)

«Hauntingly beautiful» (The Sun)

«Astonishing raw blues» (Time Out)

«Beautifully spectral» (Fact)