Lisa Loeb biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Singer-songwriter Lisa Anne Loeb was born on March 11, 1968, in Bethesda, Maryland, and grew up as the second oldest of four siblings. Her family moved to Dallas, Texas, when she was still young. Loeb was raised in a Jewish and musically inclined home. "My folks sent me to music lessons when I was a little girl, piano lessons as well as piano theory," she once said of her childhood. "We listened to music all the time in the house, from the standards my father played on the piano every night and Sunday mornings, to classical music on records or live—my older brother was a classical pianist from a young age."

Loeb attended an all-girls private school for 11 years, and went to sleep-away camps in the summers—an experience she remembers as highly important in her childhood.

Making a Hit: 'Stay'

Music continued to have a strong presence in Lisa Loeb's life, even after she left home for college. Loeb attended Brown University, where she formed a band called Liz and Lisa with classmate Elizabeth Mitchell, who also went on to make a career as a musician. Classmate Duncan Sheik, who eventually gained recognition as a musician as well, played guitar for the duo. The two developed a following on campus and played in New York City coffeehouses.

After college, Loeb briefly attended the Berklee School of Music in Boston, but soon returned to New York City. In 1990, she started a band that she named Nine Stories after the J.D. Salinger short fiction collection. Loeb also started recording songs with Juan Patiño, a record producer who would eventually become her boyfriend.

After several years of struggling to be noticed, Loeb caught a break when her friend and neighbor, actor Ethan Hawke, asked her to contribute a song to the soundtrack of his new film, Reality Bites. Loeb contributed the track "Stay (I Missed You)," which she describes as autobiographical. The song was released as a single and hit No. 1 on the pop charts, which was unprecedented for a singer who wasn't signed to a record label. Loeb got a record deal and a Grammy nomination shortly afterwards.

Loeb's 1995 first album, Tails, reached gold on the charts, as did her 1997 follow-up Firecracker, which spawned the single "I Do." Her third album, 2002's Cake and Pie, was not well promoted by the label, so Loeb took matters into her own hands. She purchased the rights to the masters and re-released the album with new songs and a new title, Hello Lisa, on Artemis Records. In 2003, she partnered with her old friend Elizabeth Mitchell on Capture the Moon, a collection of children's songs.

TV Career

By the early 2000s, Lisa Loeb had branched out into acting, guest starring in several television shows and taking small parts in films.