Lisa Redfern

Award-winning singer, songwriter & recording artist

For over 30 years, Lisa’s music has brought

joy and comfort to people of all ages.

Photo by Cody Barry

Photo by Cody Barry

Lisa Redfern is an award winning singer-songwriter and teacher based in Maine. She first performed with her father, Bob, who taught her to play guitar at age 14. Bob was a folksinger who had his musical beginnings at the legendary Seeger family hootenannies in Washington, DC in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. Throughout her high school and college years she honed her talents in a variety of settings such as musical theatre, forming her own folk trio, as well as an Andrews Sisters tribute group.

With 12 solo recordings to her credit so far (10 CDs and 2 early cassettes), she is a singer-songwriter who blends her roots in folk, bluegrass, country, gospel, blues, and swing to create something unmistakably her own. Lisa’s 11 recordings have garnered positive critical review, extensive radio play and she has also made several TV appearances. She has added her clear, beautiful voice to dozens of other artists’ projects and song compilations. Her song "My Eileen" was licensed by a band in CA for inclusion in a compilation CD called "Sonoma Covers." In 2018 her song “Live Through the Questions” was licensed for use in an original play called “Timeline” produced in Portland, Maine. Lisa has opened for many notables, including The Roches, Livingston Taylor, Cindy Kallet, Dave Mallett, and she shared the stage (and several duets) with Pete Seeger. Lisa’s song “Mudita” was played on NPR’s On Point show about empathy in June of 2022.

All of her CDs are available on her website except “Hushabye, Lullaby” “In the Asking”, "No Small Thing" and "Soundtracks" which are currently out of print. Her in-print CDs are available at www.lisaredfern.com

A versatile vocalist comfortable in many styles, Lisa is an experienced wedding/church soloist, children’s concert performer and she loves to perform jazz standards as well. She’s also available to teach beginning guitar, voice and songwriting in her home studio. In 2009 Lisa was chosen as one of four soloists to record hymns for the CS Publishing Society’s 2 hymn CD set, “Let’s Sing” available at Reading Rooms all over the world and at http://www.spirituality.com. She has soloed at The Mother Church in Boston and you can hear some of her inspirational music on the podcasts from “The Weekly Musician” produced by TMCY radio. In 2017, her version of the hymn “O Gentle Presence” (“Mother’s Evening Prayer”) she calls “Sandra’s Melody”, was chosen for inclusion in the most recent hymn supplement published by the CS Publishing Society.

As a voice-over artist she can be heard speaking and singing on several toys for Fisher Price and Play Along Toys and in a video project to help ESL students in China, produced by HiBob World Productions. For the past nearly 30 summers Lisa has appeared at the much beloved Sweet Chariot Music Festival on Swan’s Island, Maine. For five years (from 2010 to 2015) she produced and performed in the local monthly songwriter series she created called "Songwriters in the Round" at Frontier Cafe in Brunswick, Maine. 

In May 2016 Lisa was commissioned to write a ballad about Penobscot elder and WW2 hero, Charles Norman Shay. A year later she was honored to perform the song for Charlie on Omaha Beach in Normandy, France on DDay in June of 2017 at the ceremony to open the Indian Memorial Park in his name. “Full Circle Fire: The Ballad of Charles Shay” can be heard on youtube and the single CD ordered by emailing me at lisa@lisaredfern.com

Her most recent CD, "THE BEST PART" )March 2024) is a collection of 9 original songs and 3 covers in Folk/Americana/Rootsy settings with several wonderful local musical luminaries joining her in the studio. Her awards include: Best Song at West Coast Songwriters Association, Finalist in the Great American Song Contest and the USA Songwriting Competition. Her lullaby CD, “Sing Me Goodnight”, released in July 2010, won the National Parenting Publications Gold Award as well a Parents Choice Award Silver. 

Other related creative endeavors: 

*In 2023 we became a juried member of Music to Life, a non-profit created by Noel Paul Stookey

*In June of 2022 she completed Teaching Artist Training with Documentary Songwriters.

*In June 2015 Lisa began a weekly online interview/video podcast called "Gingersnap": A Conversation and a Cookie with a Creative Mainer to help promote fellow creative folks in Maine.