Bio

Now a familiar face in the boutique guitar world, Lindsay Straw is a guitarist, singer, and Irish bouzouki player whose work can be seen and heard in videos and podcasts from Carter Vintage Guitars, The North American Guitar, and The Music Emporium. Prior to becoming a resource for guitar players and collectors through her informative videos and interviews with luthiers, she released several traditional folk albums—two solo, and one with her Irish band The Ivy Leaf—and gigged full-time playing for concerts, festivals, and events throughout New England and beyond.

A singer first and foremost, she’s delved heavily into the songs and vocal styles of the Scottish and Irish Traveller communities, taking age-old folk ballads and making them her own with her signature intricate fingerstyle guitar and winding bouzouki arrangements. Her song choices highlight universally shared feelings while often focusing on women’s experiences, and gravitate towards the dark and modal. 

Though she grew up in Montana and Wyoming, Lindsay found her musical home within the Celtic and folk scenes of Boston after graduating from Berklee College of Music. Through various collaborations along the Americana to Celtic spectrum, she combines inspiration from her fellow musicians with the influences of her folk revival heroes.

Instruments:

Lindsay is a Jewitt Guitars artist, playing a Jewitt 00-13c redwood and walnut, as well as a Blind Guitars artist, playing a B-26 Indian rosewood and Adirondack spruce and a 12-fret B-26 mahogany and Alpine spruce. She also plays a Brondel A-2 cocobolo and Carpathian spruce, and a Fylde long-scale archtop bouzouki in spruce Indian rosewood.

Press

"With a voice as bold and beguiling as the songs she chooses, Straw carries the torch of traditional folk music with striking elegance and a fierce breath of originality . . . Beyond the songs, Straw’s passion for the history of the music is matched only by her seemingly limitless abilities. The charming anecdotes of the people behind the songs bridge the gap between past and present, connecting listeners to a Celtic past in order to make sense of the future."

- Spencer Brown, Triad City Beat

"A voice! By turns husky and sultry, clear and bright, controlled and dreamy; with hints of Cara Dillon and Geraldine Hollett, Lindsay Straw’s beautiful voice shines out in this delightful debut album . . . The combination of a youthful sound and 10 traditional songs - all arranged and performed by Lindsay - hearken back to more innocent times, of Greenwich Village and pure folk.”

- The Living Tradition

"All of the traditional material here is thoughtfully arranged and skillfully sung and performed. Straw sings in a clear, soft, mid-register vocal with crystal diction and subtle modulation that pays attention to the storytelling. She has the perfect ballad-singer's voice."

- fRoots

"While the familiarity of these songs could lead to a feeling of déjà vu, Straw's vocals elevate this and makes it feel as fresh as if you are hearing these for the first time. She has an incredible warmth and depth to her voice that draws you in and refuses to let you go. Not that you'll want to be released. While the music is strictly traditional, the vocals are anything but."

- FATEA

"Hard to understand how a young woman can interpret so implicitly the rich old music of an era hundreds of years before her time. Yet, here she is - almost a reincarnation of many of the female singers who carried on this tradition."

- No Depression