3/20/2024 0 Comments Teddy greene singerI’d spend hours each day playing guitar in my bedroom, learning hundreds of cover songs, and writing dozens of my own. I was grappling with so much guilt and shame at that time, piecing together my own queerness, and in a lot of ways, I realize now that music saved my life. There were only about 2 other queer kids who were out both of whom were bullied for it. Being a closeted lesbian at an all-girls catholic school, I was remarkably depressed. When I got to high school, music became less of a hobby and more of a necessity. I spent most of the middle school recording godawful original songs on my mom’s iPod nano voice memo app and burning them on CDs for my friends. Within a couple of months of picking it up, I began writing songs. I began teaching myself songs from YouTube tutorials and Ultimate Guitar tabs. That year my Uncle Rick, a talented classical guitarist, lent me my first guitar, a nylon string Washburn with a cutaway and pickup, and I took off flying with it. Finally, at 12, I went to see a Taylor Swift concert (her 2009 fearless tour) and was practically struck by lightning with the epiphany that what I really wanted was to play the guitar. I was terrible at acting, so I never got roles in theater, and timidly singing Catholic hymns just wasn’t scratching the musical itch. In elementary school, I took piano lessons for a couple of years but it never really stuck, and growing up primarily attending catholic schools, my main exposure to the arts was through the school musical and the church choir. As a young toddler, I’d put on little concerts for my parents and grandparents- making up my own little songs and choreography on the spot. They’d go see live shows and come home with CDs from the openers (they discovered both Patty and Brandi as openers), and more and more incredible music got added to the rotation (I believe it was a 6 or 7 CD changer, to be exact). Most nights they’d throw on a CD in the kitchen- and those artists have turned out to be some of the most formative for me, musically: Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Lucinda Williams, Patty Griffin, Alison Krauss, Teddy Thompson, Brandi Carlile (her really early stuff), Counting Crows, Crowded House, etc. My parents, while not artists themselves (mom was a nurse, dad was a lawyer/cocktail author (look up Philip Greene), were obsessed with music. I think that’s kind of where it all started for me. with 2 older sisters, 2 dogs, and 2 parents who loved Americana music immensely. I grew up in a sweet little house in a wooded corner of D.C. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself. Today we’d like to introduce you to Liv Greene.
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