Lisa Shaffer

I grew up on Heathen Ridge, yes “Heathen Ridge!” It’s just outside the small town of Crittenden, Kentucky. My first memory of music was from when I was around two or three years old, when I would sit in my car seat and sing along to the radio. It was back when my stage was the living room, my microphone was the vacuum cleaner and my portable, handy-dandy jump rope would let me take the show outside. The trees were my fans and I had a lot of them living on a big farm! The more trees the more likely I was to be singing in front of them. I was a big dreamer!!When I got to kindergarten it was heaven. In music class I learned all kinds of children’s songs and every time I sang them, it was like I was singing them for the first time. Heaven knows it wasn’t the first time for everyone else that had to listen though! Just ask my parents and four sisters.My love for country music began when I found an old worn out tape of Tanya Tucker’s Greatest Hits at the bottom of a stack of a Ka-zillion others. I’m glad I found it because that album changed my life - it was the first time I clearly remembered thinking, “I want to sing country music!”I learned how to play the mandolin first and then started playing guitar when I was eight years. Even though I was still stumbling through chords, my grandpa gave me the greatest surprise I could have ever hoped for: a small body “L-G2” Gibson guitar. He bought it in 1947 from a used car dealer who had taken it as a down payment. That guitar has been down many miles and has helped me write tons of songs. He affectionately named her “Sally Gibson” and she’s still ol’ Sally to me.I was lucky to live on Heathen Ridge because so many people there played music. I am honored to call Blanche Coldiron a mentor and I’m proud to say that she is now honored in the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame. Not only could she play anything with strings, but she could also whip up a mean batch of beans and cornbread. She’d put on a pot of beans before I got there and by the time we were done picking, the beans would be done too. She was nearly 60 years my senior, but she was a great friend and remains one of the biggest influences on my music today. Blanche passed away in 2006 but those Sunday afternoons will be with me forever.By the time I was twelve I was a walking jukebox, only you wouldn’t have needed a quarter to hear me sing. I played wherever, whenever and mostly for free. When I was fourteen I got my feet wet recording my first demo at a local recording studio and sent it to Renfro Valley, the “Grand Ole Opry” of Kentucky. I got my first glimpse of the limelight after they gave me a spot to perform on their barn dance show. This was the highlight of my awkward teen years.By that point I was a teenaged girl who needed to find a way to feed her record-buying habit. The solution? Two words: farm work. I pitched tens of thousands of hay bales, walked miles of fence, and helped in every phase of the tobacco crop. And I still drive a mean tractor! I always based how well I was getting paid by the number of albums I had racked up in my stash, and I must have bought hundreds of albums with that hard earned money.High school was a blur working part time and singing with different bands. In my senior year, with a couple friends in the same class and credit hours to burn, I joined the choir. I was afraid that the “prim and proper” songs would ruin my country twang! Instead I learned that I could train, strain, stretch, and shape my voice, but that twang was something that wasn’t leaving. The music bug bit me even harder in college and every test in Business Statistics made it bite me that much harder!! College was good, but music was better. By this time I was in a new band, Southern Exposure. We played all over Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. I was also working part time for Delta Airlines as an on campus reservation agent. When 9/11 hit, it led to Delta terminating the campus call site where I worked.Three years had passed and the band decided to split. I had no band, no job, and no income. I knew what I wanted to do - I wanted to sing. Not only did I want to sing, I wanted to write songs. My parents decided that since I had paid for all my college costs up until now, and because they believed in me, they would help me focus on my dream. So, in 2002 after I graduated from Northern Kentucky University with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management, I waited an eternity to move to Nashville….2 days.My family has a philosophy that nothing good comes easy. Even though my parents were willing to help me out, they were going to make me suffer a little in the process. Instead of living in some plush apartment in downtown Nashville, I lived in low income reality! Folks, what I’m saying is…I was a happy camper for the first three years in Nashville.I lived in a section of the Two Rivers campground that was set up for long term campers. And just like at home, I knew my neighbors and they knew me. They knew I was a starving artist and that I was in my poor (no, very poor) stage. Although I’ve always loved beans and cornbread, that did get a little old so I was always happy when one of my neighbors brought by a little meal after I had worked all day and night! Thanks y’all!!The owners of the campground knew I was there by myself so they kept an eye out for me. Other than driving a little too fast in the campground to get to a writing session on time, me and the park owners got along great. Don’t y’all think 5 mph is hardly rolling though!!!My “camper years” were the hardest for a number of reasons, but the biggest was that I was a little fish in a big pond. One of the first places I started singing in Nashville was a songwriter venue called The Broken Spoke. I would also perform at other songwriter hangouts like Commodore Lounge and Bluebird Café. They all had open mic nights late at night which meant you were often times playing to a mixture of empty chairs and a handful of people finishing their drinks.Thanks to those people finishing their drinks I ended up making a lot of connections and started getting a few offers to co-write. Like a domino effect this led to even more invitations to co-write. I ended up writing with some of this town’s most amazing songwriters like Paul Overstreet, Don Schlitz, Deborah Allen, Charlie Daniels, Bill Anderson, Don Rollins, Ron Harbin, Don Pfrimmer, Richard Leigh, and so many more.I knew how important it was to network, so to meet more people in the music business I would get up on stage wherever I could in some of Broadway’s haunts like Legend’s, Tootsie’s, Second Fiddle, Bluegrass Inn, and The Stage. I was also singing demos during this time. The pay wasn’t like hitting the lottery but it helped to cover my bills.Nine months after moving to Nashville, those open mic nights, jam sessions and songwriting appointments eventually led me to a meeting with Lyric Street’s SVP of A&R, Doug Howard. I played three songs for him, and, as luck would have it, he liked my sound and had this wild idea that he could help mold an everyday country girl from Heathen Ridge into a singer/songwriter.I was on a relentless mission to write the best songs I could. Monday through Friday I would run from one songwriting appointment to another, then I would spend most nights at the studio recording demos of the songs I had already written.With Doug’s careful development, truckloads of newly written songs, and a label showcase, I finally got the call I had been waiting for my entire life. I was offered a record deal with Lyric Street Records! Now I'm looking forward to the future and the opportunity to share my music with the world! Lord willing and the creek don't rise just maybe that will happen one day soon!