Lisa Marie Simmons

“I find in writing songs that I’m often walking that thin line – I’m trying to make a personal, individual experience universal,” muses singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Simmons.  

From her homebase on the coast of Italy’s beautiful Lake Garda, Simmons collaboratively leads two different ensembles – Hippie Tendencies and NoteSpeak – with keyboardist, arranger, and songwriter Marco Cremaschini, each deeply but differently informed by the struggles and triumphs in Simmons’ own life.

Born in Colorado Springs (CO), Simmons survived several troubled adoptions and foster homes. She found solace singing in her church choir and was featured soloist with the Boulder (CO) Youth Choir. At nineteen, Simmons moved to New York City to study theater and music at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and perform in various pop, funk, soul, blues and jazz bands throughout the Manhattan club circuit at night. “Music is my savior, and my past has taught me empathy,” she reflects.

Manhattan served as the launchpad for five years of geographic and musical globetrotting: From 1993 until 1997, Simmons explored and performed music in Amsterdam, Costa Rica, St. Marten, and France, where she began to compose her own music and lyrics. She continued her travels through Central and South America, and eventually returned to Europe to establish her new artistic home and search for someone to produce her own music.

After dalliances on the dance singles charts in France and Italy, Simmons finally stepped out as a solo artist in 1999 with her first single (“Feel It”) and continued to collaborate with various artists and producers throughout Italy. She released her last single as a solo artist (“I Won’t Be Waiting,” with producer Emanuela Gubinelli) in 2004. Since then, Simmons and Cremaschini have divided most of their attention between the neo-folk, neo-soul project Hippie Tendencies and spoken-word-jazz project NoteSpeak.  Hippie Tendencies has released two full-length albums and their cover of “Here’s To You/The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti,” which recants the execution of two Italian immigrants wrongly convicted for murder during a 1920 armed robbery in Massachusetts, was used by Amnesty International for their #herestoyou campaign.

A unique collaboration that intertwines poetical and musical forms to raise awareness of real-life triumphs and struggles around the world, NoteSpeak explores creative paths established by such artists as The Last Poets, Gil Scott-Heron, and Brian Jackson, but venture down contemporary avenues to address current topics of which many remain unaware. Musically and vocally, NoteSpeak constantly changes, shifting from style to style – acoustic jazz solos into hip-hop beats into harmonized gospel vocals into electronic jazz and fusion into free verse rhyming – and yet seems to consistently groove. Simmons' delivery swims in the deep waters connecting Nina Simone to Jill Scott, completely obliterating the line between vocalist and poetess: Warning like a mother lioness, whipper-snapping through urban haunts and curiously wondering about it all.

“I love the exploration of the spoken, sung and played mingled. It's been a joy working with new musicians with NoteSpeak. We’re convinced of its relevance as an original observation deriving from our own unique experience (as each of ours is) of the world today; and in particular we are trying to call attention to some phenomena of which many are unaware,” Simmons explains. “In NoteSpeak, we’re giving ourselves the freedom to just tell these stories with as much craft and beauty and compassion as we can muster.”

In April 2018, Lisa was an invited speaker and performer at the 70th Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado. She presented NoteSpeak in Italy, Austria and the Czech Republic in November 2019, and in India at the Jaipur Music Stage in January 2020.

NoteSpeak’s debut Amori E Tragedie in Musica, released by Ropeadope in March 2020, made Downbeat’s “Best of 2020” list, received national radio airplay in Italy, and led to supporting performances in Austria, the Czech Republic, India, and Italy.  

In March 2021, one of Lisa’s essays was picked up and published by HuffPost, which led to Lisa’s televised interview on The Tamron Hall Show on ABC. Lisa’s essay Interracial Adoption for Beginners appeared in the compilation Chicken Soup for the Soul: I’m Speaking Now. Simmons was also commissioned to write “We’re Gonna Change It” for the non-profit Ampersand Families, which advocates for young persons in the US child welfare system.

In October 2021, she flew to Florida to search for her birth father; Angela Tucker and her Emmy Award-winning husband Bryan Tucker filmed a documentary about the search: Lisa & Isell: A story about adoption and the Ghost Kingdom, which premiered in June 2022. Angela and Lisa co-wrote an essay advocating for the rights of Black fathers for the Harvard Law Bill of Health digital symposium in May 2022. Her jazz standards album Lisa Meets Gianni featuring legendary Italian drummer Gianni Cazzola was released in June 2022 on Ropeadope. Lisa has been invited to participate in the Biennale in Venice in October 2022 for artist Simone Leigh's Loophole of Retreat. Her poem “Last Supper” was shortlisted for a Creators of Justice Literary Award in November 2022. Her new album NoteSpeak 12  was released on February 24,  2023, on Ropeadope.

Simmons’ creativity also encompasses composing with and for other artists in different genres, including: Ropeadope’s collaborative Nine-Takes performance series during the pandemic lockdown; rock ‘n’ rollers Plan de Fuga; and American roots music on Lisa Bell’s The Italian Project; and soulstress Cheryl Porter, who performed “Consequence” (co-written by Simmons and Cremaschini) at “Two Countries, One Heart” co-sponsored by the American Initiative for Italian Culture, the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestras and the Italian Cultural Institute in Washington.   

“I am an idealist and I truly believe in making the world a brighter place and contributing in an enlightened evolution of humankind. It seems so obvious to me that love and the thread that connects each of us is all that matters,” Simmons explains. “I want to continue to grow in ways that I cannot even imagine today, to champion those without a voice, to celebrate the gloriousness of existence, to give voice to my inner landscape, to reflect the events that surround us while learning from the past and seeking to aid in avoiding the repetition of history's worse errors, to share, to know and be known.”

Awards

We have been honored with several awards for our songs not limited to but including in 2011 The “Premio Speciale” from the town of Sirmione in the north of Italy for Art, Music and Entertainment , in 2013 Empower Music and Arts for a positive music award from Florida U.S.A. and the lead song from The Italian Project (album co- written with Bob Story and Lisa Bell ) , “Bring the Love”, was one of the winners of the first Colorado Music Business Organization's Songwriting Contest in the Americana category with a second song from the album “Walk with Me” gaining an Honorable Mention in the same category in 2013. In 2018 we were nominated for an Independent Music Award.