Lisa Dunn always loved to sing from an early age and was around music all her life. Early influences heard in the home included artists such as B.B. King, Al Green, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Ike and Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin.
Lisa sang in a Philadelphia gospel choir during her 20s and fell in love with that genre of music. She returned to Canada after four years and eventually went back to SFU to complete her Bachelor of Education.
During her time as a university student, she met some like -minded people involved in the arts and ended up joining Coastal Sound Music in 2005. She remained with the choir for approximately 5 years.
In early 2011, Lisa was invited to sit in at a few venues around town, including The Jazz Cellar. Within the year, Lisa had made connections with some of the best musicians in the city and Hell's Gate Blues Band was formed in the spring of 2012. The following year, The Freakin' Groovies band formed and Blue Mistral came togerther in 2015. Missing the experience of singing with a choir, Lisa joined City Soul Choir in September of 2015.
Married in May of 2016, Lisa Fennell became Lisa Dunn. In September 2018, Lisa made the difficult decision to leave Hell's Gate Blues Band and discontinued with Blue Mistral and City Soul Choir in 2019. Lisa has moved her focus to original music for the purpose of sync licencing. She continues to sing with her existing bands, The Freakin' Groovies and The Lisa Dunn Trio (jazz/ blues) and sings with other artists for charity gigs.
Recently
Background
CDs and Recordings
Lisa Dunn has had three CD released since 2012. The first, Sweet Freedom, features three of her originals: The title track, Sweet Freedom, My Mama Always Warned Me and Waiting on a Man, performed by Hell's Gate Blues Band. This CD sold out and is no longer in circulation.
In July 2105, Lisa's second CD titled By Request was released. It includes a selection of songs that are heavily requested during Lisa's live performances, featuring songs of favourite artisits such as : Adele, Amy Winehouse, Eva Cassidy and Susan Tedeschi. A remastered version was printed in early 2020 and is currently available at live shows.
Hell's Gate Blues Band released their second CD, titled,Thin Line in the spring of 2016. It features seven of Lisa's originals and is sure to be a crowd pleaser. It is available on ITunes, Spotify and CD Baby.
New single releases will be coming soon on all streaming platforms, starting with Curiosity on May 15, 2020 and include music from a variety of genres.
I