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Elizabeth Mitchell Biography

elizabeth-mitchell
  • Born:
  • Years Active: 2000s-present
  • Member of: Ida
  • Genre: Rock & Alternative

Not to be confused with the television actress of the same name who co-stars on the hit series Lost, Elizabeth Mitchell is a folk-rock singer and guitarist with a widely varied background that incorporates coffeehouse-style folk singing, moody and contemplative alt-country, and playful children's music. Mitchell's professional musical career began when she was studying at Brown University in the late '80s, when she formed a folk duo with her roommate, Lisa Loeb, that worked the Providence, RI singer/songwriter circuit. When Loeb and Mitchell both graduated in 1990, Mitchell took a day job as a teaching assistant at a private kindergarten on Roosevelt Island, NY. While in New York, Mitchell met a fellow singer and guitarist named Dan Littleton, with whom she formed a quiet, folky indie band called Ida in 1992. (Mitchell and Littleton also sang backup and played guitar on Loeb's unexpected 1993 hit single, "Stay [I Missed You].") Three albums into their career, during an enforced layoff occasioned by legal trouble with their new label, Capitol Records, Mitchell and Littleton recorded a homemade duo album of children's songs in a single day in 1998. Originally meant to be a private Christmas gift for the couple's nieces and nephews, the album was eventually released in a limited edition in 1999 as Ida's You Are My Flower. Three years later, You Are My Flower was reissued under Mitchell's own name, in part to avoid confusing Ida fans not expecting a disc full of traditional folk and country songs. Following the birth of Mitchell and Littleton's first child, Storey Littleton, Mitchell released 2003's You Are My Sunshine, produced in part by His Name Is Alive's Warren Defever. In 2006, Mitchell signed to Smithsonian Folkways to release You Are My Little Bird, quite likely the first children's album to feature a cover of the Velvet Underground's "What Goes On." The similarly themed Sunny Day followed in 2010, again on the Folkways label. ~ Stewart Mason, Rovi

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