Libby Wiebel is a contemporary, folk singer-songwriter in the Washington DC area. Her piano-infused melodies are sophisticated reflections on stories past, present, and future.

11 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Folk Pop, FOLK: Modern Folk



Details:
On any given night in the DC Metro area, it's quite possible that you'll find Libby Wiebel on a stage somewhere, singing her heart out. She may have started out in small-town Wisconsin, but she's taking on the big city with full force and blowing her fans away with her new CD, The Wait-A-While Estates (2003).

Libby was born in Iowa, raised in Wisconsin, and has just recently landed in Alexandria, VA after detours in Chicago, London, and Williamsburg. She wrote her first song at age seven and was a star in her elementary school, and she hasn't stopped making music since.

With a gift for storytelling through song, Libby always entertains every audience. "Songwriting is such a wonderful tool," Libby says. "It lets me reach out in a way unlike any other I know and touch those common experiences that so many of us have had. It unifies. It brings us to a place we can call ours."

She began training in piano at age eight, and by sixteen, she started teaching piano lessons herself. She taught herself how to play guitar during high school, and has since collected a multitude of instruments in her apartment. One of Libby's biggest influences was her grandfather, who was a jazz musician himself. The two used to record old jazz standards together, such as "'Til There Was You" and "My Funny Valentine." She also gained great amounts of experience from her performances accompanying The Swinging Knights at St. Norbert College, as well as by playing jazz piano in various bands throughout high school and college. After college at St. Norbert and graduate school at The College of William and Mary, she moved to Northern Virginia. There she is a mild-mannered computer-programmer by day, but by night she takes on the world as a piano teacher, writer, performer, and superhero.

"Some people say I'm a real renaissance woman. I think it's more likely that I'm just crazy. In any case, it's all working, and you can't knock that," Libby says of her multiple careers.

The new album, The Wait-A-While Estates, was released in December 2003 and includes one song, "Don't Call Me Mary," from Libby's 2002 EP, Erasing Yesterday, and features seven other original songs, as well as three covers tunes by Lucy Kaplansky and Richard Litvin, Brian Joseph, and Rich Prezioso. The album was recorded at Stage Right Studio at Jammin' Java in Vienna and was co-produced by Libby and Jared Bartlett. From the hopeful title track to the poppy, humorous "Heroes" to the heartbreaking cover of "Sister on Trial," Libby adds her own voice to her cover songs and offers a fresh look at every aspect of life.

"I don't ever want to be afraid to say what's on my mind. Sometimes the stories come from my experiences. Sometimes they come from things I've read about or seen. Sometimes I go back to that place we went in grade school when the teacher told us to just make up a story. It all finds itself woven together. These are the stories I tell."