Lorijo Manley

“She makes magic through her music. I swear she was channeling Jimi Hendrix through her fingers, ’cause her guitar playing was pretty spectacular,” -Ran, Outwords

Born in New York, award-winning artist Lorijo Manley spent her formative years shuttling between upstate and New York City, feeding her appetite for theatre and music. With her Grandmother as teacher, she began studying the piano at age five, and found her first guitar under the Christmas tree one or two years later. Santa delivered after she was caught torturing her mother’s violin trying to play it as a six string guitar. Lorijo wrote her first songs around age ten. While in high school, Lorijo started the Theater Romps, a series of creative dramatic workshops for children, and won an acting contest. This inspired her to study theatre at Northwestern University, where she created the school’s first ever women’s performance troupe, Astarte Mettle, which garnered Lorijo a Time Magazine College Achievement Award.Yet, after graduation, she traveled the country making music while living out of her van. She thought this was a more practical way to starve. And it was. For ten years she played music full-time, first in Chicago and then in New York City, logging over 3,000 live performances as a regular in popular venues and as a subway busker. Lorijo was an official performer at the Athlete’s Village for the 1996 Olympic Games. In 1998, her singing was showcased in the theme music for the first annual Native American Music Awards, broadcast on A&E. Manley has had numerous television and radio appearances, including WBAI of New York City, WNUR and WGN of Chicago, and WAMC/NPR of Albany. In 2003, she won an arts grant to help produce her CD Naked.

Lorijo has shared the stage with artists including Richie Havens, Vernon Reid (of Living Colour), Catie Curtis, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger and The Mammals, Sam Shaber, Edie Carey, Trina Hamlin, Nicholas Barron, Ellen Rosner, Josh Max and Jade Maze. Her newest recording, Airplane, is a full band rocker with a ton of heart. As one reviewer writes, “Lorijo Manley plays guitar like…like…she plays a really good guitar. Fast. Funky. Rhythmic and powerful. She melts her guitar picks with clockwork precision,” -Gustav Plympton, AntiMatters, NYC Discography: Airplane – 2006 Naked.