Happiness is the second album by South Bend native Lisa Germano, the multi-talented violin and mandolin player who helped bring a sea change of folk and country influences into John Mellencamp's music beginning with the tour for his "Scarecrow" album.
Compared to Germano's self-financed debut, On the Way Down From the Moon Palace, Happiness is a more cohesive and evenly listenable work, but with all the experimental quirks left in.
On her first major-label release, John Mellencamp violinist Lisa Germano plunges into that abyss of misery, alienation and screwed-up relationships we all know and love.
Listening to Lisa Germano's smart and subtle lyrics on Happiness, it's hard to imagine that this 29-year old violinist once backed Bob Seger as he wheezed lines like "love to watch her strut."
When you hear Lisa Germano play and sing, don't expect the buoyant granger pop and populism her fiddle supplied for fellow Hoosier boss John Mellencamp.
Lisa Germano got her start in rock ‘n’ roll jumping around her house in Mishawaka, Ind., with her five brothers and sisters, strumming on a tennis racket for an imaginary band called the Jack Beany Benny Club.
