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Laurie Geltman is an award-winning rock singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Los Angeles. She got her start in the Boston music scene in the 90s after graduating from Berklee School of Music as a guitar principal and film-scoring major. Laurie has performed in legendary venues from CBGB in New York City and The Bluebird in Nashville to a palace in Kathmandu. While she rose to headliner status, she also shared the stage or opened up for many musical icons and bands along the way such as Joe Cocker, Emmylou Harris, Leon Russell, Patty Griffin (who also contributed b. vocals on a couple songs on No Power Steering), Rick Danko (The Band), Eric Burdon, Aimee Mann, Derek Trucks, Jonatha Brooke, Old 97's, Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise, Susan Tedeschi, Letters To Cleo, Lori McKenna, Sarah MacLachlan and Morphine.
Released originally on a cassette in 1992, Departure received positive reviews all around New England and ended up on some Boston rock critics top ten albums that year. While Departure effectively launched her career, she abandoned most of the songs and the polished sound once she formed a new band with bassist Brian Karp (Letters To Cleo) and Woody Giessmann (the Del Fuegoe) along with Daniel Kellar on violin who had been playing with her since their days in experimental art rock band Vasco Da Gama. Geltman released No Power Steering in 1997 on her own, but it was picked up later after signing to Eastern Front Records (Koch Int'l) in 1998. At that point, the band was a well-oiled machine with gigs and tours throughout the mid-west and east coast and Geltman touring solo from San Diego to Fairbanks, AK.
In 1998, Laurie quietly moved to the Maine coast having been nominated for seven Boston Music Awards in four categories (Outstanding Female Vocalist/Indie label, Debut Album of the Year, Outstanding Song/Songwriter and New Acoustic Act.) She won Outstanding Female vocalist in 1998, the same year she won the Lilith Fair Emerging Talent Search earning her a spot on the famed Lilith Fair tour. No Power Steering CD found Geltman digging into a more grittier rock sound than her debut Departure. She followed that with a live acoustic album recorded at the famous Club Passim in Harvard Square in 1999, featuring 11 outstanding musicians including Jimmy Ryan, Jim Fitting, Mike Rivard, Dinty Child, Patty Barkas, Ramona Silver and others. Although Motion Pictures (named after a Neil Young tune she covered) didn't come out to 2002, Geltman was already writing songs that would eventually end up on an EP she recorded in Los Angeles with Letters To Cleo's Michael Eisenstein.
Eisenstein produced and played bass/guitars, Fred Eltringham (Sheryl Crow, Wallflowers) on drums, Peter Adams on Keyboards and Geltman on guitars. The EP Up From Down came out under the project name LAYNE (2006) that you'll have to find separately on most platforms. It features one of her most popular songs "Milwaukee," a pop-rock gem. Geltman played out for some years with a slightly different lineup under the band name LAYNE until she couldn't anymore.
Geltman has been living in Los Angeles since 2004. After years of illness and teaching guitar to keep afloat, she got back into writing during the pandemic, teaching herself how to record and taking her producing and arrangement know-how as far as she could before bringing in outside help to finish up the songs. She is currently working towards her 5th album which explores current events, America and nostalgia. Her most recent songs "Radio" and "Break Up This Fallow Ground" are out now. Geltman also self-produced and directed both videos for those songs.
Geltman is a life-long musician and songwriter having started putting words and music together with her guitar in 2nd grade. She also studied film at Boston University and spent a semester in Paris studying Art History before settling at Berklee where she graduated. She has dabbled in various film projects, from scoring to script supervision, is an avid photographer, journal writer, improvisational cook and dog lover.
