Isaacs Biography And Sheet Music

Through more than 20 albums and thousands of live appearances, the Isaacs have become one of the most important acts in acoustic music. They have helped build a bridge between bluegrass and Southern gospel music, combining stunning, folk-influenced harmonies with world-class instrumentation and award-winning songwriting. Vocalist and family matriarch Lily Isaacs helped carve the family’s style out of a background that included off-Broadway theatre and a 1968 Columbia Records album as half of the folk duo, Lily and Maria. Standup bass player and son, Ben Isaacs, has played with Tony Rice, Ralph Stanley, Aubrey Haynie, Rhonda Vincent and many others. Daughter Sonya Isaacs released several country singles on Lyric Street Records, toured with Vince Gill and has recorded with Dolly Parton, Stanley, Reba McEntire and Brad Paisley. Youngest daughter, Becky Isaacs Bowman, is an award-winning songwriter who has made guest appearances as a vocalist with Parton, Bryan Sutton, Paul Simon, Stanley, Mark Lowry and others. John Bowman, a world-class multi-instrumentalist who has worked and traveled with Alison Krauss & Union Station and Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, is married to Becky. The Isaacs’ long musical heritage and ministry began with a meeting in New York of a Kentucky-born banjo player and New York-raised Jewish folk singer who had never heard a bluegrass song. Lily Fishman was the immigrant daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland. Her musical tastes ran to Barbra Streisand, and the only banjo she had ever heard was in the televised theme song to “The Beverly Hillbillies."