Liz Phair , by her real name Elizabeth Clark Phair , born on April 17, 1967, is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Originally from Chicago, she gets a very good reception from critics and the public, from her first album Exile in Guyville, released in 1993.
Liz Phair was born in New Haven, Connecticut, but grew up in a suburb of Chicago with adoptive parents from a favored social background. High school student at New Trier High School, she then joined Oberlin College, Ohio, to study art history.
Later, she meets guitarist Chris Brokaw and they settle together in San Francisco for a brief period. Back in Chicago, Liz Phair begins to write her first songs and records self-produced demos under the name of Girlysound, living from the sale of her own drawings in the streets of Chicago. Very quickly, she becomes a figure of the alternative scene of Chicago. She sympathizes with emerging bands such as Material Issue and Urge Overkill, but also with people like Brad Wood and John Henderson, owners of Feel Good All Over, an independent Chicago label. This label even plans to produce a rerecorded version of the Girlysound models, but this project never sees the day because of differences between John Henderson and Liz Phair.
Liz Phair then wins a contract at Matador Records, thanks to Chris Brokaw, who sends his recordings of Girlysound to the label. Liz Phair's first album, Exile in Guyville, was released in 1993 and immediately received an excellent reception from critics and the public. This album immediately attracts the attention of critics because it appears to them as a response of a woman to the Rolling Stones album Exile on Main Street, although the comparison of these two opuses is considered largely overrated. Anyway, thanks to the critical success of the album Exile in Guyville and thanks to this comparison, many classical rock purists, previously recalcitrant, start to take an interest in the indie rock scene.