About Tom Lieberman

Tom’s neo-vaudevillian odyssey began at the age of 16, playing his original songs in the coffeehouses along the Mississippi River’s fabled West Bank in Minneapolis, Minnesota. By 18, he was touring professionally, and the youngest performer to ever appear in solo concert at the prestigious Walker Art Center. In the late 1970s, Tom, along with Tim Sparks and Prudence Johnson, formed the seminal vocal jazz trio Rio Nido, an association that resulted in the cult classic 1979 recording “I Like to Riff,” and continues today.

In 1976, Tom began a 10-year association with Garrison Keillor’s venerable public radio program, A Prairie Home Companion, where he became a regular contributor to the live, weekly broadcasts as a performer, writer, production associate, and the voice of El Muchacho Allegre (Happy Boy) Ajua-Brand Hot Sauce. Tom was featured on several APHC recordings, and his tenure with the program simultaneously reached both its highest AND lowest points when he was “asked” to hand over the utility guitar chair to the Country Gentleman himself, Chet Atkins.

Over the ensuing years, Tom has applied his creative & production talents to wide variety of media productions and campaigns on behalf of brands and organizations, from tiny to gargantuan. Notable projects include an ongoing association as story editor on original musicals for NEA Jazz Master Delfeayo Marsalis’ New Orleans-based Uptown Music Theatre; providing creative direction on numerous touring stage adaptations of children’s television shows such as “Sesame Street,” “Arthur,” and “Bear in the Big Blue House;” and serving as both Executive Producer and Music Supervisor on the independent feature film, Sweet Land, named one of that year’s “Top Ten” films of 2006 by publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Village Voice, and Entertainment Weekly. Tom also contributed original music to the film’s soundtrack, including a performance of his composition “Eskimo Kisses,” which was described by Variety reviewer Ronnie Scheib as, “a triumph of inventive storytelling.”