Lisa Ruth Germano (born June 27, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Indiana. Her album Geek the Girl (1994) was chosen as a top album of the 1990s by Spin magazine. She began her career as a violinist for John Mellencamp. , she has released thirteen albums. Early life Germano was born in Mishawaka, Indiana, one of five children of violinist Rocco and Betty Germano. She studied music, including piano and violin, as a child. When she was seven, she composed a fifteen-minute opera for the piano. Career On the road with Mellencamp Germano was working as a violinist when rock singer John Mellencamp invited her to play on his album. For seven years she toured and recorded as a member of Mellencamp's band, appearing on The Lonesome Jubilee (1987), Big Daddy (1989), Falling from Grace (1991), Human Wheels (1993), and Dance Naked (1994). During the 1980s she also appeared on albums by Simple Minds and the Indigo Girls. Solo career After recording with Henry Lee Summer, Bob Seger, and Carrie Newcomer, Germano began a solo career with the album On the Way Down from the Moon Palace (1991), recorded in Indianapolis and released by her label, Major Bill Records. Although sales were low, the album got the attention of Capitol Records, which signed her to a contract and released her next album Happiness (1993). Personnel changes at Capitol resulted in the departure of most of her benefactors, but she retained the rights to her album. Working for a British label She signed a contract with the British label 4AD, which had a manufacturing and distribution deal with Warner Bros. in the U.S. Ivo Watts-Russell, founder and president of 4AD, was a fan of Germano's work. He remixed some of the tracks from Happiness with producer and engineer John Fryer, who had been involved in Watts-Russell's This Mortal Coil project. In early 1994, 4AD issued Inconsiderate Bitch, a limited-edition EP which contained five of the remixed tracks. In April of that year Happiness was reissued with different artwork, mixing, sequencing. Two tracks, including a cover version of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'", were replaced. Germano's album Geek the Girl (1994) was reviewed positively by the press and was a noted album of the 1990s. Much attention was given to the track "...A Psychopath", which contains audio from a 9-1-1 emergency phone call by a woman who was