Made In Brooklyn: Florida doo wop pair embraces Brooklyn roots

Husband and wife duo perform in Florida

August 12, 2014 By Palmer Hasty Special to Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Doo wop duo photo courtesy of Rick and Lisa Howard
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Rick and Lisa Howard, both Brooklyn natives, have been married for 22 years and performed together since 1984. For the past eight years, they have lived in Naples, Florida and performed as the popular duo Made In Brooklyn.

Since moving to Florida in 2006, they have become a group that is very much in demand and have performed on a regular basis in literally hundreds of clubs, taverns, hotels and restaurants in the area.  

During performances, both sing while Rick plays his live guitar with tracks. They perform a wide range of music, depending on the venue, but like to focus on the popular music that featured vocal harmony in many hits from the late 50s and early 60s. Their audiences tend to be Baby Boomers who grew up with, and still get energized by, that music.

Rick Howard, an accomplished and versatile guitarist who plays blues, jazz and rock, started playing guitar seriously at age seven. Rick played with many bands in the New York area during his youth in Brooklyn, including a band called Music Box. Rick also worked as a studio musician in Manhattan on numerous film scores, commercial jingles, and played guitar parts on recordings for popular artists like Shania Twain and Bob Marley.

In addition to his Made In Brooklyn performance schedule with his wife Lisa, he’s also busy performing throughout South Florida with his “Rockabilly and Roll” group called Rick Howard and the SpeedBumps, his blues group Mudbone and his jazz trio, appropriately named The Rick Howard Trio.

Lisa used to sing doo wop songs a capella with her friends in large apartment building lobbies in East New York as a kid. In her early twenties she formed an all-female group, Artemis, that became very popular with the New York music scene, playing seven nights a week at places like Trudy Heller’s and the Copacabana in Manhattan. Creating Made In Brooklyn was her way of returning to music after moving to Florida, and performing with her favorite musician, her husband Rick.

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