Interviews

Interview - Liz Abbott of The San Diego Troubadour


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Interview - Liz Abbott of The San Diego Troubadour
Keeping the Scene Alive

Posted by Charlie Recksieck on 2026-05-19
CHARLIE: How did The Troubadour start? I know you and Kent started with Ellen and Lyle - who really talked who into doing this?

LIZ: We were friends, Lyle and Ellen Duplessie , and Kent started hanging out at Java Joe’s around 2000. One night, Ellen and Kent were talking about The Byrds. A week after that, Kent went over to visit Lyle, and they didn’t know each other before; they just got giddy talking about The Byrds. We became friends.

One day, they called up and said, "Can we come over? We have an idea." So they came over and pitched the idea of the Troubadour. They pitched us the idea, I would do the graphic design and layout, Kent would do the delivery, and Ellen and Lyle would do all the writing. That’s kind of how it started. Our first issue was a double issue, September & October 2001. We wanted to do it in time for the street fair. We did it, she got all the advertising.

We were moving along; we would go to all the roots festivals and street fairs. And then in 2004, they both died. She died in February of breast cancer. And then in June, Lyle died of a heart attack. It was just devastating.

Soon after, we had a meeting at our house with the columnists and writers saying, "What are we going to do?" I wanted to keep it going in honor of them. And now it’s my total world. Once we hit COVID, it was "Where are we going to deliver and no one’s playing out?" So we went online. I guess that was a good move, because we’re still here. I just hope being online only is not curtailing the amount of people that read. It was so great when you walk into a folk heritage concert, and everyone’s reading the Troubadour. It seems other publications had to make that move, too.

CHARLIE: Well, I know how much music you see now and how much you love musicians. Was it like that long before you started the Troubadour?

LIZ: My husband and I had our own little music community. We had a duo and we called ourselves Honest Parents after my daughter. And we did mostly covers. But our specialty was Everly Brothers and Gene Clark, songs of The Byrds. So we had our little dealio. And now, we just don’t really play music.

We used to sing back up with Jose Sinatra - my stage name was Tipsy Holiday and Ken’s name was Phil Harmonic. We’d sing with them at street fairs.

CHARLIE: How would you describe the Troubadour's genres? Is it genre specific? It seems kind of jazz. It’s almost everything that’s non rock, I guess.

LIZ: I call it more acoustic music than anything. We do some roots rock stuff from time to time. And I’m almost opening up now to anything that’s good. I bumped into my friend, Grandpa Drew at the Whistle Stop and asked when he’d be up for doing another article. He wants to do a hip hop group that is actually up for a music award, and at this point, I’m thinking, why not?

We started more as a folk newspaper and all the genres that weren’t covered by the Union Tribune. It was folk music, bluegrass, gospel music, roots, alt country.

There was a lot of country influence here. And I really didn’t like country music, but now I’m changing my mind. Once we paired with the Duplessies, I learned so much more about music and all the different genres. And Western Swing, I was in love with. Bob Wills was my hero, and Asleep at the Wheel.

And now, acoustic as it is, it’s just acoustic singer-songwriter. And then around 2005, we expanded the list of genres to include jazz and blues.

CHARLIE: San Diego’s a little bit of a closed loop. I’ve been playing for a while. It’s kind of the same old faces. I would imagine if you’re writing about people who are playing a lot in town, the same names keep coming up, don’t they?

LIZ: They do. It’s funny because at the end of the year I’m going, oh my God, what am I going to do next year? Who’s going to be on the cover? But by January or February, I’ve got covers planned through September, because new people keep coming up. That’s one reason I attend Writer’s Round. Lauren Leigh Stuckey runs that on Monday nights at the Auld Sod and I always discover somebody new and we put a couple of people on the cover like that.

I couldn’t really afford to attend concerts before. But now I can pretty much get in anywhere and it’s kind of my salary because, truth be told, I’ve been volunteering for 25 years.

You don’t go into running a publication. You’re the last one to get paid.

CHARLIE: Speaking of who writes for the Troubadour, do a lot of musicians write?

LIZ: It’s a lot of musicians writing.

CHARLIE: I’m a musician so I can say this. We’re not a very responsible group.

LIZ: I’d say you are if you’re still playing music at your age. That means you’ve been working at it for 20, 30 years or so.

CHARLIE: I would imagine you have to chase musicians more down for a deadline than somebody else or not?

LIZ: My daughter always says, "You don’t pay them enough to care." Many columnists write for free - and we pay for feature stories and more for a cover story.

CHARLIE: This is probably different now, too, not being printed anymore. Is it a little liberating to be online only? Things can be as long as they need?

LIZ: The Internet doesn’t care. You can go as long or as short as you want to.

CHARLIE: How did you learn to be a journalist in the middle of this?

LIZ: I had a job in the publications department at UCSD Extension. I learned how to write. I learned how to edit. I learned how to do layout. And it was a natural fit.

CHARLIE: Are there some different things that you do editing-wise for online versus print. The length of paragraph plays differently in print than it does online.

LIZ: I might change the wording. I’m always careful because I’ve made this mistake before by editing something and it changes the meaning - so I’ve learned to leave it alone. It’s mostly light edits.

CHARLIE: You guys were a physical newspaper. How hard is it to be a mom and pop literally printing?

LIZ: When it was the four of us, it was so much fun.

We’d argue and get mad at each other, but it was always in good fun. And Lyle said, as long as it’s still fun, we’ll keep doing it. And it was fun up until when they both died, which was just terrible.

CHARLIE: How many copies were going around town?

LIZ: 7,000 on average. It was always a joy to see people reading it.

CHARLIE: Well, you go out to so much music, so much more than I, which is fantastic. What are you seeing in music now?

LIZ: It just is always evolving. The singer-songwriter scene is still there.

It takes a lot for me to go sit up and go, oh, who’s that?

My horizons have broadened. I have my little blues group friends. I have my singer-songwriter. I discover them in things like Writers Round. Jazz, I’ve become a huge jazz fan. I really don’t care for hardcore rock and roll much anymore. My knowledge just keeps growing.

CHARLIE: One question I’ve been asking everybody, music’s obviously a labor of love. Nobody’s in this for the money or should be because it’s not there. But why won’t you ever quit?

LIZ: I don’t see myself ever quitting. It’s my thing now. And it’s almost like I forgot how to do anything else. I go out to be around people to soak all that friendship in.

My friend gave me the most important compliment I’ve ever heard about the Troubadour. He said that when the Troubadour started, the whole music scene got friendlier and more supportive. And that means so much to me.

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