Drury's natural songwriting talents are evident in her original material, which can move from heartbreaking to hilarious as quickly as life itself.  Her current band has a truly stellar cast: Casandra Faulconer, recently nominated for an OffBeat award as New Orleans’s best bassist; guitarist Brian Seeger, Stanton Moore & Quintology alum; and drummer/vocalist extrordinaire Chris Pylant. They lay down solid grooves and weave ambient textures, allowing the sound of Drury's voice and the meaning of her songs to float above.

RECENT PRESS

June 23, 2006

She Rode from Horses to Guitars and Roped in Some Fans and a Career Along the Trail

By CURTIS ROCKWELL
Item Associate Editor

CARRIERE— For a girl that grew up hoping to one day be a rodeo performer, Carriere’s Lynn Drury is roping in herself quite a career in the music business these days.

The Pearl River Central High School graduate celebrates the release of her fourth CD as a singer-songwriter this weekend, with a trio of performances beginning tonight. The self-professed stylist of “twang and groove” will show off her skills at a release party tonight for “All You Need,” her latest release, at Le Bons Temps in New Orleans and follow that up with shows Saturday afternoon at the Botanical Gardens in City Park in the Big Easy and Saturday night at The Shed in Ocean Springs.

“All You Need” is already getting great reviews from Gambit, and Drury herself garnered award-winning recognition from OffBeat, two of New Orleans’ most well respected musical publications.

All of this for someone who didn’t even pick up a guitar until about 10 years ago.

“When I was young, all we ever did was ride horses and play music,” Drury, who was recently chosen by readers of Offbeat as best emerging singer/songwriter in New Orleans. “I mean I was in the marching band and grew up around music, but horses were my first love. I wanted to be in the rodeo.

” These days, though, music lovers are certainly glad she chose another trail.

Drury’s powerful wail and sultry singing have been compared to such performers as Lucinda Williams, Bonnie Raitt, Janis Joplin and even Norah Jones, according to her press bio, but she is making her own reputation with a style all her own.

“All You Need” marks a solo return for the New Orleans- (now Memphis- since Hurricane Katrina) based artist, after her last two offerings were recorded with her band Bad Mayo.

“I moved to New Orleans in 1996 and that’s when I begin to think about trying to make a career in music,” Drury said last week, over plates of seafood and cold drinks at Dockside. “I took lessons and learned from a guy named Chris Wood for a year or so, and then started doing some open mike shows to get some experience playing live.”

Rotating spots on the rich and diverse Crescent City Club Scene soon followed, and Drury really began honing her performing skills during a three-year stint at Margaritaville in the French Quarter while refining her songwriting skills as well.

“You have to learn how to entertain, and for some people it comes easier than others,” she said. “When I decided to make it my life, I wanted to become the best that I could. And those days of learning and living in New Orleans helped me create my style.”

Her first CD, “Crossing Frequencies” was released in 2001, and soon after she began touring more regionally and forming her band. “Blackberry Winter,” the first of two releases with Bad Mayo, followed in 2002. “Spun” was released the next year with the same group.

It was also around that time that her performances, filled with her Southern-tinged drawl and infectious melodies, started earning rave reviews, and eventually earned her a spot at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Suddenly, Drury had gone from first chair clarinet in the Blue Devil marching band to playing three years in a row at one of the most famous music festivals in the world.

“That was the time when I finally thought I might be able to make it in this business,” Drury said.

Here is what the music writer Michael Dominici of Offbeat Magazine had to say about a recent Lynn Drury performance:

“I was taken aback with the beauty of her voice. Drury’s powerful, Mississippi-honed voice has a sort of soulful, burnished twang (similar to Lucinda Williams) tempered with that same southern sweet sincerity that makes Norah Jones so appealing. One of the strongest performances that I’ve heard all summer.”

Her music blends the funky sounds of New Orleans with the countrified roots of her rural upbringing, according to her press bio, creating a sound that escapes easy classification. Drury’s seemingly natural songwriting talents are evident in her strictly original material, which can move from heartbreaking to hilarious as quickly as life itself.

Life post-Katrina was certainly heart-breaking, and a time for reflection for Drury as well.

She lost almost all of her possessions when her apartment in New Orleans was flooded in the wake of the largest natural disaster to hit the United States. She came through Pearl River County, where her mom, Sandra, and brothers, Shane and Russell, still live, and eventually evacuated to her grandmother’s house in Central Mississippi.

Soon after that she moved on to Memphis, another Southern City deep-rooted in its musical origins, and has found some peace of mind there but plans on returning to the Big Easy at some point.

In fact, the storm ended up being a another in a series of changes for Drury, who was coming out of a relationship, a band and, now for a time, a new base of operations.

During all of that, she was preparing a new CD for release.

“I think it’s a group of really strong songs. I’m proud of it,” she said. “Even with all of the things that have happened over the past year, it’s still an exciting time.”