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Back to basics for singer Lauren Barrett
POP MUSIC: New Orleans native hits Dallas this week
11:10 AM CDT on Monday, September 17, 2007
By MATT WEITZ / Special Contributor
Lauren Barrett is getting back to her roots. The acoustic-pop chanteuse – who traded in a college-spawned stint singing in Austin bars for a shot at industry success in Los Angeles – is embarking on her first multistate tour, one that will take her through her native South.
Courtesy
Lauren Barrett
Singing in Sixth Street clubs wasn't her first taste of performing, though. Since she was 12, the New Orleans native had been singing lead with her physician father's band, Dr. Rob and the Prescriptions.
"It was a '60s and '70s cover band," she says during a recent phone interview. "It wasn't very original material, but it helped a lot with stage experience."
It wasn't until she got to Austin, however, that she started thinking about music as a career. "I made the mistake of graduating from UT early," she says with a laugh. "All my friends were still going to class, and so I decided to hang around. That was the first time I started playing a lot, multiple times a week."
Her boyfriend (now her fiancé) moved to Los Angeles, so she decided to trade one music scene for another.
"Looking back on it, it may have been a mistake," she says. "Out here, you have to give people a reason to see you, almost make them come out, and every place has a cover."
But she persevered, writing, co-writing and performing her music. She sought to advance her career with a specific strategy: entering as many contests as she could.
"I know it's kind of cheesy," she says, acknowledging that in the post- American Idol universe, any idiot with a pulse can be provided a shot at pop culture's brass ring. "But I tried to limit myself to songwriting contests rather than performance-based things."
After a long string of placing but not winning, she began to score. The icing on the cake was winning the VO5 "Red Hot Rising Star" contest. "That paid cash. I was also trying to focus on contests that offered money so that I could take it and do what I wanted to."
The result of that boon was her namesake EP, released last year, a follow-up to 2005's This Is Real. The music on it is something of a cross between that of Shawn Colvin and Avril Lavigne: smart, sensitive and ranging from joyous to sad.
Her favorite song on the new album may be "Open Door," "which started out as a punky, up-tempo thing," she explains. "But after Katrina, it began to slow down, and now it's really about my brother, who really carried the weight of the family there for a while."
Like many who love the Crescent City, she feels confusion, anger and sadness about the entire post-Katrina situation but has managed to find a positive side to the disaster that drove her family out of their home for six months.
"I'm really excited to be coming back to Texas because the outpouring of hospitality that Texas showed to people from New Orleans was just crazy. It really means a lot."
guidelive@dallasnews.com
Plan your life
Lauren Barrett will play in Dallas for two nights. The first performance will be at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Obzeet, 19020 Preston Road. Admission is free. 972-867-6126. At 8 p.m. Wednesday, she'll be at Poor David's Pub, 1313 S. Lamar. Admission is $10. 214-565-1295. - Dallas Morning News
Discography
This is Real, Self-titled EP (both available on iTunes)
Photos
Bio
Influenced by her fathers vocal capabilities and piano playing, at a young age Lauren Barrett, was exposed to great sounds. As a pre-teen she sang with the group The Prescriptions in live venues across greater New Orleans, her beloved hometown. During her time at University of Texas, Lauren began to play three to four nights a week at clubs in the Austin area. She had quite a following when she graduated and moved to Los Angeles to pursue her career in 2003.
Things popped for Lauren when she won the Clear Channel/Epic Records contest with her soulful, soothing voice and pertinent and personal lyrics. This multi talented musician launched herself into the world of entertainment by teaming up with Mike Malinin of the Goo Goo Dolls and applied her contest earnings to the production of a few of her own tracks. Afterward she submitted the new music to the VO5 contest sponsors and was chosen to be a participant. When national vote totals were in once she came out on top! Opportunity to appear on full page spreads of Allure, Glamour, Teen, Vogue, Self, Jane and Lucky magazines instantly came her way as well as as being cast in Christopher Reeves last directorial film, The Brooke Ellison Story. Marshall Altman (Marc Broussard, Warren Barfield, Matt Nathanson, Zebrahead) joined in the excitement of this glowing new talent and has recently helped her record her new self titled L.P.
Lauren most recently has come off of a 10 day tour with the Friends of New Orleans, sharing the stage with the Randy Newman, Irma Thomas, and Anders Osborne, in Denver and Minneapolis during the National Conventions.
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