Singer Songwriter Lera Lynn Brings Her Indie Americana Music to Berwyn

Jul 07, 2015 James Currie Features, Music News, Reviews 0

Photos and Review By James Currie

This past Friday, Nashville based singer songwriter Lera Lynn played at the 34^th Annual American Music Festival at FitzGerald’s in Berwyn, IL. Located just outside of Chicago, the festival is home to the largest American music gathering around. Lynn played for about an hour and a half on the main stage inside to a packed house of adoring fans. It was the perfect setting for her style.

Former waitress and bartender, Lera Lynn was born in Texas, raised in Georgia and now lives in Nashville where she concentrates her music career. A career that has skyrocketed after her debut television appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman this past Winter. One of Letterman’s personal requests before retiring. She played, “Out To Sea” off her Sophomore album, “The Avenues”, a song that when played at FitzGerald’s garnered much attraction as well assuring she has no plans to return to the other side of the bar anytime soon.

Lynn’s Indie Americana Western style is a mix of Patsy Cline and Lucinda Williams with a touch of Sheryl Crow. It’s passionately haunting and heartfelt with meaning and purpose. A sultry sound filled with pedal steel guitars, riding bass and brush tipped drum stick beats.

Lynn, accompanied by her acoustic and electric guitars and her tight three piece band consisting of Joshua Grange on pedal steel, Tommy Perkinson on drums and Robby Handley on bass, took the stage around 6:15PM. She warmed up to the mic with a greeting to the crowd and rolled into, “I’m Your Fool”. Originally a track off her, “Lying In The Sun” EP, also now on her album, “The Avenues”. From there, they played through 15 songs of which included a couple covers like, “Fire” by Bruce Springsteen (before which Lynn jokingly asked if anyone still liked Springsteen) and “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash. She even debuted a new track, “For The Last Time”. Of course the set wouldn’t be complete without hearing, “My Least Favorite Life” the latest tune gaining traction from the hit HBO show, True Detective, Season 2”.

Throughout the show, she proved to be very personable. She told short stories, made whimsical little jokes and entertained a few drunks between songs. At one point she commented how she wasn’t sure how we (the audience) kept going. A reference to how the festival was already going for a couple days at this point and lasting until the wee hours of the morning fueled by plenty of whiskey and beer. Lynn made another statement pointing out that the festival has been going longer than she’s been alive. Which garnered a few half hearted laughs and groans. No one really cared how young she was. They already knew they loved her music, that speaks to all ages, and she is much more sophisticated than the average 20 something.

Lynn and the boys finished off the nights performance with a boot stomper country swing track, “Good Hearted Man”, one that left the audience cheering and calling for more. The live version was even more pumped up than the recording on her debut album, “Have You Meet Lera Lynn?”.

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