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New York-based country-soul singer/songwriter Lara Taubman delivers sobering subjects like mortality, mental health, spirituality, survival and finding hope in an exceedingly turbulent & traumatized world on her sophomore album, Ol’ Kentucky Light, out September 16 on Atomic Sound Record Company. Taubman clearly didn’t just stumble upon her muse. She channels her earliest influences—the classic country of Patsy Cline, the great gospel of Mavis Staples, The Staple Singers and Mahalia Jackson and the contemporary folk largess as filtered through Joni Mitchell. She reveals herself in her music. There’s vulnerability and vitality in equal proportions, resulting in clarity and conviction.
“The risk an artist takes is inherent within the act of surrender,” Taubman says. “Some artists prefer to hide out of fear that they’ll reveal too much about themselves. Music is a salve that allows me to excise my insecurity and discomfort. It heals me, and I hope that I can pass that resolve and reassurance on to my listeners, and that they’ll benefit from knowing they’re not alone.”
As a follow-up to her aptly-titled debut LP, Revelation, Taubman brings this idea of surrender and healing to full fruition in several of her songs on Ol’ Kentucky Light. “Silver Lining” feels like a gentle caress accompanied by an easy saunter and sway, “Darkness Before the Dawn” continues that ethereal glow, while being about going through hell before you get to heaven. “Lamb to the Slaughter” was inspired by a long life of anxiety and the consequences of addiction. “Mercy” veers from old school soul into “The Water” that reflects her new confidence and commitment.
“The emotions that started me writing this album was a Matterhorn of addiction and anxiety,” says Taubman. “I was either going to die or surrender. ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ was the embodiment of that moment. ‘The Water’ is about finding closure in difficult relationships. It expresses everything I needed to say when I wrote it a few years back. It was cathartic to write and even more so to sing it now.”
The scars and dour impositions that Taubman faced are certainly her crosses to bear. “Come to Me” is about staying in flow with nature to use forces greater than our everyday selves, and on “The Other Side of the River” she sings about the beauty of being able to live to tell her tale.
“I have spent, and continue to spend, a lot of time thinking about my death,” says Taubman, “but now in positive ways. I wrote this song as I was coming out of a struggle with suicide, battling with it for most of my life. The scary thing is once it gets in you it stays like a virus. I’ve lived with it for a long time. Music rescued me from a lot of the bad thinking patterns and hopelessness. It has helped me find my personal power. It makes me feel useful in the world and to have control of my life for the first time. As the suicidal piece began to wane, I began to have the ability to choose my angels and my demons. Those are big choices to possess.”
Ol’ Kentucky Light was produced by her seminal collaborators Steven Williams (drums) and Paul Frazier (bass), arranged by Etienne Lytle (cowriter, keyboards), Walter Parks (guitars, lap steel, shared vocals on “The Water”) and Steve Williams, with vocal production by Yvette Rovira, Paul Frazier and Steve Williams. The album was recorded at Atomic Sound in Brooklyn, engineered by Merle Chornuk, edited by Paul Frazier, and mixed and mastered by Eber Pinheiro.
Raised in the Jewish faith, Taubman considers herself non-observant. Her forebears were tested in many ways, beginning with her grandfather who went off to fight in World War I at the age of 16. He eventually found success in the automotive business during the Great Depression. Her mother, born in Bulgaria, survived the Nazis only to have to flee the Soviets after World War II, and relocated as a refugee to Israel like many European Jews of that time. She moved to Virginia after she met and married Taubman’s father.
“My home growing up was filled with opera and classical music and the classic rock of the 1960’s and ’70s,” recalls Taubman, “but Southern folk and country music made a real impression on me too. My parents dragged me and my brother to temple every Friday night and I absolutely hated it, except for the music. Those ancient sounds really stuck with me, but I didn’t realize it until the last ten years when I began making music.”
Taubman’s journey has taken her from Virginia, to the Appalachians, to Baltimore and eventually Vermont. After college she moved to New York and then to Arizona, California and Montana before eventually moving back to her beloved New York City. On her life’s journey to making music, she’s had a long career in the visual arts as a painter and then as an art critic and independent curator. Her work as a critic took her all over the world, writing about contemporary art for Artforum, Art News, Flash Art and Sculpture magazines to name just a few. She published essays for gallery and museum exhibits. She curated exhibits at The Heard Museum of Native American Art, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Art in Embassies, curating historical exhibits from the Abstract Expressionist movement as well as curating and exhibiting the work of contemporary artists.
This transition from art critic to musician was not easy. Taubman faced her share of inner demons and destructive forces, making the challenge to strike an equilibrium that much greater. Fortunately, she found solace and security through song, helping to heal the pain that tormented her for so long. With the illumination of Ol’ Kentucky Light, it appears she’s accomplished that and perhaps much more. Taubman is currently working on updated versions of songs from her last album, Revelation, and plans on touring as much as possible now that her career is in full throttle.
“My job,” says Taubman, “my service in life, is to call down and identify what it is I need to make and put it into the world. I’ve discovered my destiny. While I continue healing, hopefully my journey can provide inspiration to others.”