Half and Half - an interview with Lara Price

In this exclusive interview, we delve into the life and career of blues sensation Lara Price. Born amidst the turmoil of the Vietnam War and brought to the United States through the humanitarian effort known as Operation Babylift, Lara’s journey from orphan to acclaimed artist is nothing short of extraordinary.

WORDS: Colin Campbell PIX: Brynn Osborn

With a voice that resonates with the depth of her experiences and a passion for music that transcends borders, Lara Price has carved out a unique space in the world of blues. We discussed assorted topics, including her newest release, Half & Half, and joining Gulf Coast Records.

“I was born in Vietnam, and I was orphaned by the American occupation there. As a result, the United States government brought a bunch of the orphan children to the United States through “Operation Babylift.” This was done because the government was worried that these orphans were half American GI, and they were worried that they would get slaughtered. The operation was humanitarian, political, all that good stuff to bring us over here, and there’s about three thousand of us. However, they discovered that some of the orphans weren’t orphans at all, and they were talking about their families, leading to some being sent back. I’m positive that I was an orphan. So, I was adopted by an all-American military family, Air Force family, and we travelled around a lot! My musical journey started in England; we were stationed there. My mother enrolled me into piano lessons with Howard Jones. You might have heard of him! He was a hard-working musician trying to make ends meet, teaching lessons. At the time, I was about six years old. He went on tour with Eurythmics, and the rest is history. Recently, I got to see Howard last summer here in Austin. He came to play with Boy George and Berlin; it was like a big 80s variety show. He got me backstage, and we caught up, and he’s still really nice. Another memorable encounter was when I was nineteen and living in Salt Lake City, and he called me at my house and said, ‘hey, I’m in town playing come to the show!’”

Lara’s singing is often heartfelt, tender and tough when required:

“My mother got me some operatic vocal lessons when I was a kid. That helped me largely with singing. One day I walked into a blues jam because I wanted to meet other musicians and to sing. I knew that you could do that at a blues jam. My intention was to be in a rock and roll band and now fast forwarding eight blues records later, I’m still doing it!”

“I fell in love with classical music when I was five years old, when my mom enrolled me in ballet that was my first love. Then, later I listened to Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, those are the ones that were fed to me on the radio at the time. I just loved great singing! Once I got into the blues music world, I didn’t really understand B.B. King at first to be honest, I didn’t get it. Then I heard Susan Tedeschi, and I was like, okay, I get this, it was more rock based. I finally got to see BB King and I got it, the feeling, everything, and it’s been a wild ride since. I walked into a country bar to sing in a contest because I just wanted to sing. I wanted to sing with other players, so I didn’t really care what it was. I just wanted to get up on stage and play with musicians. It started with a country contest in San Jose, California. A lot of the people that I still play with, I met at these blues jams, and blues players are also multifaceted, they are rock and roll players or jazz players, flamenco players. Many musicians leaned into the blues because the blues gave you some gigs, you could find work that way. My first record was very traditional blues, but I couldn’t own that style of blues with integrity. I was inspired by artists like Lydia Pense and Cold Blood and Donny Hathaway. It’s been a journey to find out what kind of voice I’m going to have in this genre. Blues is a big umbrella term for all the stuff I put on there, it would fit underneath.”

Lara reckons Howard Jones gave her some great advice to help her find her way:

He said, ‘Here’s my advice for you; that it’s not who you know and it’s not luck. It’s all hard work.’ And I never forgot that! The business now to me is very confusing, so I don’t know what I would tell someone right now about advice. Hard work pays off, but where are you putting your hard work? It’s like we are now content creators, not just musicians. So, it’s all about the algorithm and likes, loves, and shares. What I tell fans now is if you want to help the band out, like love and share it, because that’s where we’re kind of dependent on this algorithm to help us out. It’s made things financially a little bit more difficult because no one’s buying CDs. There’s a certain demographic that still does, thank God! But I invested in $3,000 worth of vinyl that I’m hoping I can sell. It’s heavy to carry around, and you can’t leave it in your car. It’s a very diva piece of content to sell to people. But I love this, I love music, it’d be a shame to quit now! One of the upsides to streaming is that there’s so much music that you can be introduced to that you couldn’t do before, like you depended on a friend to record a mix tape for you and then give it to you. I just want to play live as much as possible. But I found that a lot of my energy is spent making content. It’s a struggle, but you know on that note, Colin, I feel blessed that I found something that I absolutely love doing. It’s hard work, but I still love it.”

What about life on the road as a gigging musician, do you find it tough?:

“Yes and no. My strategy for this tour for this record is to release it to the people and do these mini tours. I’m calling it the Orphan Annie tour. For instance, I just went to Iowa when the new album was released, and the Avey Groups Band backed me up and we released it there. Jeni Grouws and I did some duets, and it was fun for her fans to be introduced to something different. It’s just nice to create other relationships in the music community.”

Lara reflects on her experience so far:

“Dancing helps because you get more comfortable in your body on stage, but also blues jams. When you’re on stage with a bunch of people you don’t know and like, it sounds horrible, it’s important to find a skill to be able to land that ship. I’ve been in situations where just things are going wrong everywhere. Say, when your key band players leave because, some ex-girlfriend comes in and says that she’s there to see the bass player, and the bass player decides to just leave - that was a little bit difficult. Luckily, our keyboard player picked bass guitar all night, and then some woman that was ready to go and party who just got out of jail, came to the bar; and she was entertaining so much that no one noticed that the bass player left! So, DJ, if you’re out there, thank you for saving the show! Going on the road is the hardest work you can do. On my first tour with the band the van broke down seven times! We eventually had to leave it in New Orleans. Some of us flew, some drove back. It was a sweet van, too, I had a little bunk in there and you could stand in it. I want to play a place that’s as packed as possible, but I’ll take a small cafe and do a duo, an acoustic thing. I just like singing, it doesn’t matter what venue how big or small!”

What’s the story behind signing for Gulf Coast Records, let’s talk about the new release Half & Half:

“Well, the record was done when I called Mike Zito. I was shopping it because, honestly, no record label would agree to twenty-two musicians, two states and three studios being involved. No label would agree to do that and pay for that. So luckily, I was able to create this thing and then I shopped it. Kid Andersen who produced it asked Mike to play on the track ‘We’re Still Friends.’ He recorded it while he was on a gig on a cruise ship. A mutual fan had recording gear, pulled him into a cabin, and asked him to record slide on it. I reached out later, and we connected. I’ve met Mike Zito several times over the past ten years and am a big fan and great to work with. So far, I’ve loved working with everybody. I got to meet them all in Memphis at the Blues Music Awards in February, it’s just been a fun ride. It’s put a lot more pressure on me to figure out how I’m going to get my music out there and sell the product and be a good label mate. So, one of the studios was located here in Texas, and one of the studios was in California. Because I have like 25 years plus of relationships and musical experience in California, I couldn’t see myself doing this record without those people. I wanted to record half of it in California and half of it in Texas, with the guys that I’ve met here. There are phenomenal musicians – like, throw a rock and hit a world class musician! It’s crazy in Austin. I wanted to also reflect over what I’ve learned over the last nine years being here. So that’s what I did. The third studio was here as well. So, there are two studios here in Texas and one in California that were used for the release. I saw the Western Union Man Band in a bar in Texas. I just hired them because I knew they would interpret my stuff in a cool way. I walked up to one of them and said, hey, I want your music to smell like me and taste like you. So, can we get together and record and make a record? They played their butts off on this record. In California, Kid Andersen, Mike Schermer, Randy Hayes, Baxter Robertson, all these guys I’ve worked with for 20 years, working with them was kind of a coming home recording session.

Track Talk

Rain: This was the second single that was released. I’d heard the chord progression in an Uber cab. I heard the chorus and I saw something in my head, like a video. I saw bombs dropping on Vietnam, like this footage, so the song is large. It’s about war in all forms War boots on the ground, war in your head. But it’s also, you know, about the drumbeat. Well, you can’t be happy all the time. It’s not realistic. So sometimes you got to let it rain, right! I asked Kid Andersen to record his cat purring on this one, I read somewhere cat purring is healing, it sure helps me.

Days Ago: This was a song that David Jimenez wrote, I said would you be interested in in me writing a response verse and my interpretation of what I think’s going on in this song and do a duet. He’s a super great human and a ridiculously talented player. He played all over the record.

Solitude: A Duke Ellington song. I’ve been playing with a phenomenal guitar player, Matt Berger, a Berklee graduate. I asked him to do a duet with me because I love the acoustic guitar element. It’s so warm. I’ve been flirting with jazz for probably 20 years, and I just really loved the song.

We finish with a thought about the future:

“I’m hoping for more live shows and another record. I want to perform as much as possible and get my name out there. I’d love to go to Europe and visit the UK.”

For further information see website: laraprice.com