MUSIC
Charly Lowry on the banks of the Lumbee River
an OLD SOUL Charly Lowry defies classification as performer with Indigenous roots by DAVID MENCONI photography by JOHN GESSNER
“S
ometimes I’ll meet audience members after a show and they’ll say, I thought there’d be flutes or more native drums or something,” Charly Lowry says with a laugh. “It’s been a journey to break down stereotypes and educate people, especially because I don’t look like what non-natives think a native looks like. But I grew up listening to everything.” An Indigenous singer of Lumbee/ Tuscarora descent, Lowry was born and
raised in the town of Pembroke, where she lives on land that has been in her family since the late 1800s. Her speaking voice carries a drawl that’s pure Down East, and her singing voice is powerful and soulful, with an occasional slide into a country music-style warble. Lowry might occasionally play a hand drum onstage, but if you see her singing with her rock band, Dark Water Rising, it’s obvious that she’s influenced at least as much by pop singers like Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston as she is by
Native American music. Lowry wanted to be an entertainer as a child. By her middle-school years, she was telling anyone who asked that her main career choices were singer, veterinarian, or basketball player in the WNBA (she says her 5 foot, 4 inch frame made the latter dream unrealistic). Singing held the most promise. Lowry was 12 years old and had just been voted “Junior Miss Lumbee” by her nation when she met Pura Fé, a Tuscarora/Taino singer who was alThe Art & Soul of Raleigh | 33
