Lynn Blue is Singing a Different Tune

[caption id="attachment_60345" align="alignnone" width="800"] Lynn Blue on the tambourine. Jack James photo[/caption]

By Michelle Trauring

The moment Lynn Blumenfeld walks through the door, she is already singing.

“Hello, Lou! Hello, Lou!” she coos to her rescue dog, a loveable mutt, who is patiently waiting for her at their home in Montauk. “How’s my boy?”

After what can only be interpreted as a satisfactory answer, she lets him outdoors and laughs as he makes a break for it. If he loves anything more than his mother, it’s the winter weather.

“He’s just standing outside, sniffing the air. You know that thing that dogs do, when they can smell the snow coming? He’s obsessed with the snow,” she observes over the telephone. “He is possibly the most handsome creature you’ve ever seen.”

She drags herself away from watching Lou and settles in. She had just returned home from a networking event, where she is advertising executive Lynn Blumenfeld, the consummate professional and longtime expert in her field—her black suede miniskirt, with fringe, she notes, nowhere in sight.

[caption id="attachment_60347" align="alignright" width="534"] The Lynn Blue Band at the Montauket. Katrina Garry photo[/caption]

She saves that for her nights as Lynn Blue, a burgeoning voice in rock and roll on the East End, with an energy so brazen that it’s contagious.

“I’m over 50—that’s pretty good for starting a rock and roll band,” she says. “I’m a big believer that if you want to change your life, you actually have to change. So many people talk about wanting to change their lives, but they’re afraid to do something different. You really have to do things different, and differently, if you want different results.”

“By the same token, I didn’t dive in the deep end,” she admits. “I was guided.”

Following a guest performance with Joe Delia at Guild Hall, she caught the eye and ear of Randolph Hudson III. He eased her into the fold—first with himself, Klyph Black and an assortment of rotating musicians, and now with what is now known as the Lynn Blue Band, which will perform on Saturday at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett.

“I had been singing backup, but I’m not really a backup singer,” she says. “I have a big, big voice. I was very content, but this singing stuff is like crack. You want to do it more and more the minute you start doing it. And I’ve been doing it all my life.”

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Westchester, Ms. Blumenfeld was just as she is now as a young girl—front and center, in every school musical and chorus, her enthusiasm boundless.

“I was the short kid bouncing around in the front row, in the middle. All the other kids were standing there not moving. I was the one bouncing around and smiling. I would walk to school singing on the way to school, and I would walk home singing on the way home,” she recalls. “I loved music but I was a little scared to do it. I grew up in a nice, middle-class family where they wanted me to be a lawyer.”

The classic story pushed her down a safe, traditional path—working in Manhattan at an advertising firm instead of pursuing her art—but she still fed her passion by writing and recording music on the side.

Until it all screeched to a halt.

“Somebody got my tape to the head of Warner/Chappell Music. They thought I had an amazing voice and I should move to Nashville, and that I could be a good songwriter someday, but I’m not there yet. Of course, I was crushed,” she says. “I was a vice president, I wasn’t going to move to Nashville. I was in my early 30s and I thought, ‘I have a career. I’ve got to do my career.’ Now, I think, ‘Oh my gosh, why didn’t I know I could come back to any ad agency two years later after that experience?’ You don’t know that when you’re in your 30s.”

Rediscovering her passion alongside guitarist Dave Portocarrero, bassist Jim “The Rev” Nanos and drummer Alex Sarkis has been nothing short of “transformative” and “life changing,” she says. Next month, they will celebrate two years together.

“The guys I play with, I feel like each one has taught me so much,” she says. “Alex teaches me about changing the set list on the fly. Dave has taught me to really listen to music and get inside the song and be part of the reason of the song. And Jim, he can do this stuff with his eyes closed. Jim’s been playing music since he was 13, professionally.”

“We can’t wait to play the Talkhouse,” she continues. “There’s a whole excitement every time you’re there just because of who has played there. For someone like me, it’s just a thrill a second to get to play at the Talkhouse. And it’s scary, too—even though it’s less scary now because it’ll be my fourth or fifth time playing there.”

[caption id="attachment_60346" align="alignleft" width="800"] The Lynn Blue Band live at Wolffer Estate. Ken Grille photo[/caption]

Anywhere from one to three times a week, Ms. Blumenfeld lives out her childhood dream as Lynn Blue. And, every so often, she finds herself doling out advice she wishes she’d heard when facing her very own crossroads.

“When I talk to young people now who are graduating college and they want to start an app and their parents are like, ‘No, get a job,’ I’m like, ‘Don’t listen to your mother. Start your app, then get a job. If it doesn’t work out, what difference does it make if you start your career at 22 or 24?’

“Now, I’m doing it. It was happening, so I didn’t have time to question it, and I wasn’t too old,” she adds. “It’s the same as falling in love with someone. If it’s happening, you’re not too old. You’re not too old to do anything, especially in the Hamptons. Out here, there are so many second and third acts happening everywhere, think about it.”

She pauses, and then sing-songs, “Right, Lou?”

It’s hard to imagine Lou giving her anything but an affirmative tail wag.

The Lynn Blue Band will perform on Saturday, February 18, at 8 p.m. at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett. Tickets are $10. Age 21 and older only. For more information and full list of shows, visit lynnbluemusic.com.