Ep. 141: Lara Taubman (Musician)

Ep. 141: Lara Taubman (Musician)

Lara Taubman is a performing singer songwriter currently living in New York City. She is about to release her third album The Gospel of Getting Free. Lara calls herself a troubadour of the new world because she believes in the power of song and story as a critical aid for people who need respite and refuge in a world that is rapidly transforming. 

Before she began writing songs in 2015, she was a visual art critic, curator and painter. She has been passionately creating since she can remember, but it was when she committed to singing and songwriting that her personal world changed radically. She was living in Montana and it blew up her marriage. She moved back in 2016 to the creative home of her heart, New York City, to pursue music as a career.

Soon after she put music at the center of her world, life became very simple. She had found her reason for being. Music had always been a powerful healing force since she was a girl. Born and raised in the coal country of southwestern Virginia, the ubiquitous Old Time and bluegrass music got into her blood and is a significant inspiration in the long, rambling ballads of her own songwriting today as can be seen in her songs, “Snakes in the Snow,” “The Water” and in the title track of her new album,” The Gospel of Getting Free” and others. 

The ancient ballads of Britain and Appalachia bring her back to memories of the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains of her childhood home. She still drowns in the long narratives of the music, luxuriating in the memory and feelings of them. The music of her childhood made her know that she wasn’t alone. Lara’s hope is to make music that helps others to also feel less lonely. The more music she makes, the more it is clear to her that this was why she was put on earth. 

In the summer of 2023, she began writing on “The Gospel of Getting Free.” Around the same time, she began her work in somatic trauma therapy which created a rapid shift in her emotional life. While this next album continues the melancholy, heartbroken themes of the first two albums, she suddenly felt compelled to write songs about joy and hope. Contacting a more ecstatic approach to her music led her to go deeper into gospel music, which was a key inspiration for her second album “Ol’ Kentucky Light.” In The Gospel of Getting Free,” she went further, choosing simpler lyrics and  trusting the music to lead her into the journey of a song. She wanted to make music that could move the spirit.

The human impulse to take devastation and transform it into a melody, a story, a rhythm, is what drives Lara to create music. All the darkness she has lived through has been the fuel for her to turn her tragedies into music. She believes despair and hopelessness are energies to be endured in order to get to the light and to personal emotional freedom. The alchemy of music and design, the creative process, is there to remind humans that all is not lost. 

www.larataubman.com

Credits

Otter Castro - Episode Body Editor

Stephen Bluhm - Sound Engineer/Episode Editor

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.stephenbluhm.fun⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Rich Wexler

Producer/Interviewer

⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.vintageannalsarchive.com