Lynn Drury was part of the artistic migration to New Orleans that took place around the turn of the millennium. Always a powerful performer in both solo and group contexts, she grew in stature as a songwriter as she thrived in the local music scene and helped to reestablish that culture in the heroic years following the 2005 Katrina flood. Today Drury is a stalwart presence in the city as New Orleans copes with its biggest crisis since the flood, the COVID-19 pandemic. As the city once again struggles to reestablish its music culture, Drury has released an important new album of songs that address some of the existential dilemmas posed by the pandemic.
Dancin’ In the Kitchen continues Drury’s streak of excellent records. The easy swinging “Good” sets a positive tone with Drury’s regular rhythm section of bassist Rene Coman and drummer Chris Pylon moving in tandem with Drury’s always propulsive rhythm guitar. On the title track Drury looks back on her New Orleans life playing bars and staying out all night long with a wistful fondness before recognizing that era is gone. She is undaunted, though, and sings confidently that she can still rock out at home. She takes the pandemic restrictions to heart on “Safe Space,” singing “I just wanna be a safe space, a safe space where we can go.”
In her earlier incarnations Drury was something of a musical chameleon, moving effortlessly through genres until she found a comfortable niche in the catch-all environment of Americana, a musical landscape that can accommodate her affinities for rock, country, R&B and folk all at the same time. Here, Drury benefits from the production vision of Ric Robertson, who helps to give the record a structural coherence as it wends its way through the country territory of “St. Tammany,” the poison-pen ballad “How to Lose a Friend,” the sing-along folk melody of “Back On My Feet,” the world-weary meditation “Home Is Always Moving,” or the graceful waltz “Better Than Being Alone.”
In the final analysis, Drury’s greatest strength is the soulfulness in her voice. Whether she’s singing of relationship breakdowns, the search for identity, or the sheer joy of being alive, she is always a convincing messenger for the human condition.
