Today we’d like to introduce you to Allie Lamb.
Hi Allie, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Allie’s path to claiming her musical identity has seen a few extended detours. After 10 years of full-time corporate life, she’s surrendered to her true calling, but the musical journey began much earlier. Little Allie spent hours in her Massachusetts bedroom belting along to a “Grease” cassette tape. She drank in sounds spanning from jazz standards to 90s pop anthems over many years as a regular at the local dance school. At age 12, it became Lamb family tradition to stuff a home-burned CD of Allie’s recorded cover-song-of-the-year in the Christmas cards. In the tumultuous teen years, Nashville-veteran music teachers introduced Allie to what would become a lifelong love affair with the craft of songwriting. When 30-minute “guitar lessons” repeatedly evolved into 3- and 4-hour cowrites, the obsession started. These mentors planted the idea to move to Music City. After two years of rigorous Boston business study — and songwriting in the sparse moments between homework and class — that idea eventually made sense. Enter Belmont University. Allie made the 1200-mile drive “abroad” to the foreign honky-tonkin bible belt in her ’96 Honda Accord with no A.C and went on to graduate from the Curb College of Music Business. She’s called Nashville home ever since. A contemplative and hopelessly romantic songwriter, and dubbed a “wordsmith” by peers, Allie Lamb writes and sings country songs that zoom in on the beauty and humor hiding everywhere. She was runner-up in Center Stage Magazine’s first annual Indie Country Showdown in 2024, and has received recognition in the Nashville Songwriters Association International song contest. She gigs locally around Middle Tennessee and in the northeast with her duo Late Bloomers. People say she looks like Reese Witherspoon and others say she sounds like Dolly Parton. She looks forward to the day when she looks and sounds like herself.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
My motto is “why do it when you can overdo it?” So, rarely is the road smooth.
Five years ago, to the day, I was waking up from a self-induced music coma. Convincing my then-roommate to dust off her bass guitar and recruiting a random guitar accompanist on Facebook (who turned out to be an invaluable mentor and friend, Jasco Duende) was a first step in my creative recovery. Nashville will do that — silence the music in you — if you’re not ready to experience little fish / big pond life. Can’t say I wasn’t warned. Talk about intimidation. But even when it’s dormant, the music monster still whispers through the lies you tell yourself that you’re doing the right thing by riding in the safe lane, building a 401K, clocking in at 8:30 am, wearing your business casuals. At the time, I was working at the zoo (hello to the flamingos and clouded leopards!). I heard murmurs amongst my events colleagues that they’d be booking live music for peak season weekends. KNOCK KNOCK. That was a loud rapping on my intuition’s door. A metaphorical kick in the butt. I am the musician who should be playing and singing for moms holding their iced coffees and pushing strollers around while their kids gawk at the rhinos!
Except I’d forgotten how to play guitar, my voice was cowering away in a closet, and any proof that I was a musician was outdated. Thus, LambJam was born. With no cohesive identity, the three of us played the most random assortment of covers to a backyard full of Nashvillians desperate for kinship during the quarantine era, amongst other more legitimate gigs. Days after my bass player answered the loud knock from her own intuition to pursue a new endeavor, Jasco literally tossed a bass guitar into my hands, showed me “Stand By Me” in the key of C, and from then on, I’ve been faking my way to “bassist.”
In March 2020, on a break from my covid gardening endeavors, I wrote my first song in 5 years, sitting on the front porch looking out at an eerily quiet street in south Nashville, with my neglected guitar, piecing together the few chords I could remember how to play. I took it to another random Facebook find (who turned out to be another invaluable music partner, Reed Pittman) and recorded the darn thing, just to see if my voice was still in there somewhere.
Fast forward, many ripped-off bandaids later, and I’ve lost count of the number of songs I’ve written, the stages I’ve sung and played on, and the talented magicians with whom I’ve been privileged to collaborate. Hello Nashville, I’m Allie Lamb.
One of my new songs, “What If I Don’t” was born from all of the above. This chorus came to me in a downtown parking lot after another one of those intuition-stomping-on-stomach moments, watching a killer live performance and feeling like I was still standing outside Brene Brown’s metaphorical arena versus playing inside it.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a vocalist and songwriter primarily. I’ve been in love with words for as long as I can remember. I was the student who got a rush out of writing an essay. Tooting my own horn here, but I won a poetry contest in first grade with a poem about my black lab. I co-write frequently with a wide variety of collaborators from cowboy crooners to pop-country boppers. I hope to be known for my lyrics. I’m not someone who will often settle for a rhyme just because it sounds good. I will push myself and my co-writers to squeeze the juice out of every line in a song. Something else that sets me apart in the songwriting category is the number of snacks I bring to every writing appointment.
As an artist, I’ve released several of my own songs here and there, but this year I’m really cranking it into gear releasing at least 5 songs. I feel it’s important to leave a sonic imprint while you can. If one person hears my music and laughs, cries, or sees themself in it, I’ll have done my job.
In my country duo, Late Bloomers, I sing and play bass alongside my partner in crime Jerome Goosman who sings and plays guitar. Like many an indie Nashville artist, we play our fair share of cover gigs, but we are strategically moving towards more performance opportunities where we can showcase our original music. Of course pursuing an artist “career” on your own dime means wearing ten different hats every day and making lots of mistakes and doing somethings right every now and then. Again, if we can make just one person smile or feel alive at each gig, we’re winning. We are releasing our first song as a duo this summer, so stay tuned!
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I’ve come to appreciate the tangible omnipresence of the music industry. I’ve lived here long enough to know it’s a smaller town than it looks, and relationships are what makes it go round. That’s not just networking BS. Everyone is only one or two degrees separated and most folks have some type of value to offer. Having grown up in the northeast, I’m also quite charmed by Nashville’s warm(er) weather, flowery trees, crickets, crawfish, fireflies, and surrounding farmland — country lyrics come to life!
It breaks my heart to see the authenticity of Nashville — in terms of the physical city and neighborhoods — disintegrate as the real estate development monster ravages every nook and cranny. This place looks nothing like it did when I moved here, and it has definitely lost a good bit of the magic. I’m also definitely not a fan of downtown Nashville’s trashy tourism reputation. And man do I wish we had better public transit.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://allielambsongs.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/allielambsongs
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/allielambsongs
- Other: https://linktr.ee/allielambsongs
