Lorna Bracewell is one of the few musicians in Tampa Bay who has never worked a job outside of music in her entire time on the planet.
Granted, she's only been on the planet 23 years, but her first paycheck came from a Wednesday night church band performance 10 years ago. $50. She played the drums.
Nowadays you still might find her playing for a church group. "I'm big with the Lutherans," she says, referring to fans who volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, one of the beneficiaries of the three charity concerts she organized in 2006. She also rocked the house last year at Camp Anytown, the diversity training camp organized by Community Tampa Bay, and she's a regular at the Sacred Grounds coffeehouse in Tampa, where some nights the crowds are so small she doesn't even try to compete with the cappuccino machine.
But she's not just a local girl getting by on $5 covers. She often opens for national acts who stop in Tampa Bay: Chris Isaak, the Pretenders, Melissa Ferrick, Heart and more. She'll embark on her third European tour this summer, in addition to the circuit of community colleges, old theaters and opera houses she plays all over this country. And she's also the president of Bracewell Records, which she runs with manager Cliff Rice (who played with her in the church band back in the day). She unveiled her fifth album earlier this month at a party at the Pro Star Recording Studio in St. Pete.
Expenses can exceed income. But so far she's never had to flip a burger or scrub a toilet. "Except my own," she says laughing.
An artist who plays what she wants, when she wants, without the distraction of a day job. Sounds like a dream to those of us who haven't quite worked out a similar formula, but what's it really like?
"Frightening and tiring!" says Bracewell, laughing again. She had just been talking about her touring schedule and how she despises the travel aspect of her job.
"I hate it. … You have to be crazy in love with the art form. The business sucks, the traveling sucks. I get over-stimulated. I just hate airports and planes and people who get in my way. I'm like a rock, throw me and I'll sit there."
When she's not touring, she does Bikram yoga at least once a day and otherwise is content to stay at home reading (but not music magazines). She calls her family her best friends and has a girlfriend of over a year, Lexi Pierson, also a singer-songwriter, who just moved in with her.
Luckily for her, tours don't always take her too far from home. For one recent gig, she traveled to the Largo Cultural Center — across the street from where she went to high school.
Pierson usually accompanies Bracewell to all her shows, but on this particular night, when Lorna will open for Karla Bonoff, Lexi is staying behind. The couple is splayed out on the bed, kissing goodbye, when this reporter hovers a little too close with her microphone.
"She's got that damn mic, doesn't she," Lorna says. Lexi nods and Lorna replies, "Then let's make sure she gets lots of good puckering sounds!"
The load-in is simple: a couple of guitars, a bag with a change of clothes and a second trip back to the apartment to get all the merch. Then, in Largo, Bracewell waits around until soundcheck, which comes quicker than expected as Bonoff's crew finishes its check early. Then more waiting around until Lorna's mother and father come with dinner, Greek salads and spinach pie. Her parents will attend the show and man the merch table. Lorna paces a little as her five-minute warning gets closer.
She performs, then rushes out to the merch table at intermission, selling CDs and dealing (thankfully) with lots of compliments. People return to their seats in time for Karla, though; all but one straggler, a 40-something man who's itching to go back in but cannot stop chatting up Lorna. Even her parents have already gone back in.
Bracewell watches Karla for a while but then slips back to the dressing area for more coffee and chatting. Nothing about music, but life and all the things in it that frustrate thoughtful, progressive minds. Mean people, morons in politics.
After the show, it's back to merch, to see the folks line up in droves for Bonoff autographs, clutching their old records and new CDs. Bonoff's line extends way past Lorna's table, and she chats with the folks as they slowly trudge by.
The drive back to Lorna's is dark and quiet. She plays a burned copy of her new CD for her passenger — she doesn't even have a finished copy from the printer yet. Tired, she says goodnight and heads home.
Editor's Note: CL Editorial Assistant Dawn Morgan is also a DJ at WMNF and a blogger for Sticks of Fire — a combination that suggests not only a resistance to exhaustion but an eagerness to engage with the world. Hence, her new column: an occasional series driven by curiosity about how other people live. But there's a twist: While this week she writes about someone who piqued her own curiosity, future columns will focus on people her subjects suggest. For instance, she asked Lorna Bracewell if there were anyone she was curious about, and the singer said she wanted to know what it would be like to be a Muslim woman in Tampa. So the subject of the next edition of Curiouser? A Muslim woman living in Tampa. And so on, and so on … stay tuned.
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2007.