It has been 10 years and many light-years from her first, tentative, and terrified steps into the spotlight, but across that time and distance, Lynn Blumenfeld, singer of the Lynn Blue Band, has established herself as one of the hardest-working women on the South Fork, with a long list of gigs and venues to show for it.
There were always hints of what was to come, the vocalist agreed: high school musicals, writing and singing jingles as an advertising executive, a brief stint singing for a New York City band in the 1990s, and, importantly, a grandmother who instilled a love of the arts. But it has been a long road from near-total inexperience and self-described naïveté to joining those who mentored her through a sort of midlife career change.
The band, now comprising a core of Dave Portocarrero on guitar, Jim Nanos or Dylan Hewitt on bass, and Bob Golden on drums, has resumed a busy summer schedule, performing at the Springs Tavern tonight at 6, on Saturday as the featured entertainment at the Springs Garden Party to benefit that hamlet’s food pantry, and on July 5 at the Wolffer Wine Stand in Sagaponack.
The Brooklyn native grew up in Westchester County. As an advertising executive in Manhattan, she played with a New York City band for a few months, “but they were too loud and I didn’t like the music. I also had an ad career. You can’t fly to Budapest and Brazil in the same month and be in a band.”
The dream of singing was deferred, “but there was a lust inside me to perform,” she recalled. She wrote and recorded music with the late Jon Gordon, who was best known for his work with Madonna and Suzanne Vega, and later moved to Montauk, signing a lease on Sept. 1, 2001. “I was freelancing in New York City, and I figured from a budget standpoint I would work four to eight days a month, cover all expenses, write a book, write songs, perform, everything would be beautiful. On September 11, the world changed.”
She regrouped and, with Jill Fleming, co-founded the successful Blumenfeld + Fleming agency. But “the dream of singing kind of fell by the wayside, there was too much going on. I was building a business, got married, bought and renovated a house. I could barely do what I was doing.”
But something revelatory happened: Along with some local vocalists, she was invited to sing “The Weight” with Nancy Atlas at the Surf Lodge in Montauk. “It was like slow motion,” Ms. Blumenfeld remembered. “All these people stopped talking, and they all started cheering. At least 15 people were like, ‘What? You can sing like that?’ ”
One thing led to another: She was hired to contribute some backing vocals, and then two musicians, Randolph Hudson III and Klyph Black, “took me under their wing and let me start a band.”
“I didn’t know anything,” Ms. Blumenfeld acknowledged. At the end of her first gig, Jim Lawler, a drummer, asked why she didn’t say anything about needing more volume in the stage monitor. “What’s a monitor?” she asked. “I was that naive, even though I’d always sung and written jingles.”
Mr. Hudson “knew I needed a band,” she said, “and told me to call this guy Dave, who lived all the way in Hampton Bays, and I lived all the way in Montauk.” She and Mr. Portocarrero met at the now-defunct Crossroads Music in Amagansett. “I rented a rehearsal room, and he knew everything.”
Mr. Portocarrero and Mr. Nanos had a band, and “the boys needed a frontperson,” Mr. Hudson told Ms. Blumenfeld. “They found this sock puppet-monkey person, me.” When the Lynn Blue Band began, “I was probably the biggest problem, because I was so inexperienced,” she said. “There was a steep learning curve.”
“It was very humbling and terrifying to be my age, making all kinds of errors, but I think I just loved it,” she said. “It was the whole package: not just singing, but also the relationship with the audience — and getting paid, which validated it.” Once the lineup of Mr. Portocarrero, Mr. Nanos, and Mr. Golden solidified, “it was a beautiful thing,” she said. “It worked.”
Along with Ms. Atlas, Mr. Hudson, and Mr. Black, she credits local musicians including Inda Eaton, Arlethia (Mamalee) Lawler, and Joe Delia for inspiring her to pursue her dream. But it was her grandmother, who worked at Brooklyn College, who planted the seed. “She bought me my first Beatles record when I was 4,” Ms. Blumenfeld recalled. “She painted. She could sit at the piano and play — and never was taught a note. I saw Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Beverly Sills, Rex Harrison — she took me to everything.”
The local music community is “so kind,” she said. At her own performances, “I let people sing, because that’s exactly what happened to me. All those people were very supportive. Everybody helps each other.” The evening before, at the Montauket, “all these young kids were giving me love and affection, [saying] ‘We want to be like you.’ My message to them is always, do what you love.”
