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Arts & Entertainment

Lara Johnston Comes To Wolf Trap

Soulful singer opens for The Doobie Brothers Aug. 29

When Lara Johnston brings her powerful voice to Aug. 29 to open for the Doobie Brothers, the 21-year-old soulful crooner from San Fransico wil be in a familiar state for artists on the rise: caught between going the indie route or pursuing a major record label deal – which she actually may not even need in today’s industry.

“I still think its very hard to succeed in this business unless you’ve got the machine behind you, which can separate you from everybody else," Johnston said. "It's tricky, I’m thinking about it, but as long as I can be getting out there and performing I’m happy.”

Johnston has a lot to be happy about. She’s performed as an opening act for world-renowned artists like Willie Nelson, KISS, Tower of Power, Heart, Sammy Hagar, Huey Lewis, Pablo Cruise, Journey and Cheap Trick.

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In January 2010, she released a five-song EP, which she plans on signing after her Wolf Trap performance.  Since then, she’s been touring the world and writing her upcoming 12-song album in her down time. She recorded the bulk of her upcoming album in Nashville.

“You have to really be persistent," Johnston said. "I’ve been emailing booking agents and promoters, if you do one profile gig somebody will see you and maybe they’ll offer you another one."

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One listen is all it takes to feel the soulful vibes and deep passion with which Lara sings, which she says is inspired by Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye.

“Listening to Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Al Green, Sam Cook, those voices and that style of music, that honesty, it just really moved me like nothing else,” Johnston said. “From there I just started studying my favorite singers and just wanting to write and create and perform as much as possible.”

The young singer with the old soul wants to bring her sound to the mainstream audiences that fill up social media sites, who judge artists more and more by their number of iTunes downloads instead of their album sales.

“Everybody wants to do it now, you put up a video on YouTube and there’s a zillion other people doing the same thing. You’ve got to figure out how to get people to view yours,” Johnston said. “It's been really fun drawing from my soulful influences, studying song craft and trying to bring the honesty of soul music into the catchy format of pop song writing.”

You can download Lara’s new song, “The Party’s Over,” here.

Johnston opens for The Doobie Brothers at 8 p.m. Aug. 29 at Wolf Trap. Tickets are $25 lawn, $42 in house. 

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