RALEIGH — A local artist will introduce the state to Robeson County via song with a performance at the Governor’s Mansion.
The Music at the Mansion night will be part of Come Hear North Carolina, a campaign by the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to celebrate the history of music birthed in North Carolina, and showcases the current wave of talent in the state. It will be held Aug. 28.
Charly Lowry, the 35-year-old lead vocalist in the band Dark Water Rising, will be among the highlighted musicians. Lowry’s goal is to pay homage to her life and the different influences of her life living here in Robeson County.
“You’re gonna hear some rap in my lyrics, you’re gonna hear a thumping kick drum, you’re gonna hear some soul and I just think that should be a representative of Robeson County, and that we’re a multi-racial county,” Lowry said. “It’s important for me as a musician growing up here to have all of those genres represented and they’re in my music. It’s important for me to share that when I go to the Governor’s Mansion.”
Joining Lowry in the storytelling will be Alexis Jones and Brandon McLean, who both received golden tickets to Hollywood in the last season of “American Idol.” Jones will be singing, and McLean will provide vocals and keys. Shawn McNeil, a student at Fayetteville State University studying Music and McLean’s cousin, will play a variety of instruments.
“He plays everything,” Lowry said.
Lowry’s boyfriend and fellow Dark Water Rising band member Aaron Locklear will play drums, and Zachary Hargett will be the bassist. Jonathan Locklear, a member of Mark McKinney and Company, a Pembroke-based band, completes the group. He most recently won the Guitarist of the Year award at the Carolina Country Music Awards.
The ensemble was formed for the “Strike at the Wind!” outdoor play that was held during Lumbee Homecoming. Lowry and the group performed a 30-minute set before each show.
“I’m coming with these musicians to represent the Robeson, Hoke counties and our indigenous ties to this part of the state,” Lowry said.
The group will present a 50-minute set of original and cover songs. Throughout the set, Lowry will tell stories of each song and its relation to her life and experience in the county.
They will perform two covers and share stories of the late Willie French Lowery, a Lumbee Indian and professional singer, songwriter and guitarist.
“He’s a Lumbee pioneering musician,” Lowry said. “Back in the 60s, 70s and 80s, Willie was big around here and beyond.”
She will perform the original songs “Hometown Hero,” and “Backbone.”
“Going through a kidney transplant, I know what it’s like to have a backbone,” Lowry said.
The song “Backbone” also mentions Henrie Berry Lowrie, the Lumbee hero who led a band of men in a seven-year battle against the people he believed killed his father and brother.
Another song the group will perform is an original called “Brown Skin,” which is about women’s empowerment.
“It’s a song that’s meant to empower all women but it’s a message for minority women to never be ashamed of who you are — the color of your skin and where you come from — and you do have something to offer in a world that seems like it’s dominated by males, Europeans or people with European ancestry,” Lowry said. “Even though it seems like it’s filled with their beliefs you still have something to offer and to contribute.”
Lowry said it is vital to share that message with younger generations.
She will perform the song with a hand drum which she describes as “one of the most primitive instruments” that showcases and shares the American Indian culture in music history.
Through the showcase, Lowry’s priority is to represent the county.
“I have flashbacks to going to school in Chapel Hill and people still not realizing that there are Native Americans still living,” Lowry said. “There were some people that didn’t know that Natives still existed on top of you, having one of the largest indigenous populations east of the Mississippi an hour and a half away from here, so it was important to tell them who I was, my story, my upbringing, our beliefs.”
Robeson County’s diversity ensures a variety of genres.
“Growing up here, you’re going to be influenced by a lot of genres,” Lowry said. “A lot of our people 95.7 and then turn the radio to 99.1 or 98.1 and get a little bit of pop in there.
“It wasn’t anything for me to grow up listening to Rod Stewart with my momma and The Temptations with my daddy and then go to church on Sunday and get that influence.”
Lowry says that her set list will bring in those different influences — the gospel, soul, indigenous, country, folk and even rap.
She will be dedicating the performance to her mother, Delores Lowry, who died two years ago from cancer and was one of her biggest supporters.
“I know if she was here, she would be there,” Lowry said. “She wouldn’t miss it.”
