Lurleen Ladd’s Sing Out Loud Campaign calls for fearless women.
By Chandler Maloney, Photos by Amber Perley
Vocalist Lurleen Ladd launches Sing Out Loud campaign, encouraging women of all ages to pursue their creative passions. The campaign challenges women to submit a video of themselves singing for a chance to perform onstage with Ladd during her upcoming album release party. Participants must submit their footage by Nov. 11. The selected singer will be flown to Austin for the show on Dec. 8. The winner will have the opportunity of a lifetime. Performing onstage in front of an audience, with the support of Ladd’s entourage.
Ladd designed the campaign with the help of NextTribe, a traveling and events company for women over the age of 45. Both NextTribe and Ladd strive to help women reach their true potential and happiest self. Many women in society today are unable to pursue their aspirations due to a variety of reasons related to finances, motherhood and even stereotypes. “I just felt like that was the right audience to reach out to,” Ladd says. “Women, who like myself, have started a career in music but got stuck somewhere along the way due to competing interests.”
Lurleen Ladd Goes Against the Grain
Ladd understands the difficulty of going against the voices in mainstream media telling women their glory days have surpassed them. The Houston native broke into the music industry after having pursued a corporate career. She has experienced the difficulty of deviating from the status quo and wants to empower other women to do the same. Ladd originally considered music merely a side gig to her professional accounting job. “I’ve been in the business community in Austin for a very long time,” Ladd says. “My husband and I are entrepreneurs and have founded nonprofits and other businesses. I was always very comfortable on that side of the line.”
Eventually, she gained the courage to take a leap of faith and pave a new path for herself as a full-time singer-songwriter. After making her musical debut in 2019 with Magnolia and Azalea Dreams, and while carefully crafting her upcoming LP titled No Goin’ Back, Ladd is the happiest she has ever been. Amber Perley, Ladd’s campaign manager and creative director, is thrilled to be a part of the unique message that the artist communicates through her heartfelt vocals. “I think what sets Lurleen apart from other singers is that she’s not doing it the easy way,” Perley says. “Not only is she putting herself out there, after all these years of putting other people’s priorities first; she’s really singing from the heart. She’s looking at it from a whole different perspective and coming in from a different way.”
No Goin’ Back
A culmination of R&B and pop singles, No Goin’ Back delivers Ladd’s vision of the trajectory of her future career. Her previous album focused on implementing past ideas. Meanwhile, the upcoming setlist consists of 13 fresh songs about embracing new beginnings. “There’s one song on the album called ‘Walls Versus Doors,’ which was almost the name of the album,” Ladd says. “When I wrote that song, it really felt like there’s plenty of obstacles. But it’s a choice between seeing some things as barriers you cannot penetrate when, in fact, they are doors. It’s the willingness for us to open and walk through them that is the key.”
Though the second album has yet to be released, Ladd is already vigorously working on her next project, with the assistance from a Nashville producer. “The songs in the third album thus far feel very hopeful and happy, which I like because I think that’s a reflection of where I am now, which is a great place to be,” Ladd says. She hopes her story motivates females who may be afraid to trust their intuition to follow their heart. “There might be some bad folks and unhappy facts in your life, but you can trust that feeling. The feeling of happiness and singularity is never going to lie to you. It just is always true.”
Visit the Sing Out Loud website for your chance to sing onstage with Lurleen Ladd!