Hometown songstress and hero Lucy Dacus is in the middle of a massive nationwide tour, but it appears she’s set to make a triumphant return home when she’ll take the stage at the National in October.
Hometown songstress and hero Lucy Dacus is in the middle of a massive nationwide tour, but it appears she’s set to make a triumphant return home when she’ll take the stage at the National in October.
In case you live under a rock, here’s a bit of background on the Richmond native who’s conquered stages and hearts everywhere she goes:
The 21-year-old Dacus grew up in Richmond; she was adopted at a young age, an experience that informed her curious, openhearted songwriting. “When my parents were explaining what adoption was — which was very early on in my childhood — they always said that my birthmother thought I was worthwhile even though she couldn’t be my mom,” she says. “And so from essentially infancy, I was taught that life was innately worthwhile because a bunch of people had worked together to set me up with one.
“Every other philosophy of mine has been built on that foundation,” she continues. “Humans want this experience for each other; there has to be some reason why. I seem to always end up trying to write and understand how we can live the most worthwhile life, and therefore how we hold each other up from getting there.”
Dacus started playing around Richmond while in college, opening for local acts and eventually meeting Jacob Blizard, a guitarist who invited her to make a record for a college project of his. ‘No Burden,’ which originally came out in February on the Richmond label EggHunt Records, opens with the forthright, almost brutally honest “I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore,” the last song Dacus wrote before the album’s day-long recording session at Starstruck Studios in Nashville. Dacus delivers scalpel-sharp observations about resisting pigeonholing over chunky guitars, ticking off ideals of femininity and youth until the track’s not-quite-resolution.
Dacus will take the state with other RVA stars My Darling Fury and Spooky Cool on Friday, Oct. 7th. Tickets are cheap and go on sale this Friday at 10 AM here.
