Lin McEwan

Up-and-coming popular singer Lin McEwan recently premiered her first two music videos before a packed crowd of cheering fans and friends at Manhattan’s Zipper Factory. The show also celebrated the release of the digital-only Now I Know EP, the follow-up to her self-titled debut album. The EP is the first release entirely composed of songs written by Lin and co-writer Mike Pettry.

Both the videos and the EP mark a big change for a girl who spent her youth being told that she couldn’t sing because her voice was too low. “My voice was so strange for my age,” she recalls, “that when I was in the eighth grade, I had to play Santa Claus because the boys voices hadn’t changed yet, and I was the only one who could do a convincing, ‘Ho, ho, ho.’”

It wasn’t until she was 16 that she stepped onto the stage of her high school’s gala gospel concert to give her first ever solo performance, a rousing blues take of “Amazing Grace,” for which she received a thunderous three-minute standing ovation.

Since arriving in New York, the Baltimore-native has been “gaining notice for her uncommonly deep voice” and for her “soulfully sung and well-written material”—a funky fusion of soul and pop… like Tina Turner or Mavis Staples singing over Keane (The Baltimore Sun; JustSoul). Along with her talented group of regular players, who’ve backed everyone from Jesse Malin to Gavin DeGraw, she’s appeared at such landmark establishments as CBGB’s and the Bitter End, as well as the Living Room, the Rockwood Music Hall, the Cutting Room, Crash Mansion, and Arlene’s Grocery. But she still considers Baltimore home and takes the band back as often as possible.

Lin is a proud member of ASCAP and the NAPM.