Emily Wallace has been showing up for gigs for more than half her life and singing even longer.
"I was that little kid that everyone was like shut up! And I'm still kind of that girl now you know at work they're like really do you have to sing everything?"
She doesn't have to, but it's kind of nice when she does because she has a pretty amazing voice. One the casting directors for NBC's The Voice hoped to put center stage.
"You know my heart started to beat and I was like oh my god this is really cool and I really started to think about it and a lot of my songs and a lot of my vibe is you know South City, St. Louis proud. I love this city and playing music in it and I really love my life how it is." Wallace says.
So she said no thanks.
"I mean I'm 34 and get to play some really cool shows at The Pageant and Old Rock House and open for some really big names and you know that's enough for me. And also I cry really easily and I didn't want to be on national television boohooing."
Her happiness with singing around and about her home town is kind of invigorating.
"Everything I sing about, original wise, is straight from my diary. I even had a guy contact me after we broke up and he's like please don't Taylor Swift me and I thought oh you're going to be Taylor Swift, there's going to be some songs."
She's written more than 40 songs, has one solo album and another with The Sleepy Rubies, the band she has with her sister, but playing isn't a full time job.
"I've done the full time musician thing and I hated it. You need, you need almost a grind to write about you know so I bartend here and there at Friendly's and around town."
She is the singing bartender. A woman who's writing her own story and living life exactly how she wants to.
The Sleepy Rubies
Big Mountain CD release show
Off Broadway
March 3rd 7-11PM
https://www.facebook.com/EmilyWallaceTunes/
https://www.facebook.com/sleepyrubies/
