New York – Let’s get this part out of the way first.  It’s not a matter of “will” Hurray For The Riff Raff become a household name.  It’s a matter of “when.”  Seriously, Alynda Lee Segarra is that talented and poised and primed for stardom.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not aware of many Bronx-born 26-year-old’s of Puerto Rican descent, that have so capably embraced traditional American roots music the way Segarra has.  The doe-eyed singer plays guitar, banjo, harmonica, washboard, and probably other instruments, and writes Hurray For The Riff Raff’s music from experiences that belie her youth.

A recent NYC performance, as part of Lincoln Center’s 15+ year American Songbook series, served as a homecoming for Segarra: “My high school is near here,” she exclaimed to the sold-out crowd.  “That’s crazy.”  The concert at the comfortable Stanley Kaplan Penthouse (it’s good to see all that SAT prep money going to good use) focused largely on the band’s recent Small Town Heroes LP on ATO Records.  In her review of the album, our Caroline McDonald wrote: Segarra is someone who has ingested so much roots music that she now bleeds folk themes, pipe organs, and lonely guitar solos. Yet her music is still decidedly modern.”

As a teenager, Segarra spent her Saturdays on NYC’s Lower East Side at the cultural center ABC No Rio, where she developed an appreciation for fellow musicians’ stories of life on the road.  At just 17, she herself took to the road playing washboard and eventually banjo, before settling in New Orleans.

At the Lincoln Center concert, Segarra led her band through a variety of genres, at times joyous, at others melancholy.  She introduced “Lake Of Fire” by joking, “down in New Orleans, we don’t have a lot of surfing but we have a lot of couch surfing.  This is our surfing song.”  She explained that her tattoo of John Lennon’s glasses are often mistaken for Harry Potter’s, before launching her band into the ballad “Ode To John And Yoko.”  And she proved adept on her latest instrument, harmonica, on “End Of The Line.”

HFTRR continue their current US tour through May 2 when they return home for several New Orleans dates.  They have four UK gigs later that month and a handful (so far) of US festival dates this summer.  They make their network TV debut on April 29 on Conan.

As Segarra matures as a performer and songwriter, and continues to gain her much-deserved exposure, it’s only a matter of time that she delivers the breakthrough project and all of the attendant exposure (read: SNL, etc.) that unique artists like Mumford And Sons and Norah Jones have achieved.

Thumbnail Photo By Joshua Shoemaker