Photograph: Former Opelousas resident Kylie Frey entertained a standing room only crowd at Toby’s Downtown Lundi Gras Celebration. (Photograph by Freddie Herpin.)
BOBBY ARDOIN
Editor/Consulting Writer
A pair of young Nashville singer-songwriters brought their country sounds and inspiration back home Monday night during the spirited Lundi Gras live performances that cut through a multi-generational audience in downtown Opelousas.
Emily Ortego and Kylie Frey, now several years into their careers, each grew up just minutes from the stage where they performed before an overflow crowd that wedged onto the dance floor at Toby’s Downtown.
While some in the audience danced clutching cold longnecks, others mouthed the song lyrics while eating catchup-drenched French Fries.
Frey and Ortego, now both into their early 20’s, sang originally-composed songs from their albums and EP’s which are helping propel careers in an industry prevalent with young talent.
Ortego, who left for Nashville after graduating from Opelousas Catholic and obtaining a music business degree from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, performed several solo arrangements on her acoustic guitar plugged into an amplifier.
Frey followed later on an acoustic, accompanied by a band that included a female drummer, bass player and electrical lead guitarist that played a long set of songs that have made her a quickly rising artist amid the Nashville scene and in the South.
On Tuesday Frey was scheduled to climb onto a Mardi Gras float from which she serves as grand marshal for the annual Opelousas parade sponsored by the Opelousas Imperial Mardi Gras Association.
In addition to many in the audience who have followed their careers since inception, the crowd at Toby’s included their parents, Brad and Sharon Ortego, as well as Billy and Patsy Frey.
After she stepped off stage and packed away her guitar, Ortego maneuvered through those who congratulated or hugged her and discussed the initial aspects of an early career that includes the same goal as hundreds of other talented writers and singers.
“It’s difficult and sometimes it’s hard to just find your feet under you. However you just keeping working hard and give yourself value,” Ortego noted following her performance that ended with “Strawberry Wine.”
Ortego realizes that many of her songs she began evolving at an early age are undergoing scrutiny and acclaim now from those who preside in the Nashville musical industry.
However that’s what she seems to happen all along.
“Before I even went to college, I know that for me, it had to be Nashville. There’s really no other place. I knew all along that I wanted to move there and enter the country scene because I was aware it was going to make me a better writer and musician,” Ortego said.
Ortego said her experience Monday night was in a way inspiring and cathartic.
“It was actually great seeing a lot of people that I went to school with along with their parents,” Ortego added.
Ortego who earned an American Idol trip to Hollywood several years ago, estimates that she wrote her first song when she was 15. “It was sort of a heartbreak song that evolved over eight years, a love song,” she said.
Many included in her estimated 200-song-catalog were initially scheduled to debut on an album that was delayed due to COVID, Ortego noted.
Now Ortego expects that those songs will be distributed, along with others in a double album format.
The needle on the musical career for Frey has continued pointing upward as she emerged from a youthful rodeo performer that competitively tied goats and roped calves, into a musical artist whose songs have achieved top billing on Texas Regional Radio.
Frey attempted graduating from LSU-Eunice at one point, but decided that her musical talent at that point appeared too overwhelming, according to several published articles.
Like Ortego, Frey began writing country-influenced songs etched with rodeo and love-torn themes when she was in high school.
She’s been in Nashville after moving there when she was 21.
