A pout that breaks a thousand hearts ...

by RHETA GRIMSLEY JOHNSON 4/10/2004 11:19:05 AM Daily Journal

NEW ORLEANS, La. - Heidi once again has left Grandfather on his mountaintop and made her way to the big city. Linnzi Zaorski, at 26, looks about 12. Fresh. Innocent. Vulnerable. Tonight her white-blond hair is in Heidi braids; a green orchid is blooming behind one ear. Her skin is alabaster. Her simple knit dress came from the Goodwill, and her shoes are bright red, the better to follow that Yellow Brick Road.

Until you see her perform, Linnzi Zaorski looks for all the world like an adorable waif about a million men would love to rescue. Until she sings. When she sings, she grows up. She makes a little marching motion with her arms, pulls the microphone to her perfect pout and suddenly becomes a siren, a sexpot, a woman who needs no rescuing: "Oooh, oooh, ooh. What a little moonlight can do ..." The crowded Spotted Cat jazz club comes alive with interest. Glasses clink. Couples dance. Customers sing along with pretty Linnzi, who does the bluesy jazz standards that stars like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday once crooned.

I came to meet her because a friend gave me Linnzi's music before last year's freighter voyage; her cover of "The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" is forever linked with my adventure. Linnzi has her own distinct sound, a Betty Boop-ish delivery, somewhat limited range and the occasional flat note. She sounds like a treasured old 78 record with a few imperfections - desirable ones. Tourists walking by stick their heads in the door because it's clear everyone inside is having so much fun. Linnzi smiles and stares dreamily into the eyes of each potential audience member. When the band breaks, Linnzi personally passes the tip jar to admirers in her crowd. And there are many admirers.

"When people ask why I don't do pop songs, I say: I do pop songs. They are just pop songs from the 1930s and 40s," Linnzi says. "Something about the World War II period moves me." Offstage, Linnzi is enthusiastic, talkative and oh-so-young. She grew up in Alexandria, dreamed of being a movie star - "I guess everyone at some time wants to be a movie star" - and floated down to New Orleans in 1996. She danced. She tended bar. She was like millions of other youngsters who gravitate to big cities that can spit them out or swallow them whole.

It was a simple introduction that changed her life. An older sister introduced Linnzi to black-and-white movies, to Judy Garland and Benny Goodman and scores of vintage stars. Linnzi fell head over high heels in love with a distant day. "I just love the sound and feel of that era ..." One night, in a bar and on an impulse, Linnzi volunteered to add her vocals to the instrumentals performed by the venerable New Orleans Jazz Vipers. Something clicked. And when a fellow bartender asked one night if anyone knew of a band that needed a gig, Linnzi volunteered her own. "Except there was no band!" she says, laughing delightedly at fate.

Quickly she assembled her own backup band, Delta Royale, a group of seasoned and self-assured musicians who let Linnzi remain the focus of attention, something she's always wanted to be. The whole unlikely success story seems like a wonderful joke to the young woman with an artificial green flower tucked behind her ear. "I come from a family of tone-deaf people," she says, "but we were always the ones who sang loudest in church."

Linnzi might appear laid-back and spontaneous in performance. But she is focused and driven when not on the stage. She darts about the French Quarter, handling her own bookings, checking equipment, performing regularly at the Spotted Cat. This month she's releasing her second CD, "Hotsy-Totsy." "Me, myself and I," she sings, and somehow the song perfectly suits her attitude.

It's nice to hear a happy story from a place that can be cruel or oblivious to young talent. Linnzi is philosophical about her local success, quoting graffiti from a bar restroom wall: "If you can't make it here, you can't make it anywhere."

Rheta Grimsley Johnson's address is Iuka, MS 38852.

Appeared originally in the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, 4/10/2004 8:00:00 AM, section B , page 3