Being 6-foot-5 and 205 pounds – plus having a left-handed fastball clocking in the 90 mile-per-hour range – is what led San Francisco-based Lou Evans to be the 19th round draft pick of the Miami Marlins in 2001. Advancing rapidly through the Marlins’ minor league farm system, in 2005 he was already playing AA ball with the Jupiter Hammerheads in Florida, just two steps from becoming a major league pitcher. That would’ve been enough for most people, but Evans wanted more.
During the offseason he would cultivate his musical craft, casually gigging around Redding in Northern California. Then spring training would arrive and he’d shelve the guitar and silence his voice for the six-month season.
“Giving up pro ball was the hardest decision,” he says, “but I was lost bouncing between music and baseball. I really didn’t know my purpose on this earth. After I left, a different pro team offered me more money and a starting pitching role. But in that moment I realized I identified more as a musician who could play ball, rather than vice versa.”
He first picked up the guitar at 14, and was writing his own music by high school. But he was so shy, no one but his immediate family knew about his musicianship until he was 18. He used weekly karaoke sessions at a Red Lobster in Milpitas to slowly build up his confidence to sing in front of people.
“Nobody really knew I sang at all until that Red Lobster,” Evans says. “I can remember starting to sing when I was very young, like 4 or 5. I had been holding in something I naturally had for so many years that when it finally busted out, it was like a supernova star exploding. It just became a thing – my thing. I had found both my joy and my purpose.”
What came out and continues to develop is a powerful soul-pop tenor voice, supported by a rhythm guitar style ranging from folk to metal. This Sunday, Evans flies solo at Folktale.
It’s a busy musical weekend at the winery, with local favorite singer-songwriter Mark Banks, returning from a hand injury, on Saturday. And on Friday, three stars of our local jazz world converge for the first time as the Jim Payne Organ Trio, when the acclaimed journeyman jazz-funk drummer Payne will be joined by nationally trending organist Eddie Mendenhall and sax superstar Ben Herod for jazz-funk standards from the likes of Herbie Hancock, Freddie Hubbard, Wes Montgomery and more.
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