OCC Grad Writing Country Music Hits

If you're an avid country music fan there's a pretty good chance you've heard Cassidy Lynn's lyrics being sung by some of the industry's biggest names. When Dylan Scott put out his debut album, it featured a song Lynn wrote titled "Ball Cap" which spent a month at #1 on the Sirius satellite radio station "The Highway." In January of this year, Tracy Lawrence released an album titled "Hindsight 2020" which included some of his old hits and a new song Lynn wrote titled "Don't Drink Whiskey."  The song's music video can be seen regularly on Country Music Television. What's it like to hear someone singing your words? "It’s one of the coolest things and is very rewarding. Growing up listening to the radio I always dreamed about what it would be like being on the other side."

Lynn began dreaming about her future at a very young age. When she was 4 she told her parents she wanted to be a singer. At age 9 she let them know she would move to Nashville one day. "It was always the plan. Leann Rimes was a big influence. She got her first record deal when she was 11 and her first record when she was 13."

Lynn graduated from East Syracuse Minoa High School in 2006. Two years later she would complete Onondaga Community College's Business Administration degree program.  “The classes were hard. I was a straight 'A' student in high school but I almost didn’t get my degree because of my Accounting final. I studied my butt off to get it.”

From OCC it was on to Nashville and Belmont University which is known for its Music and Music Business programs. Once Lynn arrived in Nashville, which is the home of country music, she never left.

Her lifelong dream was to be a touring artist, performing on stage in front of huge crowds. But when you are starting out, you need other sources of income to get by. Lynn would play her guitar and sing one night a week in downtown Nashville, spend four days a week writing songs for a publishing company, and also work a wide-variety of other jobs including hostess in a Nashville restaurant, cashier at Bass Pro Shops, work as a personal trainer, and host moonshine tastings at "Ole Smoky Moonshine."

In 2017 she got married. A year later she and her husband started their family. Today they have two boys, ages 3-and-a-half years old and 9-months. Those side hustles she used to work are on hold as she focuses on being a parent, writing songs, and performing. She's worked hard to compartmentalize and focus her energy. "Time management and discipline are so important. I have had to practice being where I am when I’m there. If I’m with my kids, I’m with my kids. If I’m writing a song or playing a song, I’m there. I found over time I was distracted and I wasn’t giving my all to anything. I learned to be 100% in the moment.”

To be "in the moment" for the phone interview which preceded this story, Lynn set her oldest son up with his favorite videos on the YouTube Kids channel to keep him occupied. Memo to parents: one of the favorites features a child in Oklahoma who makes tractor videos. Another attention grabber is toy reviews done by a child who gets toys from amazon and rates them with his dad.

Lynn turns 34 this month. She recently played the legendary Bluebird Cafe in Nashville but spends most of her professional time writing songs. "This has all evolved for me. The performance piece is my favorite part of all of this but I'm focused on the writing piece. The first time I ever heard someone else sing my song it was a fulfillment I never had. I really grew to love being a songwriter and want to continue to get better at it."

She's also learned a lot about the business of higher education. Twelve years after graduating from Belmont University, she's still working to pay off her college loans. When she was a student at OCC she was paying tuition a semester at a time. “I’m going to tell my kids you need to go to community college for a couple of years and figure out what you want to do. There’s so much value in going to a community college so you have a direction in front of you before you start spending all of your money.”