Dexter native, Amanda Walker in concert Saturday

Amanda Walker

DEXTER, Mo. (SMNS) — Amanda Walker will be in concert at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Dexter High School Auditorium. Special guest will be Lynn Drury.

A Dexter native, Walker is a pianist, singer and songwriter, who made a cameo appearance performing her single Haunt Me on NCIS New Orleans. She was playing at the Chophouse News Orleans when she took requests from an audience member, Michael Zinberg, a director on NCIS: New Orleans. They struck up a conversation and he later invited her to play piano and sing on the show.

“Playing piano is like breathing to me,” Walker said. “People will ask me ‘how are you sitting there having a conversation and playing?’ It’s actually second nature, and I’m thinking more about the conversation.”

Walker began playing piano at a young age. Her mother taught piano in the family’s living room, and according to Walker “I’d be in my playpen in the living room and probably learned to read music before I learned to read English,”

Her father recalls her playing “Here Comes the Bride” with both hands when she was a year and a half old.

After graduating Southeast Missouri State University, she attended law school at Tulane University and became immersed in the New Orleans music scene.

Returning to a devastated New Orleans after Katrina hit, Walker was living on student loans and tutoring for extra money while completing her last year of law school. While she and a buddy were eating at Philip Chan’s Asian Cajun Bistro, the buddy encouraged her to play the piano. Scared, she waited until they were the only ones there and she played a couple of songs. Philip Chan approached her and asked, “What do you do Thursday through Sunday?’

Playing for tips, food and wine was Walker’s first gig. Terrified she had never played in public, but she had to learn everything from country to pop to play requests.

After graduating law school in 2006, she worked five days a week in the Jefferson Parish Juvenile Court while playing piano six nights a week until she realized “Why am I doing this?”

Walker made the transition into a full time music career in six months and she is focusing on writing her own music. She was playing at the

Her own work features a blend of indie pop, Americana and folk rock melding the Mississippi River Delta soul and Ozark Mountain folk sensibilities with New Orleans funk.

Tickets are $15 on line at www.buytickets.at/amandawalkerusic and $20 at the door when they open at 6 p.m.