One of the most profound lessons ZZ Ward learned from growing up listening to the Blues greats was to be authentic to your story. When the LA-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist began to write new music, she found herself in the midst of one of the biggest life changes a person will ever experience: motherhood.
The resulting music is her truest and most Blues-infused to date. ZZ’s new album, Liberation, out March 14th, speaks to both an authenticity of living and a sense of intrepid creativity. This is ZZ’s Sun Records debut, and it commemorates an exciting era for her as she returns to her Blues roots on a label that is the vanguard of Americana.
For ZZ’s new music, she began to write about her life as a new mother through a lens of the Blues. She had just toured for the first time as a working mother, bringing her son along the way, and she had a second baby. Motherhood and the challenges working mothers face began to seep into her songwriting. It was a time of self-rediscovery, and empowerment and she took this sprawling catalog of music to multi-platinum producer Ryan Spraker (Eli “Paperboy” Reed, Weezer, In This Moment).
Songs began to take shape that reached back to the Soul-Blues stylings of Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Nina Simone. Also seeping into ZZ’s new music were the artists she was weaned on by her father—the sounds of Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Etta James, and Big Mama Thornton. Signing to Sun for this new era was serendipitous. “It was the perfect alignment for me.—Howlin’ Wolf recorded for Sun!,” ZZ enthuses.
The Liberation album isn’t just a one-off for ZZ—her blues journey is both a reclamation and a rebirth and will continue on. “This is who I’ve always wanted to be—a Bllues artist, on my terms,” she says. “It just took me a long time to get here.”
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