All Dana Fuchs has to do is sing. All it takes is one note from those celebrated lips and clocks stop, crowds snap to attention, hearts beat like bass drums and neck-hair tingles. It’s often been said that the Florida-born front-woman could sing the phone directory and still hold her listeners spellbound. True enough, but in 2013, when Dana applies that extraordinary voice to the classic songs from her third album Bliss Avenue, you’ll realize that you’re in the presence of once-a-generation greatness.
Released in July 2013 on Ruf Records, Bliss Avenue is the most honest and unflinching studio album in Dana’s back catalogue. Co-written with her long-time wingman and guitarist, Jon Diamond, these songs weren’t simply tracked in box-ticking fashion, but wrenched from the depths and laid down to tape without gloss or polish. “If there’s one line that sounds thrown away or dialed in, it has to be redone,” says Dana. “Every word needs to express the emotion of the song or no one will get it and it leaves me cold.”
The resulting album is a window into the singer’s worldview, drawing on everything from the tragic loss of her beloved brother to the loneliness of life on the road. “I’m excited for people, especially those fans who have stuck so close with me, to hear Bliss Avenue,” says Dana, “because I really purged my soul in a starker, more naked way, both lyrically and musically.
“I got so emotional, to the point of tears,” she admits, “singing several of these tunes that are so close to home, like So Hard to Move, Bliss Avenue, Long, Long Game andVagabond Wind. I want this album to reach people in a way that’s meant to be inclusive. Not like, ‘Here’s my world and my story,’ but rather, ‘Here’s my story, can you relate…?”
All Dana Fuchs has to do is sing. All it takes is one note from those celebrated lips and clocks stop, crowds snap to attention, hearts beat like bass drums and neck-hair tingles. It’s often been said that the Florida-born front-woman could sing the phone directory and still hold her listeners spellbound. True enough, but in 2013, when Dana applies that extraordinary voice to the classic songs from her third album Bliss Avenue, you’ll realize that you’re in the presence of once-a-generation greatness.
Released in July 2013 on Ruf Records, Bliss Avenue is the most honest and unflinching studio album in Dana’s back catalogue. Co-written with her long-time wingman and guitarist, Jon Diamond, these songs weren’t simply tracked in box-ticking fashion, but wrenched from the depths and laid down to tape without gloss or polish. “If there’s one line that sounds thrown away or dialed in, it has to be redone,” says Dana. “Every word needs to express the emotion of the song or no one will get it and it leaves me cold.”
The resulting album is a window into the singer’s worldview, drawing on everything from the tragic loss of her beloved brother to the loneliness of life on the road. “I’m excited for people, especially those fans who have stuck so close with me, to hear Bliss Avenue,” says Dana, “because I really purged my soul in a starker, more naked way, both lyrically and musically.
“I got so emotional, to the point of tears,” she admits, “singing several of these tunes that are so close to home, like So Hard to Move, Bliss Avenue, Long, Long Game andVagabond Wind. I want this album to reach people in a way that’s meant to be inclusive. Not like, ‘Here’s my world and my story,’ but rather, ‘Here’s my story, can you relate…?”
read more
show less