If you like: Macy Gray, Joan Osborne, Janis Joplin
The fedora-rockin’, guitar shredding, harmonica wielding siren ZZ Ward has a powerful blend of blues, R&B, neo-soul, and hip-hop in her music. She’s a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, whose birth name sounds like a winning word in a Scrabble game. She was born Zsuzsanna Eva Ward in Abington, Pennsylvania, and spent her childhood in the small town of Roseburg, Oregon. Her musical influences started at a young age, listening to both her father’s blues collection and her brother’s hip-hop records. Her dad was in a blues band, and by the time she was 12, she was singing for them. At age 16, she was performing with R&B and hip-hop acts in Eugene, then decided to move to L.A. in hopes of breaking into the West Coast music scene.
Her unique sound and proficiency with so many instruments scored her a recording deal, and she began work on a debut album. In February of 2012, she released Eleven Roses, which was a free mixtape with her own interpretations of songs by other artists, followed by her EP, Criminal, in May 2012. Watch the video for the title track below!
ZZ Ward released her full album, Til the Casket Drops, in October of 2012, which yielded the hit song “Put the Gun Down” her most successful hit at that point. Check out the video for it below!
Two other very successful songs from Til the Casket Drops were “Last Love Song” and “365 Days,” which cracked the Top 30 of the Adult Alternative charts. “Last Love Song” is definitely the softer, gentler side of her music, listen below:
Careful if you get motion sick easy, this topsy-turvy video for “365 Days” is a bit disorienting… but the song is great!
In 2015, she released the 4 song EP Love and War. In my opinion these 4 songs are a bit of a departure from her style, and sound more mainstream… I would recommend any of her other albums over this one, but if you want the best one off the EP check out the last song “Marry Well”. The lyrics are pretty funny 🙂
In March of 2017 she released two new singles, “The Deep” (featuring Joey Purp) and “Help Me, Mama,” which will be on her upcoming second full-length album. Let me start off by saying… “Help Me, Mama” is her strongest track… like ever… you’ve probably heard it already on 106.3 Radio Lafayette… but listen again cuz it’s SO AWESOME!
