Product Description
COMING MARCH 14, 2025, RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY!
ZZ Ward
Liberation
Sun Records / Dirty Shine Records
ZZ Ward has been on the national scene a dozen years but started singing 30 years ago, beginning at age eight. Recently, she’s received chart success and critical acclaim. But despite chops equal to her contemporary blues belters and soul crooners, Ward still flies just under the beam of nationwide popularity. This recording could change that.
This is my second review in a row where “motherhood” has played a predominant role in the song writing. Just as Ollee Owens took a lengthy hiatus to raise three daughters – see Nowhere To Hide [BMM Winter 2025] – so has Ward stepped back to embrace and write about being a mother to her two kids, the oldest now approaching five.
Lyrics here, seven songs written or co-written by Ward, speak to the responsibility of motherhood and the fragility it creates, particularly with one’s partner and one’s independence. The approach here is full-on, rocking blues, nearly every track an up-tempo eruption of soaring vocals and swelling guitar. It’s just over 41 minutes, but 14 cuts and excellent sequencing make it seem longer. Ryan Spraker produces, co-writes six tunes, and plays guitar and multiple other instruments on every cut. The band is exceptionally tight and talented.
Ward balances her originals with seven wonderfully fresh renditions of timeless R&B, including Son House’s “Grinnin’ In Your Face,” Robert Johnson’s “Dust My Broom,” and Lowell Fulson’s lowdown “Sinner’s Prayer.” She’s equally adept at delivering the jumping Wilson Pickett hit “Something You Got,” the ripping “Cadillac Man” (Larry Davis), and the Arthur Crudup rockabilly thumper “My Baby Left Me.” Good as those are, I was knocked out by Ward’s poignant cover of the soul-dripping “I Have No One” by James Crawford.
Ward’s only full writing credit, “Love Alive,” is a thunder-clapping aspiration about keeping a relationship together (supposedly while juggling parenting duties). It’s a good song that puts a tougher edge on an old theme. Ward sings: “I pray that we don’t ever change, I hope our hearts still burn the same, I wonder if we fight for us, Can we survive?”
“Mother” is a powerful, vocal-intense ballad about maternity being a 24-hour job, with no time for one’s selfish needs. “Liberation” is a wall-of-sound, Ronettes-style rave-up about seeking, not necessarily reaching that goal.
I often use this metric when judging an album: Would I put it on at a party for my friends? The answer here is “absolutely.” I think we’re going to hear a lot more from ZZ Ward.
– Dan D. Harrell