Dana Fuchs
Love Lives On
Dana is interviewed in Issue 103 of Blues Matters! Available from 25th July 2018
The career of Dana Fuchs began in her late teens when she ignited Manhattan’s blues-rock circuit with her burnt-honey vocal and bruisingly honest songwriting. With a voice acclaimed by Classic Rock magazine in a Blues album of the month review as “juke-joint dirty and illicit, evoking Joplin, Jagger and a fag butt bobbing in a glass of bourbon,” a trio of soul-drenched studio releases signalled her talent, while in between records she starred in the Broadway musical ‘Love, Janis’ and made her big screen debut as Sexy Sadie in the film ’Across The Universe’, which was centred on songs by The Beatles.
Dana now returns with ‘Love Lives On’, her fourth album and one on which she fights back from personal tragedy with a sound inspired by the siren call of American soul. “It’s a new beginning for me in every way, as I have started my own label and left New York to go to the root of the music that inspired me to follow my passion,” she explains. “The Southern soul of Stax/Volt, Hi Records and Sun Studios.
From Otis Redding to Al Green to Johnny Cash. All huge influences.”
The years spent reverently studying the greats, the gruelling tours, the tragic death of three close family members in a short space of time and the birth of her first child all led to Dana’s arrival at the Music & Arts studio in Memphis where, in just eleven days, she cut a new album shaped by emotional extremes and one that proclaims the ultimate truth that love does indeed live on.
“Initially it felt the worst timing ever to have a baby,” she reflects, “but I couldn’t have been more wrong. The shift from grief to joy was the most powerful and empowering experience I’ve ever lived. The opportunity arose to take all of the pain from the family loss and the miraculous love of my new son, and place it within a body of music. This album is all about hope and perseverance.”
“This is a song I wrote for my late mother. I sat next to her day and night for the last eleven days of her life. It’s meant to be a hopeful song and video, fostering hope that our love lives on in our hearts and memories and helps us to persevere in the life we keep living.” Dana Fuchs
Dana and her longtime songwriting partner, the acclaimed session guitarist Jon Diamond, have crafted a superb album of soul-influenced songs with a little help from new songwriting partners that include Scott Sharrard (Gregg Allman).
With distinctive covers of classics by Memphis icons, Otis Redding and Johnny Cash also included, it helps render a cohesive body of Memphis Soul done Dana-style.
Helmed by established Memphis producer Kevin Houston (North Mississippi Allstars, Luther Dickinson, The Bo-Keys, Ian Siegal), ‘Love Lives On’ features a crack-squad studio band that includes original Hi Records organist Charles Hodges, Stax titan Steve Potts on drums, keys ace Glenn Patscha and bassist Jack Daley. “It was so fast and easy, with unbelievable mutual respect and admiration between everyone. Not one ego, ever,” summarises Dana.
Out of darkness comes light and a reborn Dana Fuchs, armed with the album of her life. New label. New city. New sound. And new horizons for an artist who deserves to realise her dizzying potential. “I hope those who’ve been with me all along will feel as passionately as I do about ‘Love Lives On’,” she concludes. “This album is like a second child to me. It’s who I am at this moment in time, captured on tape…”
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