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.”
