Lucy Woodward

Lucy Woodward began her musical life in London, where she was born. Lucy's father was a composer and conductor for the BBC Singers and director of the Netherlands Chamber Choir. Her mother was a belly dancer/musicologist/opera singer. After living in Amsterdam briefly, Lucy moved with her family to New York when she was five. "I was lucky to have had such an international lifestyle when I was so young, because it's a big part of who I am today," she says. When she was in high school, her mother became a music teacher and moved the family to the New York City borough of The Bronx. Lucy found other kids who "wanted to sing everywhere," she recounts. "You couldn't stop us. We'd sing and dance Salsa." The first songs she recorded were House music, because "everyone's dad or brother had a studio in his basement." Lucy found singing that kind of music "liberating and improvisationally freeing" and she began to write her own songs.

An exceptional singing talent and live performer, Lucy is already a young veteran of the music business. Lucy's song "Dumb Girls" from her Atlantic Records debut album `While You Can' was a Top 40 chart hit, which allowed her to tour internationally as well as garner her significant press exposure including a spot on "The Tonight Show."

Lucy's song `There's Gotta Be More To Life' earned her a BMI Songwriter's Award and she's recorded songs for several film soundtracks including the Golden Globe-winning "The Blind Side" as well as covering Bjork's `It's Oh So Quiet' for Disney's Ice Princess. "The song took about an hour to cut, and in that time I knew I had the inspiration for my next album. That vocal made me open up in ways I hadn't done before." Lucy plunged back into her record collection and pulled out recordings of her favorite songstresses--singers like sassy powerhouse Etta James and the wild and idiosyncratic entertainer Betty Hutton, who had originated `It's Oh So Quiet' in 1948. "Her fearlessness just blew me away." But, Lucy adds, "I have so many musical influences, and I knew I needed this record to allow for that. I am a singer fan. When a singer can make her voice dance, that's what moves me."

After the success of `While You Can,' Lucy felt a shift in her songwriting inspiration. "I kept coming back to three albums in my collection: Julie London, Ray Charles, and the soundtrack of `The Jungle Book.' They were triggering something in me I hadn't felt in a while and I knew I was brewing up the sound for my next bunch of songs."

Lucy's 2008 album, `Lucy Woodward Is...Hot and Bothered' was co-produced by Itaal Shur, best known for having written the smash hit "Smooth" for Santana which won the 'Song of the Year' Grammy in 1999, and collaborator Tim K. (Les Nubians, Esthero). USA Today deemed the album “A steamy, string-kissed slice of retro British pop by a versatile singer/songwriter,” while Billboard raved of Lucy, “Lucy's a ball, equally appreciable for fans of melodic sing-along baubles and highbrow aficionados of finely honed musical composition. A sonic turnstile that flips through dreamy pop, jazz and bluesy bebop.”

Lucy performed on American Idol judge and superstar producer Randy Jackson's debut album for Concord Records, which was released in March 2009. Lucy's journeys have led her further from America each year, and to Kenya many times. In 2006, she went to Rwanda to visit an AIDS village that she and her friends had been raising money for. Another year they brought school supplies to a Nicaraguan children's refugee camp. "Most of my friends are musicians, so we had a talent show. We sang Bob Marley songs to the kids, and they sang us songs about Jesus. We had our broken Spanish, and they didn't speak a word of English, so music was the only thing that connected us." Lucy was asked to sing for Desmond Tutu at a benefit for his foundation in Dallas, and she sang with Carole King at another benefit in New York. Just this summer, Lucy and some friends visited a shelter in Kigali, Rwanda that helps women who have been traumatized by the 1994 genocide to get back on their feet. In the same trip, they visited Cura, an orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya where they spent a couple of days singing songs with the children and painting animals on their bedroom doors.

Moving to Los Angeles from New York's East Village in July of 2009, Lucy was signed to a new recording contract with esteemed jazz label Verve Records. Her upcoming new album release, entitled Hooked!, features inventive arrangements that incorporate an adventurous array of instrumental textures while keeping the focus firmly on Woodward's voice. "There's not a lot of bells and whistles on this record, and everything was recorded straight-up live," Woodward notes. "What I miss in a lot of music these days is the actual breath that lets a singer act and dance through their voice. There is so much musicality in that, but a lot of music now is so processed that that is gone. So I wanted to allow s