Lucy Woodward (born October 27, 1977) began her musical life the moment 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, the family moved to the United States.
"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 Bronx in New York City. Lucy found other kids who "wanted to sing everywhere," she recounts. "You couldn't stop us." The first songs she recorded were House music, because "everyone’s dad or brother had a mini-studio in their basement." Lucy found singing that kind of music "liberating and improvisationally freeing" and she began to write her own songs.
An exceptional talent and terrific live performer, Lucy is already a young veteran of the music business. Lucy's song "Dumb Girls" from her Atlantic Records 2003 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 Accepted, Music & Lyrics and the Golden Globe-winning The Blind Side as well as covering Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet" for Disney's Ice Princess. "My good friend Jamie Houston who I wrote with on my first record was producing the track. The song took about an hour to cut, and in that time I knew I had the inspiration for my next record. That vocal made me open up in ways I hadn't done before. It was really satisfying."
Lucy plunged back into her record collection and pulled out all the recordings of her favorite songstresses – singers like the sassy powerhouse Etta James and the wild and idiosyncratic entertainer Betty Hutton, who had originated "It's Oh So Quiet" in the early 1950s. "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."
Lucy's 2008 album, Lucy Woodward...Is Hot & Bothered was co-produced by Itaal Shur, her longtime friend and collaborator and Tim K., of the House/Electronica duo Home & Garden. A Grammy award-winning composer, Itaal is best known for having written the smash hit "Smooth" for Santana. "All of our songs were written on piano or guitar but Tim was integral in tying the songs to all the strings, melotrons, horns, beats and whatever else we could muster up to make our sonic template," says Itaal.
"Writing solid songs and having this innovative soundscape to showcase them on was our goal." Lucy, Itaal and Tim K. teamed up to create a funky, sultry, pop/torch record. The title song, "Hot and Bothered" takes the melody of a Yiddish lullaby Lucy's grandmother sang to her as a baby. "It turned out pretty racy, but I still think Grandma Sylvia would approve if she heard it now," Lucy says.
The album garnered high praise from critics (“A steamy, string-kissed slice of retro British pop by a versatile singer/songwriter” proclaimed USA Today, while Billboard described how ““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. She also sang background vocals on Celine Dion's latest release, Taking Chances. Lucy's journeys have led her further from New York 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. "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." Recently, Lucy was asked to sing for Desmond Tutu at a benefit for his foundation in Dallas.
Last summer, Lucy and some friends visited a shelter in Kigali, Rwanda that helps women who have been traumatized by the 1994 genocide. In the same trip, they visited Cura, an orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya where they brought school supplies and spent a couple of days playing, singing and painting 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. Currently rehearsing the new songs for upcoming live performances this Spring, the album was produced by the legendary Tony Visconti (David Bowie, Paul McCartney, U2, T. Rex) with contributions from Justin Stanley (Nikka Costa, Eric Clapton), Itaal Shur, and Tim K.
The album features 11 songs that range in style from Swing Jazz, to 60’s Pop and 50’s Rhumba. It also includes unique covers of classic songs including Peggy Lee’s “Sans Souci” and Hoagy Carmichael’s classic standard, “Stardust.” Critical darling Nellie McKay—a big Lucy fan—wrote a song especially for her labelmate called “Another Woman,” which is also brilliantly showcased on the album with Nellie singing along with Lucy. The album, entitled Hooked!, will be released in May of 2010.
