JESSIE WAGNER
Singer Jessie Wagner — who has worked with artists such as Lenny Kravitz, Chic and Duran Duran and fronted her own New York-based band, Army of the Underdog — will release her debut solo album, Shoes Droppin’, Oct. 9. You can listen to the first single, “What You Get Is What You See,” below.
The album will be released on Steven Van Zandt’s label, Wicked Cool Records, and follows a stint by Wagner in Van Zandt’s Disciples of Soul band. Another Disciples of Soul member, Eddie Manion, does the horn arrangements.
“When Stevie said he thought I was a real artist, I could’ve cried,” Wagner said in a press release. “After fighting to be heard in this industry for so long, it means so much for someone of his stature to say your voice is unique and needs to be heard.”
Van Zandt said, in the press release: “Her music is eclectic and unique and impossible to categorize, which makes her the perfect Wicked Cool artist.”
“What You Get Is What You See” is a sunny acoustic-rock song with a bit of Afropop flavor. “After talking to (producer-drummer) Dave (Diamond) about how I thought ‘What You Get’ sounded like a Paul Simon song, I asked a friend how to say ‘This is me’ in Swahili and it sounded so beautiful,” said Wagner in the press release. “Then I had to figure out how to sing it and make it fit with the song.”
For more on Wagner, visit jessiewagnerofficial.com.
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