Audiences Are Hooked! On Lucy Woodward: Charismatic Vocalist's Latest CD Release and Tour With Pink Martini a Huge Success

LOS ANGELES, July 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

"If Woodward were the original voice of Pink Martini, she might be considered the perfect fit for the band." – Salt Lake Tribune

"Woodward ... was absolutely show-stopping behind the mic. Her vocal delivery was effortless." – Winnipeg's Uptown magazine

"[Lucy] navigated the group's catalog with aplomb, almost as if she'd been performing these tunes for years. She launched into a perfect, sultry version of `Amado Mio' ... And she also offered a smokin' version of the Doris Day standard `Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps'. One should always expect the unexpected at a Pink Martini concert, and this one was true to form." - Ann Arbor News

Lucy Woodward has always received high accolades for her unforgettable live performances.  But comparisons to Bette Midler and Peggy Lee aside, Lucy has been turning heads and drawing high praise from a completely new and hard-to-impress audience, with fans of the superstar band, Pink Martini.

Performing across Canada and America at international jazz festivals and symphony music halls, Pink Martini fans and music enthusiasts have been blown away by Lucy's vocal prowess, having observed the talented songstress reinterpreting Pink Martini classics as well as songs in Japanese, Croatian and Turkish.  During a three-night stint with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Resident Conductor Donato Cabrera raved how Lucy "made every song her own" that she performed with the band.

Pink Martini themselves are so happy to have Lucy on board that they've incorporated her new original song "He Got Away" into their set each night. And audiences are Hooked!, which happens to be the title of Lucy's latest album and Verve Records debut, which has been selling briskly due to this unusual new exposure.

Talking about her own album, Lucy says, "I wanted to make a modern-day torch record." Hooked! finds the New York-bred vocalist and acclaimed songwriter achieving a remarkable creative rebirth by re-embracing her early musical roots. Woodward made her first impression on the national scene with her 2003 debut album While You Can and her pop hit "Dumb Girls." The album won Lucy a BMI Songwriter of the Year Award. But her musical heart has always lay in the soulful authenticity of classic jazz, swing, R&B and Latin music, and it's those influences that form the basis of her approach on Hooked!.

The 12-song album showcases Woodward's engaging, expressive vocals and witty, insightful songwriting on such memorable originals as "Slow Recovery," "Babies" and "Too Much To Live For." Another highlight is "Another Woman," especially written for Lucy by admirer Nellie McKay, who lends her harmony vocals to the track. Woodward's gifts as an interpreter of outside material are showcased on her distinctive readings of such vintage tunes as Hoagy Carmichael's 1930's pop standard "Stardust," the esoteric Peggy Lee samba "Sans Souci" and "I Wan'na Be Like You (The Monkey Song)," originally sung by Louis Prima in Disney's The Jungle Book.

Hooked! was produced largely by veteran studio legend Tony Visconti (David Bowie, Paul McCartney), with additional tracks produced by Justin Stanley (Nikka Costa, Eric Clapton) and longtime Woodward collaborators Tim K. (Les Nubians, Esthero) and Itaal Shur (Santana, Maxwell).

After her initial success in the contemporary pop realm, Woodward took stock of her creative goals and chose to reinvent her music in favor of a more personal, organic approach. She first embraced that direction on 2008's independently released Lucy Woodward Is...Hot and Bothered, a transitional work that introduced many of the stylistic elements that she pursues in earnest on Hooked!.

In addition to her own albums, Woodward has also contributed songs to the soundtracks of several films, including Disney's Ice Princess and the recent Golden Globe-winning Sandra Bullock hit, The Blind Side. She's also devoted considerable energy to several charitable projects, making multiple trips to Africa on behalf of relief organizations, singing for Bishop Desmond Tutu and at several charitable organizations and events sponsored by the United Nations.

SOURCE Universal Music Enterprises