{"id":2448207,"date":"2019-08-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-31T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=311864"},"modified":"2019-08-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-31T06:00:00","slug":"jazz-aspen-labor-day-experience-zz-ward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/jazz-aspen-labor-day-experience-zz-ward\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz Aspen Labor Day Experience: ZZ Ward"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
ZZ Ward will play the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience on Satruday in Snowmass Town Park.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Like just about anybody born in the 1980s, ZZ Ward<\/a> is a hip-hop kid who was shaped by sounds of Jay-Z and Nas. But Ward also has the blues in her blood.<\/p>\n

The daughter of a blues singer and harmonica player, she started singing and playing in her dad\u2019s band as a child in Oregon.<\/p>\n

As she matured as a musician, it was only a matter of time before the sounds of blues and hip-hop started melding in her performances. She\u2019d be going to Freddie Gibbs shows, she recalled in a recent interview, and she\u2019d be singing hooks for rap artists. But then she\u2019d pick up her guitar and play straight blues in her bands.<\/p>\n

Once she started writing songs, however, what poured out was the poppy hip-hop and blues hybrid sound that has helped Ward make a name for herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scenes were so separate and the opportunities to express myself in either genre were so separate,\u201d Ward said last summer during a swing through Aspen. \u201cBut when I started writing, that was when I was able to put them together in my own songs and stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ward will play the main stage of the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience on Saturday, preceding performances by Luke Combs and John Mayer.<\/p>\n

Ward has found a loyal fan base here in Colorado. She started coming to Belly Up soon after her debut album, \u201cTil the Casket Drops,\u201d was released in 2012. Since then she has made regular stops playing to full houses in ski country and in Denver.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love playing in Colorado,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople get into it, and that\u2019s a dream for an artist \u2014 to find people who get into it and they\u2019re right with me on the journey of that live show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her most recent record, 2017\u2019s \u201cThe Storm,\u201d hit No. 1 on the Billboard blues chart and she\u2019s been mixing those songs with older material, classic and offbeat covers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point I have a lot of material,\u201d she said. \u201cSo it\u2019s fun to put together a live show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early on, it was her bluesy cover songs that helped make a name for Ward \u2014 novel takes on Drake or Nick Jonas with slide guitar and harmonica.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never want to cover something that\u2019s a straight-up blues song,\u201d she said of her eclectic cover choices. \u201cIt just depends on whether I can put my own spin on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The closest she might come, she said, is in her version of Son House\u2019s \u201cGrinnin\u2019 in Your Face,\u201d which fills in the stark a capella and hand claps of the original with a beefy full band treatment.<\/p>\n

While Ward is no secret to blues-heads and the crowds she\u2019s won over with her tireless concerts, she recently found a massive and mostly new audience as NASCAR\u2019s theme song performer \u2014 the equivalent of Hank Williams Jr. and Carrie Underwood\u2019s ubiquitous NFL spots for racing fans.<\/p>\n

Since 2018, NBC\u2019s racing broadcasts opened with Ward singing a cover version of Tom Petty\u2019s \u201cRunnin\u2019 Down a Dream.\u201d As she recalled, network execs had heard her song \u201cRide,\u201d a collaboration with blues guitarist Gary Clark Jr. featured on the \u201cCars 3\u201d soundtrack, and sought her out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey loved the feel of that song and how it lent itself to making you want to move and move fast,\u201d she said. \u201cThey saw that and they were like, \u2018This is our girl.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This big break is a full-circle experience for Ward. As she recalled, in her time as a kid playing in her dad\u2019s blues band, Petty\u2019s songs were in constant rotation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did \u2018Mary Jane\u2019s Last Dance\u2019 all the time,\u201d she recalled of the late rock legend. \u201cHe was such a great writer that a lot of people can sing his songs. It\u2019s a testament to how talented he was that his songs are so sing-able. \u2026 I wish it could have been a duet.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ZZ Ward will play the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Experience on Satruday in Snowmass Town Park.Courtesy photo Like just about anybody born in the 1980s, ZZ Ward is a hip-hop kid who was shaped by sounds of Jay-Z and Nas. But Ward also has the blues in her blood. The daughter of a blues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2448207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-20 14:02:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}