Today M. Ward has released Think of Spring, his new album of Billie Holiday covers; listen to it HERE. Called ‘spare and haunting’ by Portland Monthly and “raw and nostalgic, personal and unpolished, romantic and real,” by the Portland Tribune, the album features classic songs ‘You’ve Changed‘ – originally written in the ‘40s by Carl Fischer – and ‘All The Way‘, famously sung by both Holiday and Frank Sinatra. Additionally, ‘For All We Know‘ is a wistful yet beautiful track, saying: “we come and go like a ripple on a stream/tomorrow may never come for all we know.”
Ward achieved the intimate sound of this record by filtering the original songs and strings through a single acoustic guitar, using various alternate tunings and a minimal amount of textures and studio manipulation. Most of the songs were recorded on an analog Tascam four track. The title Think of Spring comes from a poem written in 1924 by Jane Brown-Thompson that eventually became ‘I Get Along Without You Very Well’ on 1938 – the first song on the record. Proceeds from Think of Spring will benefit Inner-City Arts & DonorsChoose via PLUS1 for Black Lives Fund.
“I first heard [Billie’s album] Lady In Satin in a mega-shopping mall somewhere in San Francisco,” M. Ward explained. “I was about 20 years old and didn’t know much about Billie’s records or her life or how her voice changed over the years. Anyway, the sound was coming from the other side of the mall and I remember mistaking her voice for a beautiful perfectly distorted electric guitar – some other-world thing floating there on this strange mournful ocean of strings and I was hooked for life.”
M. WARD – ‘Think of Spring’
1. I Get Along Without You Very Well
2. For Heaven’s Sake
3. It’s Easy To Remember
4. You’ve Changed
5. Violets For Your Furs
6. For All We Know
7. But Beautiful
8. All The Way
9. I’m A Fool To Want You
10. I’ll Be Around
11. You Don’t Know What Love Is
M. WARD ONLINE
