04-20-2007 - WONDERLIGHT review for BiMagazine by Skott Freedman
What do you get when you blend the power of Melissa Etheridge's voice with the beauty of k.d. lang's? Two words: Diane Ward. This singer/songwriter powerhouse has been long under-recognized for her soulful voice and strike-to-the-heart lyrics.
On her fourth release, Wonderlight, Ward stirs up a potluck of rock, blues, and folk with an all-star production team including John Merchant (Barbara Streisand, Celine Dion) and mastering guru Bob Ludwig (Sheryl Crow, Shawn Colvin). Ward holds back nothing on this disc: the initial intoxication of love, the heavy loss that inevitably ensues, and the surprising hope to love again. It's all here in 11 tracks.
Diane explained her motivation for the album: "There is the sense that society has not completely drained us of our innocence... not completely numbed us to those things that get us up in the morning and bring meaning to our lives." She succeeds amazingly in delivering an exciting, uptempo album that doesn't shy away from those ballads that make us all a little bit nostalgic for the lessons we've learned, as well as to acknowledge the lessons we're still learning.
Highlights on Wonderlight include "This Love is Hard" ("And there's no avoiding feeling the crush when you're laid out under the wheel.") and "Passion Field" ("The bar's all sticky and damp with hearts hanging on the edge of a worn out jukebox."). It's the final track that wowed me though, "Tongue Tied", a touching ballad about the close of a relationship ("And I'm tongue tied, tired of you wasting this bad, bad wine. Well don't bother to raise your glass one more time.").
There's a lot of music out there that's pleasant enough but remains skin deep. Pick up a copy of Wonderlight and give yourself a musical exfoliation.
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4/14/2007 Unloving Game - charts at #3 on Sirius
Satellite Radio / The
Out Q Channel (#109)
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1/20/2007 - Trampoline Hero charts at #1 on Sirius
Satellite Radio / The
Out Q Channel (#109)
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12/29/2006 - The Palm Beach Post / Bill Meredith
Acknowledges "Wonderlight" as being one of South Florida's best recordings of 2006.
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10/16/2006 - BEST SONGWRITER / CITY LINK MAGAZINE
On her latest CD, Wonderlight, Ward pens tunes that are so damn hummable you'll find yourself whistling the choruses while standing in line at Publix. The presidential elections, heightened hurricane activity and the war in Iraq have all been on the Hollywood-based singer-songwriter's mind, contributing to the jumble of emotions expressed on Wonderlight. "I can't stop the war/I can't stop thinking about the ruin," she sings on "Messed Up," which was written with old friends Jim Baumann and Jonelle Raspa. The politics of love is also described in "This Love Is Hard": "We held it out in the wide open, and it blazed a path to ruin/Now, your best friend is a song on the radio, and I'm holding hands with my lover the moon." Yet even with all the turmoil of the past few years, Ward remains hopeful. Heed her advice on the lovely, waltz-time rocker "Julie": "And if you're somewhere on the freeway and you can't see to the end/Julie, pool your heart and just glide … Everything is gonna be all right."
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