Sunny Azell

Listen to "Sunny Ozell Releases The Album Overnight Lows" on Spreaker. Describing the album title, OZELL says, “OVERNIGHT LOWS came to me more or less before I’d composed a single complete lyric, and I knew it was perfect. It encapsulated so many possibilities of what I’d hoped to say, and it steered the writing process that followed. The title was a kind of lighthouse, guiding the way.” In her words, OVERNIGHT LOWS reflects the soul and simplicity of her passion for such inspirations as Bonnie Raitt, David Byrne, Cassandra Wilson, and Aretha Franklin. Players on the album include Jay Bellerose (Robert Plant, Aimee Mann, Alison Krauss), Tyler Chester (George Ezra, Maddison Cunningham), Andy Hess (The Black Crowes, David Byrne), Adam Levy (Norah Jones, Roseanne Cash), and Rich Hinman (Sara Bareilles). The album was recorded at Village Studios in Los Angeles, and engineered by Mike Piersante. OVERNIGHT LOWS displays SUNNY's love of language and her intimate, soulful delivery, from the cruising feel of “Driving Highways” at one end--with its clever incorporation of a key line from Dobie Gray's 1970s soulful singalong “Drift Away”--to the bluesy, smoochy “Take You Down” at the other. “Almost like self-analysis,” she adds, “I went back through it and thought 'Holy shit, there's a lot about night in here, and not sleeping, and wrestling with memories.” As personal as these songs are, OZELL is perfectly happy for them to assume their own individual meaning to the listener. “I was really ready to be reflective, but I don't necessarily need to have my agenda known,” she says. “I know from every song that's ever moved me that when you love something at first glance, but it continues to yield up deeper levels of meaning as time goes on, that's really art.” OVERNIGHT LOWS is fueled by a lifetime relationship with music that started when SUNNY began violin lessons at the age of four and singing lessons at 11 years old. Stints in opera companies in her teens led to nights in a blues band in college, followed by jazz clubs in New York City. It was her time there, in New York, that honed and refined her unique voice and vision.