Dana Fuchs

Dana Fuchs is a Rock Warrior Goddess. She’s been described as sultry and incendiary. She howls, she moans, she whispers. She kicks her legs like she could kick your ass and whips her hair around like it could power turbines. She can sing as subtle and sweet as a songbird, and she can roar like a lion. Her entire being becomes her instrument on stage. Make your way to see her in person any way you can. Not only will you ache from shaking your ass all night, but your life will be touched, and you will be better for it. Yes, yes, she’s all kinds of beautiful, as is befitting a goddess. Over a decade ago, millions fell in love with her as Sexy Sadie in the Beatles lyrics-inspired film, Across the Universe. Cascading corkscrew curls frame a brilliant smile and eyes so intense Cleopatra would covet them. But that is just the door to the palace. She looks like an angel, sings like the devil, and swears like a trucker. Just that combination is enough to wreck you. But she’s also genuine and human and deep. Damn is she deep. Inevitable comparisons are made to Janis Joplin, in part because Fuchs played her impeccably well in Love, Janis on an Off-Broadway stage near the beginning of her career. And upon hearing for the first time that rocky-roughness in her voice, you may recall the summer of love. She definitely has that kind of charisma. She definitely has that smoky sadness simmering near the surface. She also wears her heart on her sleeve and makes no secret about the pain and loss she’s experienced. In fact, she shares it on stage and off. She writes incredibly impactful songs about battles won and lost, friends and family gone too soon, and love lost just before it was realized. She’s suffered more than her share of family loss and her grief is piled up to the rafters. But like the blues that run through her genre-defying tunes, she explores the sadness and then lifts you from it. Unlike those giants felled by the weight of their own pain, she has not allowed tragedy to define her. Instead, it seems, she sits with it, searches it for secrets, and hones it into something she can use, slicing through silence and reaching into the guts of the matter at hand delivering it straight to your head and heart in her searing and tender original songs. Then you’ll see her contorted into this impossible back-bend, beautifully screaming Helter Skelter. Then she’s rocking to a sizzling Led Zeppelin cover, her voice growling and hissing, fists in fighting stance, mic stand askew, hip huggers pushed to their limits. Dana Fuchs is next generation queen to Robert Plant’s king. Then again she’s a convincing approximation of Mick Jagger’s swagger and Mary Clayton’s soul fire reminding us all that the worst of our collective suffering is just a shot away. What’s more is that despite her success and rock-star status, you never feel at arm’s length. She is most always there after a show, to shake your hand and look you in the eye and see you, as you’ve seen her, acknowledging that everyone has crap to overcome and if you’re here, you’ve done that. Her power is inextricably linked to her vulnerability. And somehow, in opening herself, she opens hearts all around her. You may leave the show both devastated and elated. Her voice and her lyrics will take perfect aim and she will pierce your armor. Prepare to surrender. Dana is currently on her Borrowed Time world tour in support of her latest album, Borrowed Time, available everywhere now via Ruf Records.