Lady Blackbird: The Slang Spirituals Tour

City Winery St. Louis presents Lady Blackbird: The Slang Spirituals Tour live on April 9th at 7:30pm!

In every Lady Blackbird song is the unmistakable sound of freedom. Harnessing a mighty voice that effortlessly embodies buffeting power, heart-rending yearning and soft, whispered balladry, Lady Blackbird has imbued her compositions since 2021’s critically acclaimed debut Black Acid Soul with a journeying independence. Hers is an instantly-recognizable sound capable of evoking joy one moment and heartache the next, a musical embrace of genres as varied as jazz, classic soul, gospel, psychedelic rock and pop. It is the hallmark of a visionary voice, on an Album that has landed on several ‘2024 Best Albums of the Year’ charts. Yet, it is only now that she is embracing the full breadth of that musical freedom in her most personal and ambitious work to date: Slang Spirituals.

Tracks like “Let Not (Your Heart Be Troubled)” see Lady Blackbird repeating the freeing line, “Heaven is just a game not meant to last,” playfully casting off her previous religious shackles over ornate swells of choral harmony. “Reborn”, meanwhile, finds her exclaiming, “We die a little to be born again, so I drowned her in flames/ And now she’s been reborn,” against a thundering backbeat and earworming harmonies. “I had to dig my way out of a grave to be able to finally breathe and sing about who I really am,” she says. “This is me, full of freedom, acceptance and without hypocrisy. It’s also something I think a lot of people can relate to – that human quest to find yourself and take back your power, to get to the place of radiating who you are without apology.”

“It might sound like a heavy record but it’s one full of musical joy,” she adds. “We’re putting this journey of becoming to a soundtrack that is louder, fuller and more expressive than what I’ve done before. It’s neo-gospel, avant soul, acid rock and everything in between.”