Dave Stewart Meets ‘Ebony McQueen’ in 26-Track Opus

Updated:

April 21, 2022 12:19 pm

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Dave Stewart is releasing his latest music, stage, and film project Ebony McQueen (Bay Street Records) on May 20.

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“‘Ebony McQueen’ is the name of a fictional voodoo blues queen, a living embodiment of the blues music that inspired my entire career,” said Stewart in a statement. “She is basically my entry point into music and the title track is the entry point to this story. Ultimately, it’s a story about destiny. There’s a point in your life when something’s put before you and you can either choose this path or that path.”

The 26-track album is available as a multi-format deluxe box set featuring three vinyl LPs, two vinyl EPs, cassettes, and a photo book featuring Stewart’s typed lyrics original film “scriptment,” shared on his Instagram.

Written and produced by Stewart, Ebony McQueen was recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville as well as his own Bay Street Recording Studio in The Bahamas, and features the 60-piece Budapest Scoring Orchestra, along with various session players and guest vocalists.

Partly autobiographical, the score of Ebony McQueen travels through Stewart’s earlier years as a teen in Sunderland, England, and lingers around the storyline of the voodoo queen and themes of adulthood, and finding love.

Roused by his earliest influences, including his father’s Rogers & Hammerstein records, Robert Johnson’s blues, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, Ebony McQueen orbits around the varied genres, theatrics, and more orchestrated sounds within Stewart’s musical scope.

“Ebony McQueen is more than Dave Stewart’s own story, it’s for everyone whose lives have been steered by the redemptive magic of music and mysterious power of love,” reads a descriptor of the album.

“If you’re open to it, the right path chooses you,” said Stewart. “And the whole story is about how that awakening happens.”

Stewart recently released his second album with Stewart Lindsey, Amitié, in 2020, and will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame this June.

Photos: Milestone Publicity