M. Ward Releases Billie Holiday Tribute Album ‘Think Of Spring’

M. Ward released his Billie Holiday tribute album Think Of Spring today. The LP arrives via ANTI-Records with proceeds benefitting Inner-City Arts & DonorsChoose via PLUS1 for Black Lives Fund.

Think Of Spring sees Ward interpreting songs from Holiday’s 1958 album, Lady In Satin and more using alternate tunings on acoustic guitar recorded on an analog Tascam four track. The singer-songwriter pulled the title for the LP from the Lady In Satin track “I Get Along Without You Very Well,” the lyrics for which were inspired by a 1924 Jane Brown-Thompson poem.

Ward recalled the first time he heard Lady Day via a press release. Read his words below:

I first heard [Billie’s album] Lady In Satin in a mega-shopping mall somewhere in San Francisco. I was about 20 years old and didn’t know much about Billie’s records or her life or how her voice changed over the years. Anyway, the sound was coming from the other side of the mall and I remember mistaking her voice for a beautiful perfectly distorted electric guitar – some other-world thing floating there on this strange mournful ocean of strings and I was hooked for life.

The album also features Lady In Satin tracks “You’ve Changed,” “For Heaven’s Sake” and more along with the Holiday popularized “All The Way.” Stream M. Ward’s Think Of Spring below: