First Listen: Andra Day makes "Ben Hur" song shine

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    Plenty of artists would love to have a year half as good as the one experienced by Andra Day. Her album Cheers for the Fall received rave critical reviews and soon after she appeared on a huge holiday commercial with Stevie Wonder.

    Plenty of artists would love to have a year half as good as the one experienced by Andra Day. Her album Cheers for the Fall received rave critical reviews and soon after she appeared on a huge holiday commercial with Stevie Wonder.

    I first heard of Day when the tune “Forever Mine” came across my radar, and Day’s performance had me making comparisons with Amy Winehouse, but also Eartha Kitt and Dinah Washington. Meanwhile, the inspirational “Rise Up” is a song for our time. Perhaps that’s why Hillary Clinton asked Day to sing the Grammy nominated tune at July’s Democratic National Convention. Day’s performance wowed the crowd along with the journalists in the PBS/NPR broadcast booth. The tune was definitely in keeping with the optimistic theme of that quadrennial conclave, and the video for “Rise Up” will take your breath away. The song’s title reflects Day’s growing stature, and now the native of San Diego lends her voice to a cut featured in a bona fide Hollywood block buster.

    “The Only Way Out” is on the soundtrack of the remake of the 1959 historical epic Ben Hur. Day’s emotive vocal captures the audio bombast of the epics from Hollywood’s Golden Era just as Day’s fashion sense and mature self-confidence reminds many of starlets from that era such as Kitt. Check of “The Only Way Out” here.

    By Howard Dukes

    Andra Day - "The Only Way Out"