Sunny War - live sessions

224 Main Street,Mosinee WI 54455

25 August, 2022

Description

Sydney Ward got her start in music when she was a teen busking on the boardwalk of Venice Beach, Calif. Now she's on stage as Sunny War, a successful musician in her 30s who's celebrated for her guitar skills. Over the years, Sunny War has become recognizable in folk music circles for her highly particular guitar playing. She only picks with her fingers, and never plays chords with a guitar pick, emulating blues musicians she idolized as a child. Critics have compared her nimble hands to Robert Johnson’s, though Sunny prefers artists like Elizabeth Cotton and Mississippi John Hurt. This is because Sunny doesn’t necessarily think of herself as an instrumentalist, but a poet. Cotton and Hurt offered an emotional density Sunny couldn’t access from Johnson’s music. Speaking with Sunny War, her mind roves endlessly, jumping between topics, spilling out rapid fire thoughts like her wildly inventive guitar playing. The pandemic has driven many away from their creative centers, but Sunny’s been uncommonly busy. She founded a Los Angeles chapter of the nonprofit Food Not Bombs and put together a network of volunteers to distribute vegan food to the homeless. She marched for BLM in protest against police brutality and found time to cut a new album at her favorite spot, Hen House Studios in Venice Beach. Sunny’s last album brought her universal praise and a powerful Tiny Desk performance at NPR. You’d think that the next album would bring a whole suite of expectations, but Sunny shrugged these off easily. She’s motivated less by what others expect and more by her own inner muse, and she’s surrounded herself with an artistic group of friends who are constantly writing, recording, and playing music.