The Dana Fuchs Band - Lonely For A Lifetime (2003)

Hailed as the new Janis Joplin, even before she played the legendary rock icon in an off-Broadway musical, Dana Fuchs is a raspy-voiced blues-rock singer/songwriter whose versatile career has embraced music, theater, and film. Born in New Jersey in 1976, she later moved to the small rural town of Wildwood, Florida with her musically oriented family, where, at age 12, she began singing in the First Baptist Gospel Choir. Inspired by her parents' Ray Charles and Hank Williams record collection, she moved to New York to sing the blues after leaving high school, where she teamed up with Jon Diamond, a seasoned guitarist who had previously performed with Joan Osborne. Together, they formed the Dana Fuchs Band, which built up a reputation as one of the best live acts on the city's blues circuit, leading to Fuchs landing the lead role in the Eric Nederlander production of Randall Myler's Janis Joplin musical, Love Janis. In 2003, they released their first album, Lonely for a Lifetime, through Antler King Records, but Fuchs put the band on hold until 2008 in order to concentrate on other commitments. She starred as Sadie in Julie Taymor's 2007 Beatles-based musical romantic drama Across the Universe, singing two solos ("Helter Skelter" and "Why Don't We Do It in the Road"), made a brief cameo in the 2008 ensemble piece New York, I Love You, and wrote and performed on the soundtrack to the Maggie Gyllenhaal movie Sherrybaby. After 2008's Live in NYC, recorded at B.B. King's, she toured with Ray Davies and Dickey Betts before releasing her second studio album, Love to Beg, via her own label in 2011. ~ Jon O'Brien, Rovi