Dreaming Wide Awake

1	A Taste of Honey 3:51
2	Stop 3:32
3	Hit the Ground 3:31
4	When I Close My Eyes 3:16
5	I'm Confessin' 2:58
6	Old Man 3:40
7	Wake Up, Little Sparrow 3:00
8	Chasing Strange 3:48
9	Get Together 4:42
10	Trouble 5:12
11	Dreaming Wide Awake 3:44
12	Without You 4:05

Barnes & Noble

A masterpiece can surface at any moment in the career of a truly gifted musician. In the case of the young singer Lizz Wright, her second album is the charm. Wright's debut Salt gave notice that this was a special talent, a bright new vocalist equally comfortable with folk, jazz, and pop. Dreaming Wide Awake may veer away from the first album's overt jazz influences, but Wright's winningly eclectic ways are still in stunning view. If Wright carries vestiges of the work of such stylistic titans as Nina Simone, Norah Jones, Bonnie Raitt, and Cassandra Wilson, it's to her credit that she draws only from the best. Dreaming establishes its own blissful environment, one where contemporary material (Joe Henry's "Stop," Chocolate Genius’s “Chasing Strange”) meets perfectly chosen pop chestnuts ("Get Together," "A Taste of Honey," “I’m Confessin’,” Neil Young's "Old Man”). Wright's gorgeous tone, sensuous delivery, and tastefully understated vocal interpretations make each song sound as if it were commissioned strictly for her. And the material that Wright did compose or help write herself is top-drawer, revealing yet another impressive aspect of her burgeoning art. Credit for the album’s appeal must be shared with Wright’s producer, Craig Street, the studio wizard who had earlier assisted Cassandra Wilson in finding her unique vision as a recording artist. It would be unfair to label Wright the “next” Norah Jones, although she surely will draw Jones fans to her side. Let’s just call her today’s Lizz Wright, a gift to present-day popular music. Steve Futterman

All Music Guide

The smoky, sizzlingly soulful rural Georgian created an immediate and well-deserved critical firestorm with her 2003 debut Salt; the L.A. Times wasn't overstating it when they said, "She walked onstage at the Hollywood Bowl a virtual unknown...Fifteen minutes later, she walked off a star." Like her more (so far, but maybe not for long) renowned labelmate Diana Krall, Lizz Wright is a brilliant interpreter who can cover rock classics (Neil Young's "Old Man," the Youngbloods' "Get Together") as if they were fresh new generational statements, and even give an emotional urgency to fluffy classics like "A Taste of Honey" (done all swampy here). She even works wonders with her transcendent twist on Ella Jenkins' "Wake Up Little Sparrow," turning the tune into a meditation on the bluesy realities of love. But she is also an inspired songwriter in her own "wright," creating the resonating and heartrending, Norah Jones-like "Hit the Ground," with Jones' writer Jesse Harris, and other instantly seductive tracks like a soaring "Trouble" (the first song she ever wrote on guitar) and hauntingly dark title tune. These latter two, easily on par with the original material, shouldn't be so deep in the mix, and Wright should definitely include more originals as time goes on. Clearly aware that he has a future legend with a one in a million voice on his hands -- and that anything getting in the way of that intimate emotional connection would be criminal -- producer Craig Street provides only the sparsest and down-home of productions. Jonathan Widran