Platinum-selling recording artist Deborah Cox reinterprets the classic songs of Dinah Washington on her Decca debut, Destination Moon. Set for release on June 19th, Destination Moon thrusts the R&B/dance diva into whole new territory, showcasing her range and scope as an artist capable of tackling jazz, blues and “big-band” with ease and confidence.
"This is a complete labor of love, a concept album that I've had in mind for years," Cox explains. "This is a project that's an introduction to all of the styles that I grew up with. It's a way to expose another side of me that I've kept quiet. It's a chance to look inside my history of influences and hear where I'm coming from as an artist.”
Having conquered the pop and R&B charts, including one of the longest-running #1 songs in history on Billboard's R&B singles chart and an impressive nine #1 hits on Billboard's Hot Dance Club play chart, Deborah was another protégé of legendary record executive Clive Davis. She starred on Broadway in Elton John's and Tim Rice's "Aida," and now the 32-year-old Toronto-born singer/actress pays effusive tribute to her childhood idol, the beloved and troubled Washington. Deborah Cox's first exposure to Washington came very early, when she was a little girl. "I first became aware of Dinah when I was growing up, when I was about 8 or 9 years old" she says. "A lot of jazz was played about the house. I heard my mother playing a 45 of "This Bitter Earth" -- this first song I had ever heard from Dinah. It was the richness and the tonality of her voice that I gravitated to.”
Later in life, Deborah realized that apart from the turbulent personal issues, she had a great deal in common with Dinah in terms of how she wants to be perceived as an artist.
“I'm doing this to broaden people's awareness of what I can do and also for the sheer love of her music." As a result, Deborah's homage to Dinah Washington does not lean overwhelmingly toward one particular style. It was designed from the beginning to be a compendium of several of Dinah's idioms - the big-band swing of "All Of Me" and "Destination Moon," swaggering R&B ("I Don't Hurt Anymore)," the blues that earned her the misleading nickname "Queen of the Blues" ("Misery," "New Blowtop Blues"), the lush ballads that put her on the jukeboxes of Middle America ("What A Diff'rence A Day Made," "This Bitter Earth").
For the arrangements and the production, Deborah turned to the highly-versatile New York-based music man Rob Mounsey, whose credits with such diverse performers as Paul Simon, Steely Dan, Aretha Franklin and Tony Bennett to name a few. The record was made live in the studio, with 40 musicians in the same room with her, playing and singing in real time under Mounsey’s direction.
To celebrate the release of Destination Moon, Deborah Cox will be appearing for one night only at Dizzy’s, in New York City’s Jazz At Lincoln Center on June 25th, with more appearances to be announced.
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