Lucy Woodward

Lucy Woodward is an English-American singer-songwriter. She is best known for writing Stacie Orrico's hit single "(There's Gotta Be) More to Life" in addition to her singles "Dumb Girls" and "Slow Recovery". Having participated in various parts of the music world from an early age, Woodward's distinctive voice has carried across genres as her career has progressed. With collaborations with jazz ensemble group Snarky Puppy, Woodward has created several soul-based records in recent years. Meanwhile, she has maintained backup vocal and collaborative work with artists such as Rod Stewart and Randy Jackson. Woodward's fourth studio album, 'Til They Bang on the Door was released on Snarky Puppy's label, groundUP Music, on July 15, 2016.

Born in London, Woodward is the daughter of British conductor and composer Kerry Woodward and his American wife, a former staff editor on The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians who studied opera. Her parents helped edit a performance edition of Viktor Ullmann's opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis and mounting its first performances in many countries. When her father was appointed musical director of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, the family moved to Amsterdam. Two years later her parents separated. Woodward, her brother, and her mother moved to New York, near her maternal grandparents, James Halitsky, a meteorologist, and Sylvia, an educational psychologist at a residential treatment center for court-referred children. Woodward's mother worked on the Grove Dictionaries, bellydanced professionally, and became a music teacher in the public schools of New York City.

Raised on classical and Middle Eastern music, Woodward studied piano and flute before asking for singing lessons at age 12. She attended a Bronx high school renowned for its music department. She made her first recordings singing house music in her friends' basements. Every summer she went to music camp and to the Netherlands, where she frequently locked herself in her father's studio and listened to jazz and old R&B records. At 16 she was accepted into the Manhattan School of Music to study jazz, but after a year she decided to learn songwriting and performing on her own. She spent the next few years performing in swing organ trios, working as a session singer, waiting tables, and singing jazz standards in restaurants in Greenwich Village.

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