Who is Janiva Magness? 5 Things You Need to Know
Grammy Awards-nominated blues singer-songwriter Janiva Magness is not at all new to the music business: She's a winner of seven Blues Music Awards, including a BB King Entertainer of the Year trophy. However, the modern soul artist is taking a stylistic turn in her musical journey.
With her new album, Love Is an Army, Magness channels her trademark smoky voice into a rustic Americana vibe, tapping genre standards including Delbert McClinton, Cedric Burnside and banjo player Courtney Hartman from the band Della Mae for help. Using her blues roots and tragic personal history to capture the timeless themes of Americana music, Magness makes the transition from swing to twang seem effortless.
Magness' sweep into the Americana world on the wings of her solid blues repertoire already includes a performance at the 2016 Americana Music Festival in Nashville and some time at the top of the Americana charts that year as well. Scroll through the photo gallery to below to learn some of the reasons why Magness is a musical force to reckoned with, across multiple genres.