Ebony McQueen

Album: Ebony McQueen (2022)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Ebony McQueen" is the title track to a 26-song album that tells the tale of Dave Stewart's musical journey. The character Ebony McQueen represents the blues music that inspired him as a teenager and led him to a career in music. Stewart is best known for his work in Eurythmics.
  • Stewart recorded much of the Ebony McQueen album at his studio in the Bahamas, Bay Street. Ebony is a fictional character that Stewart describes as a "voodoo blues queen," but he got the name from a real person he met on the islands. Her name was Ebony, and she told him that McQueen was her maiden name, which she prefers.

    On the bike ride back to his place, he rolled the name around in his head and came up with the lilting chorus. He started writing a song around it and developed the concept that led him to the album.
  • Dave Stewart grew up in Sunderland, England, where his dream was to play for the local soccer team, Sunderland A.F.C. A knee injury put those dreams to rest, and around the same time, his mom moved to London as his parents separated. Dave was rather depressed, but came out of his funk when he received a record from his cousin in America: Robert Johnson's compilation King Of The Delta Blues Singers. It opened up a new world for Stewart, who started digging into other music: The Beatles, The Kinks, his dad's Rodgers & Hammerstein records. His Ebony McQueen project is the culmination of all these influences.
  • The video for this song includes footage of Stewart composited on illustrations by Kathryn Robertson.

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