Rooted in Gospel, Blues, and Soul, AV’s fifth single from her most recent album titled “Everybody Matters” is a lyrically coy song designed to offer truths and advice about both life and relationships, from a strongly female perspective. With its lazy feel and AV’s signature soaring vocals, “Don’t Wait” has a hot, sweaty, summer day in the 1960’s feel, with easy to sing call-and-response background harmonies that make the song hard to forget.
About “Don’t Wait”:
Uniquely playful and delivered like slow-pouring molasses, AV’s “Don’t Wait” is a laid-back, sweaty, southern style, swampy Soul tune. The track can easily be interpreted as a song that offers dating advice, AND straight-up life advice– both from a strongly female perspective. Featuring church-style three part harmony throughout the entire song, the vocals on “Don’t Wait” sit just behind the beat, and add to the lazy, hot summer day ambiance of the track. Keeping with the organic and acoustic musical theme of the album, “Don’t Wait” surprisingly features only three instruments – drums, a Hammond organ, and vintage keyboards, supplemented by AV’s soaring vocals– this is in keeping with AV’s desire to do less with more on this album, which was inspired by her struggling inner city neighborhood, where folks have to do just that. Both cheeky and Soulful, “Don’t Wait” captures the feeling and the sound of the lazy days of summer, and the chit-chat and gossip one might hear floating by from open windows and shaded verandas.
Biography:
AV (Ann Vriend) is a two-time Maple Blues Award songwriting recipient, an Edmonton Music Award and Alberta Centennial Award recipient, and has sold nearly 30,000 albums off-the-stage in her under-the-radar yet critically acclaimed international career. Her sound is simultaneously reminiscent of the vintage, rootsy, soul style of Stax Records and Muscle Shoals recordings, not to mention lyrically politically poignant, while also contemporary and commercially viable, much like artists such as Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse.
AV has been hailed by NOW Magazine as a musician who “turns soul on its head, belting out delicate introspection in the form of fire”. She is one of the only independent artists in recent history to break into the Top 100 Pop Charts of commercial radio in Germany, the world’s 4th largest music market; even taking the #1 spot on one of their largest stations, Bayern 1.Her last tour before the COVID19 pandemic was a six-night opening slot for UK star Lisa Stansfield, where each night Stansfield’s crowds were captivated into complete silence before the end of AV’s first song.
Throughout her career AV’s music has been consistently embraced by critics and the media; she continually receives spins on community and campus radio across Canada; and she has been the guest on such nationally favourite radio shows such as “Vinyl Cafe”, and Holger Petersen’s “Saturday Night Blues,” and “All Nat’l Blues.” In Germany AV has performed on popular TV shows such as ZDF’s “Morgenmagazin” and “The Pierre M Krause Show, as well as Arte TV; and in Australia she was a guest on ABC’s comedy show, “Spicks and Specks,” “The Inner Sleeve”, and others. AV has recorded at Sony Studios and the Hit Factory in NYC, and worked with esteemed producers such as Ray Bardani and Joe Chicarelli; and by his request she has worked with multiple number one hit songwriter Dan Hill.
