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Faith-based singer/songwriter Madison Ryann Ward writes warmhearted songs that mix mature pop and contemporary R & B with accents of gospel, blues, and folk. Previously signed to Rick Rubin’s American Recordings, for which she cut the secular Beyond Me EP (2019), she has established herself as an independent artist with her own Zelda House Records, issuing a slew of singles before making her full-length debut with A New Thing (2023), a bright showcase for her commanding and understated voice. Ward grew up in her native Oklahoma hearing a wide range of music. Her mother played piano in church, and she soaked up blues and soul classics while working in her teens at her father’s restaurant. A year-round athletic star in high school, Ward excelled in volleyball at Oklahoma University with plans of going pro. Her path changed after an informal cafeteria recording of her singing Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” went viral. This encouraged Ward to build an online following with regular uploads of covers, and leading to a deal with a producer Rick Rubin and his American Recordings label. After she made her commercial debut with the Rex Rideout collaboration “Mirror” in 2018, Ward continued the next year with Beyond Me, a four-track EP featuring the equally lean and soulful ballad “BRKN”. Ward then went independent, and from 2020 through 2022 progressed with singles such as “Higher,” “Player,” “Love & Adoration,” and “Anchor.” In 2023, she delivered A New Thing, an album over an hour in length with a few of the preceding singles placed throughout the sequence.