Bruce Sudano to Release 'Talkin' Ugly Truth, Tellin' Pretty Lies' Album

“I'm tackling the future by wrestling with the past, all the while living in the present tense,” says singer/songwriter Bruce Sudano of his highly anticipated ninth album, Talkin' Ugly Truth, Tellin' Pretty Lies, out March 1 on Purple Heart Recording Company.   

Watch and/or share the videos for the previously released singles “Better Than This,” “Make The World Go Away,” and “Two Bleeding Hearts.” In late February, he will be an official showcase artist at Folk Alliance International, the world's largest gathering of the folk music industry and community.   

From the exhilaration of youth on the album's opener, “Better Than That,” through the maze of life and where the journey leads on “Under the Gun,” Talkin' Ugly Truth, Tellin' Pretty Lies encompasses every stage of life.

“Make The World Go Away,” featuring background vocals by Irene Blackman, who appears throughout the album, is a catchy yet urgent account of escaping the chaos of every day; “Two Bleeding Hearts,” featuring vocals by Valerie Simpson, speaks of the lines that lovers shouldn't cross; and the whispered spoken word of “Navigating the Unforeseen” highlights victory in a place of surrender.  

Written over the spring and fall of 2022 in Milan, Italy, Sudano worked remotely with producer Ken Lewis – he in Milan and Lewis in Ohio – providing demos that detailed tempo, atmosphere, and direction. Lewis added or took away elements and then sent his team of East Coast musicians files to individually layer their parts, returning the tracks to Sudano for vocals and guitar parts.

The only exception to that process was “Under the Gun,” written and recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Randy Ray Mitchell.   Throughout his acclaimed decades-long career, Sudano has cultivated a musical style that combines pop sensibility based on real-life storytelling built on a foundation of folk and soul music dressed in postmodern production. Every record he's made has its own landscape; some are starker than others. The result of this latest collaboration is a sonic adventure filled with swagger, soul, and depth.   

Following the album design of past releases of using an art piece on the cover, for Talkin' Ugly Truth, Tellin' Pretty Lies, Sudano borrowed a detail from a painting by his late wife, Donna Summer. “I thought it reflected the subtlety, complexities, and nuance that I've tried to create for every song on this record,” offers Sudano.   

Growing up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, Sudano's father had a jukebox route and would come home weekly with a box of 45s, which began his musical journey. “The thing that always intrigued me [about those records], even more than the singers and musicians, was the names under the title in parentheses – the songwriters,” says Sudano.   

A self-taught multi-instrumentalist, Sudano began his career in 1968 with the band Alive N Kickin', scoring a Billboard hit with the 1970 single “Tighter, Tighter,” written by Tommy James (“Crimson and Clover”), who became his songwriting mentor and helped hone his craft. In 1977, he co-founded Brooklyn Dreams, performing their hit single, “Music, Harmony and Rhythm,” on American Bandstand. 

A gifted songwriter, his songs have been recorded by Michael and Jermaine Jackson, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Robert Palmer, and Donna Summer.   He released his first album, Fugitive Kind, in 1981, with a sophomore album, Rainy Day Soul, following in 2004. His third album, Life and the Romantic, was released in 2009 and won the New Music Weekly Adult Contemporary Song of the Year award for “It's Her Wedding Day,” written for his daughter's wedding.

In 2014, following Summer's death, he released With Angels on a Carousel. In 2015, he released The Burbank Sessions, followed by 2017's 21st Century World, Spirals: Vol.1: Not a Straight Line to Be Found (2020); Spirals, Vol. 2: Time & the Space in Between (2020); and Ode to a Nightingale (2021).  

The album is now available for pre-order.

Photo credit: Amy Waters

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