Soulful…Heartfelt… Sultry… Thought provoking… Meaningful The Musical Heart of Jennifer Lang “What excites me most about music,” New York-based singer/songwriter Jennifer Lang says, is simple: “The sound… music is in the ocean. It’s in your heart beat. It’s in your spirit. Even a guy who can’t carry a tune in a bucket is moved by music.” Raised in church singing with an appropriately titled family act “The Lang Family,” Jennifer’s introduction to music and public performing started at eight years old. She was also a member of her church choir and sang in the school choir through high school. Jennifer’s secular music education blossomed when Jennifer and her brother pulled out their mother’s records and listened to the greats of the day including Aretha Franklin and Al Green along with hundreds of others. Country music was also an early love of Jennifer’s as they absorbed tunes by Ronnie Milsap, Kenny Rogers, mixed with Luther Vandross and Prince on the car stereo while driving to school in the morning. For someone so steeped in music that it touches her very soul, you would think music is the reason Jennifer moved all the way from Pine Bluff, Arkansas to The Big Apple in an effort to pursue her musical dreams. She was actually already living there, having been hired by a political action group to organize lower income neighborhoods to help them get better city services. While in training, Jennifer was hired by the telephone company. And like the old phone company slogan goes, Jennifer “reached out and touched someone” with her singing voice at work. “I love everything from Bach to Rock, and knew all the songs playing while we were at work,” Jennifer says of her roundabout entry into a music career. “People around me heard me singing and encouraged me to pursue singing professionally.” Jennifer knew that if there was ever a time and a place for her to “go for it,” it was in New York City. She prayed about it “and asked God to lead me and protect me and keep me in good company, because although I didn’t know everything about the music business, I did realize that there were stories of bad things happening to sweet little girls like me. I educated myself, I read books, talked to attorneys, attended seminars and then started recording.” On Just A Lang Thang, her debut album released in 2008, Jennifer sings a beautiful mix of Soul and R&B songs of love and loss, hope and recovery, or as she puts it, “I want people to know how important love is… the idea of love you had as a child.” With the completion on her follow-up album, "3'o clock Saturday", Jennifer continues the love theme with soulful tales of failing, forgiveness and being happy at the end of it all. “Music is my friend, my escape,” Jennifer explains. “In my songs, I want to be that voice that says, ‘You’re worth more, be better, dream bigger.’” Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.