ZZ Ward is an artist that pushes the boundaries of the blues. She brings in new rhythms and elements of hip hop, rock, and soul, but never loses the core of the genre. With her last record, 2025’s Liberation, Ward went back to her traditional blues roots and has broken down some of the arrangements of her older songs for a tour that spans her entire career. ZZ Ward brought her dynamic show to Mohegan Sun’s Wolf Den and left the crowd wanting more.
Please scroll below for MisplacedStraws’ ZZ Ward live photos and review.
ZZ Ward took the stage in her trademark fedora with a streamlined band featuring one guitarist, bass and drums. Immediately, she set the tone for the night with a pair of classic blues covers featured on Liberation, “My Baby Left Me” (Big Boy Crudup, Elvis, CCR, and others) and “Dust My Broom” (Robert Johnson, Elmore James). Her voice sounding deep and strong and her band more than up to the task of taking these classic songs and performing them with contemporary flair. The opening salvo saw her dip into 2017’s The Storm for “Let it Burn”, before returning to Liberation for her version of Big John Hamilton’s
“I Have No One”.
Ward seemed in great spirits throughout the night as she frequently introduced songs with a story of how it originated. Her 2024 hit “Mother” kicked off a run of original songs that saw her go back to her 2012 debut Til The Casket Drops along with newer tracks. The earlier tracks saw their arrangements stripped back to fit the more traditional blues vibe of the evening. These slightly different arrangements worked really well, with a song like “Charlie Ain’t Home” truly channeling the spirit of the Etta James song that inspired it.
As expected, ZZ Ward spent a lot of time with the fantastic Liberation, two more traditional covers found on that release, “Grinnin’ In Your Face” (Son House) and “Sinner’s Prayer” (Ray Charles) showcased the talent of her band, in addition to her incredible vocals. Coming out of those covers was another run of great originals, highlighted by a blistering “Lioness”. Ward told a lot of stories through the night, including how her and her husband (E. Kidd Bogart, son of Casablanca Records founder Nel Bogart) wrote the theme to Cars 3, “Ride”, originally recorded with Gary Clark, Jr.
Ward took time to explain how she grew up with the blues, singing with her father’s band from a young age. It was this early education that created her love for the blues and her evolution to the more traditional sounds on Liberation. The night came to an end with a pair of songs from her debut, “Criminal” and “Move Like U Stole It” that had the crowd dancing.
The Wolf Den is an interesting venue, it is open, in the middle of the casino, and all shows are free. When Ward’s set started, the crowd was fairly sparse, seats were filled but the open floor was bare. As she played, more and more people in the casino heard her and came in to see the show, filling the open floor. The blues is an ever-evolving genre, and artists like ZZ Ward excel in keeping the classic form while modernizing it for a contemporary audience.
