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Curtis Stigers, 'I Wonder Why'

Thirty years removed from the run of pop stardom he found with his 1991 hit "I Wonder Why," Curtis Stigers returns on Feb. 25 with a new album called This Life. The new record revisits some of those early songs from a new angle, and "I Wonder Why" gets a marvelous reworking here. It's a twentysomething's song, reinterpreted by a now-fiftysomething who lends it a new sense of maturity.

Stigers, who says he's "no longer trying to convince the world that he'd listened to a bunch of Ray Charles," is still in fine form vocally. The simple jazz-trio arrangement – complete with a Stigers sax solo – nods to his decades-long career as a jazz-centered performer. This Life could easily be described as a "Great American Songbook" album, so long as you're willing to extend that songwriting circle to include Nick Lowe, Emmylou Harris, Leonard Cohen and Stigers himself.

Copyright 2022 Jefferson Public Radio. To see more, visit Jefferson Public Radio.

Eric Teel
After a failed attempt at structured music instruction at Washington State University, Eric earned a broadcast journalism degree from WSU's renowned Edward R. Murrow College of Communication.