Press
Lost Recordings of Homeless Street Singer Eddie Wakes Emerge from 15-Year Silence
LOS ANGELES, CA – Sometimes the most extraordinary voices come from the most unexpected places. In 2009, Eddie Wakes was singing for spare change on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade when music industry veteran Joe Regis stopped dead in his tracks. What he heard wasn’t just talent – it was time travel. A voice that belonged in smoky jazz clubs of the 1950s, channeling Nat King Cole and Sam Cooke, coming from a man with no home but the street.
Regis immediately brought Wakes into the studio with legendary producer Marvin Etzioni (Counting Crows, Toad the Wet Sprocket) and members of the Royal Crown Revue. Over three magical sessions, they captured lightning in a bottle – raw, unvarnished interpretations of the Great American Songbook that would make the original composers weep.
Then the music went silent. For fifteen years.
Life pulled everyone in different directions. Wakes found work as a security guard in Las Vegas. The tapes gathered dust in storage. The magic seemed lost to time.
Until 2023, when Regis couldn’t shake the memory of those sessions. He called Etzioni and engineer Larry Mah to resurrect the recordings. When Etzioni sent the mixed tracks to his friend Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios for feedback, something extraordinary happened. Magee didn’t just listen – he mastered the entire album overnight, sending it back with a note: “Love the album. Anything that resembles Nat King Cole gets my vote.
“The resulting album, Street Singer, Volume One, is now submitted for GRAMMY® consideration in the Best Historical Album category.
“These recordings capture something that doesn’t exist anymore,” says Regis. “A voice shaped by real struggle, interpreting timeless songs without any calculation – just pure heart.”
Academy Award-winning director Damien Chazelle, who independently discovered Wakes busking and featured him in La La Land, recalls: “I was spellbound. His voice stopped me cold on that promenade. Rich, delicate, effortlessly beautiful – you don’t hear voices like that anymore.
“From street corner to studio, through fifteen years of silence, Eddie Wakes’ voice has finally found its moment. It’s the kind of American story we tell ourselves still exists but rarely witness – until now.
“Street Singer, Volume One” Submitted for GRAMMY® Consideration
Eddie Wakes Grammy FYC Press Release
Lost 2009 Recordings by Homeless Street Singer Eddie Wakes Surface After 15 Years
“Street Singer, Volume One” Features Timeless Voice Captured at the Height of His Powers
LOS ANGELES, CA – After 15 years in storage, the remarkable recordings of Eddie Wakes – made when he was discovered singing while homeless on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade – have finally been released as “Street Singer, Volume One.” The album, mastered at Abbey Road Studios, is being submitted for Grammy consideration in the Best Historical Album category.
The recordings tell a distinctly American story. In 2009, record industry veteran Joe Regis encountered Wakes performing on the street with a voice that stopped passersby in their tracks. Regis brought Wakes into the studio with producer Marvin Etzioni and members of the Royal Crown Revue to record what would become this collection of American standards. Then life intervened. The sessions were shelved. Wakes took work as a security guard in Las Vegas. The tapes sat silent.
“These recordings capture something that doesn’t exist anymore – a true street singer interpreting the Great American Songbook without calculation or artifice,” said Regis. “Eddie’s voice carries the weight of lived experience.”
Academy Award-winning director Damien Chazelle, who also discovered Wakes busking on Third Street Promenade, called his voice “timeless,” adding: “I remember being spellbound the first time I heard Wakes sing. You don’t hear many voices like his today. Rich, delicate and effortlessly beautiful.” Their chance meeting led to a song placement in Chazelle’s Academy Award-winning film La La Land.
Critics have called Wakes’ story “a great American odyssey” – from street corners to studio, through a 15-year silence, to this moment of emergence.
“Street Singer, Volume One” is available now on Flatiron Recordings.
Contact: Ever Kipp ever@tinyhuman.com
