Dana Glover wrote the title track to her heartfelt debut, Testimony, while driving around -- she was inspired by the rhythm of her left-turn indicator. "Testimony! It's a nice word to sing," she says, laughing. "I was so happy to rhyme it with matrimony."

Glover is just your typical gospel-raised, saxophone-playing, ex-model soul singer. Born about thirty years ago (she dodges questions about her age), she spent much of her childhood in church in North Carolina; her mother played piano, and Mom's father was a Baptist preacher. At sixteen, Glover signed with the Ford modeling agency and moved to New York. "People want to think that the modeling didn't mean anything to me," she says. "But when I was doing it, I really did try." When she had finished striking poses, she switched to piano and began writing gospel-flavored ballads about love and loss. (Her most prominent credit is "It Is You I Have Loved All Along," from Shrek.) In 2000, she was signed to DreamWorks by Robbie Robertson. "To see women so moved by her musicality, that's really special," says Robertson. "I knew that men would be impressed with her."

GAVIN EDWARDS
(November 5, 2002)