Sunny War is American folk-punk musician Sydney Lyndella Ward. Born in Nashville, she is currently based in LA. While clearly the product of a very young woman, War has the sob and throb of Billie Holiday — if Lady Day had emerged in Mississippi and not Harlem during the Depression. As if Bukka White, not Lester Young, were her mentor. Like Billie, War undersings. She doesn’t push the notes — the notes push her. “Her voice is like an open wound,” observes Moira Smiley of vocal group VOCO, “as if she has a physical need to sing.”