This month we are privileged to offer to our subscribers a true distillation of the sound of the southern American states. A southern rock ‘n’ roll masterpiece from 2012 which could as easily sit in the annuals of the heigh day of southern rock from the mid-70s, as easily as it does in the re-appropriation of analogue blues rock from the 2010s.
Alabama Shakes were formed in Athens, Alabama by the extremely talented Brittney Howard and her wrecking crew of musicians Heath Fogg (guitar), Zac Cockrell (bass), and Steve Johnson (Drums). Their debut album ‘Boys & Girls’ was recorded in 2009 in Nashville while still unsigned. As the band continued to tour they started to receive some buzz through the internet which led them to the attention of ATO Records (founded by Dave Matthews of Dave Matthews Band fame & Robert Coran Capshaw the Dave Matthews Band’s manager) who signed the band and then officially released their debut album in 2012.
The band members Howard and Fogg were bought together at school, later Cockrell was also found through school, and then after graduation at local jam sessions hosted by Howard drummer Steve Johnson came into the fold.
Heath Fogg’s guitar and the intense, bold emotional thrust of Brittany Howard’s voice are at the heart of their sound throughout, but, as ever with this kind of music, it’s that intangible bluesy groove that you’ve either got or you ain’t got, as exemplified by the slow, sweet roll of ‘Hold On’ and ‘Hang Loose’, the sassy sway of ‘Heartbreaker’, or the soulful smoulder-turned-lusty hysteria of ‘Be Mine’.
The album is largely confessional, but not in the singer/songwriter's sense, more in the way that it's filled with admissions that feel lighter sung than spoken. Album opener and lead single ‘Hold On’, and its central guitar riff running and consolidating like slow-poured honey, is the first of many tracks where it's not entirely clear if Howard is singing to, about, or as herself, God, or some boy as she rips through the chorus: "Yeah, you got to wait/ But I don't want to wait!".
Howard wonders on ‘Rise to the Sun’ "I feel so homesick/ Where is my home?" before the song slides into a coda of bashful guitar and smacking drums. On the darker, finger snapped ‘Goin' to the Party’ Howard sings about running around town, getting drunk, and taking care of some wasted boy; while she woozily coos, "gotta take me back now, I'm still somebody's daughter," sounding half-annoyed and half-comforted in that way that being young and restless and knowing there's someone waiting up for you does.
Essentially, it is a near-perfect blend of blues and rock ‘n’ roll of times both past and present. It’s an album you can listen to repeatedly, and still, somehow marvel at the familiar voice of Brittany Howard every time. ‘Boys & Girls’ is more than a debut album. It’s an introduction to a band you thought you knew for years, but are just fortunate enough to meet now.
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