Singing songs about the Southland

For all its 24-hour drive-through simplicity, America is a highly confusing place. And vast. In fact it is so confusingly vast that the region known as 'The South' only actually covers the bits at the bottom in the middle and on the right.

To the left of The South is, unsurprisingly, “the South-West”, and this includes states like Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. However, California, the most south-westerly state, is bafflingly not included as it is part of The West.

Florida is also in The South (even including the most southernmost point of the “contiguous” United States) and yet Floridians do not appear to consider themselves Southern in the same way their gun-owning, grits-eating, pick up-driving cousins do elsewhere below the Mason-Dixon Line. Probably because they're having too good a time at the beach.

In the midst of this puzzling geography is Alabama. A squat state just 250 miles long from top to the mere toe it dips into the Gulf of Mexico, it has borne the brunt of misconception about Dixieland, providing a shorthand symbol for clichés about dueling banjos, inbred policemen wearing mirrored sunglasses and dentally-challenged yokels threatening to induce porcine squealing.

What hasn't helped is Alabama's reputation for harbouring right-wing conservatism and the Klu-Klux Klan, but then again it has also been the powerful seat of the American civil rights movement. Still, given this history, it's no surprise that most tourists barreling along I-10 from California to Florida - and probably the only consistency in the southern states - will carry on through to the beaches and theme parks of "The Sunshine State" next door.

Compared with some of its neighboring states, Alabama lacks culturally iconic attractions, unless you are interested in Huntsville being "the rocket capital of the world" and built the rockets for Apollo 11,  that Montgomery - the state capital - was the birthplace of the Confederacy (and Nat King Cole), and that Hitler's typewriter is on display in the town of Bessemer.

Significantly more interesting is the contribution Alabama has made to The South's musical heritage. Muscle Shoals boasts one of the most famous recording studios in music history as well as being the birthplace of WC Handy, the "father of the blues", and Hank Williams - the pioneer of modern country music - was born in a small town on the outskirts of Birmingham. Alabama also featured in one of the most vitriolic exchanges of lyrical handbags between artists, with Lynyrd Skynyrd writing Sweet Home Alabama in response to Neil Young's Southern Man. The fact that two of the members of Skynyrd who wrote the song came from Florida and a third was Californian is neither here nor there. So, yes, southern, but not Southern.

Now, however, Alabama is being plonked loudly back on the musical map by a band who wears its Alabamian origins like a full-body Yakuza tattoo, and who have been described - by just about everyone - as the must-see band of the moment: Alabama Shakes.

With an unashamedly retro sound as sweaty as The South is muggy and mosquito-infested, the Shakes are comprised of the splendidly fruity vocals of former postwoman Brittany Howard and the rhythm section of bassist and co-founder Zac Cockrell, guitarist Heath Fogg and drummer Steve Johnson, a trio to match Cropper/Dunn/Jackson in their Memphis prime.

In a short space of time, the Alabama Shakes have built a reputation for stomping live performances of southern soul and blues-infused swamp rock, all of which provides the fabric of their wonderfully down-and-dirty debut album, Boys & Girls.

It's an album that could easily have been recorded in a single, 38-minute session, such is its no-nonsense feel. You'd be tempted to brand it 'lo-fi' until you realise just how ridiculous a description that is, given that back-in-the-day all albums were recorded without the embellishment of multi-tracking and ProTools, the musician's equivalent of CGI.

Such stripped-back authenticity is no affectation and, despite the obvious nods to Janice Joplin in Howard's throatsome singing or Creedence Clearwater Revival in Fogg's riffs (especially on Hang Loose), this is no pastiche, no parody, but a continuation of a musical style unencumbered by contemporary garnish.

Hold On, their debut single, represents this perfectly, building rhythmically with a swelling chug that emerged from an on-stage improvisation ("We threw out that riff," recalls Cockrell, "and Brittany started singing along, and the crowd started singing with her like it was a song they already knew.").

Like all good soul bands, the singer draws the focus of the song, and none more so with Brittany Howard than on I Found You and I Ain't The Same. If, however, you try and ignore the obvious aural resemblance to Joplin, you recognise greater similarities to Otis Redding, in phrasing and the topography of her pitch. You Ain't Alone, in particular, pays inadvertent tribute to Try A Little Tenderness, pulling in the intensity of Joe Cocker or even Led Zeppellin into the bargain. The track is, says Howard, "a slice of the real".

In their early days, the band covered Zeppellin live, so the site of Heartbreaker on the track listing of Boys & Girls did create some expectation, but this particular tale of romantic charlatanism is instead a gloriously rich stab of triple-time R'n'B which reaches its rasping denouement with a pounding organ to match the rancor of the reminiscence.

It would be wrong, however, to look upon Boys & Girls as a musical museum: Rise To The Sun could easily be the product of Alex Turner's southern American cousin, while there are numerous moments on the album which remind of another much-hailed debut flying the Confederate flag, Youth And Young Mahood, the Kings of Leon's 2003 entrance. The Fallowill clan created an enjoyably confounding blend of quirk and rooted tradition (and were also considered the critics' breakthrough darlings), which the Alabama Shakes replicate with On Your Way and the eerily short Goin' To The Party.

Of course, since 2003, the Kings of Leon have spectacularly risen, and spectacularly come to an abrupt halt. The Alabama Shakes will be conscious of not repeating the same trajectory, and that may require the  development of their repertoire and writing acumen. Boys & Girls is a tremendous debut and a relief to anyone worried that the prevalence of Simon Cowell and his oeuvre has in some way brought about the end of both live music and music built on the simplicity of a voice and three instruments. For the good of us all, the Shakes need to come back with a sophomore effort to reassure the casual listener that this is not a flirtation but a long-term relationship.




The Alabama Shakes blow the lid off Austin during SXSW 2012

Brilliant, bright, brief

What a depressing couple of days. A lone nutjob massacres almost 100 people in Norway and then surely one of music's most inevitable headlines: Amy Winehouse Found Dead. If there's one good thing out of all this, it's taken the name Murdoch off the front pages for the first time in a month.

No sooner had we begun to digest the true, psychopathic horror of Utoya and Oslo (ignore the chronological reversal - sadly, the later events of Friday eclipsed what took place earlier in the Norwegian capital), than a story broke that was probably written a long, long time ago.

No one - least me - will compare the horrendous waste of young life in Norway and North London equally. But despite the inevitability of Winehouse's death, it would be wholly wrong to look upon in it as another rock'n'roll triviality. As Billy Bragg pointed out, quite simply, "It's not age that Hendrix, [Brian] Jones, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain and Amy have in common, it's drug abuse, sadly." 

'Abuse' may be the right functional description, but addiction is a condition. It may be the result of experimentation, of recreational diversion, of boredom, of pressure to escape reality - whatever - but it is a disease. Alcohol, drugs, food - these addictions are born from the progressive dismissal of the sufferer that they have a problem. Some are lucky and can kick it before it kicks them. Some need intervention. Some may never be saved. 

If you've never suffered addiction it's easy to say addicts are victims of their own misfortune. It's also easy to say they shouldn't be regarded as victims at all, that it's their fault with society picking up the pieces. It's not.

Like all her peers in the infamous club of 27-year-old rock tragedies, Amy Winehouse was a talent of rare quality. Before her breakthrough Back To Black album emerged in 2006, she was earning a deserved reputation bridging the vintage jazz, soul and blues she so obviously evoked, and an urban-smart sensibility reflecting her Southgate stamping ground. 

The industry buzz was well justified. She couldn't be packaged. You couldn't simply describe her as a retro act. She was no ironic Mike Flowers Pops take on yesteryear, no Style Council homage. Hers was application of the best of Sarah Vaughan with a new and modern twist. But unlike Duffy and Adele who've followed, Winehouse wasn't a comfortable fit on daytime TV. I doubt if she would have known what daytime TV was.

What happened after her glorious arrival, why it happened and who it happened with is no longer important. It needs to be understood. It needs to be prevented from happening again. But as long as there are temptations and opportunities in the way of those susceptible to them, there will be tragedies. 

I know this blog has appeared to have a morbid obsession with dead rock stars in recent months. Please grant me comment on just one more: Amy Winehouse's passing may have admitted her to illustrious, if tragic, company. but in joining Jones, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain and Hendrix, she has given credence to Keith Richards' keen observation, mentioned on these pages not so long ago. The commonality between these people is not only tragedy or addiction, but that - whether through fate or design - their stars shone brilliantly, brightly and briefly. If your record collection only includes the handful of albums the so-called 'Forever 27' club made, you'd have a very decent record collection indeed.

Checking out early

For the return from absence of What Would David Bowie Do? (no note from matron, just been busy with other things), I'd like to draw your attention to death. Not an uplifting topic, nor particularly entertaining. In fact, death is quite serious.

If there is, though, one certainty in life, it is that some day we will all pop our clogs. Sorry if you had another expectation, but it clearly says in the instruction manual that we turn up, we schlep around for however many years the Great Life Lottery allocates us, and then that's it. Ta-ta.

When someone we know, or know of, dies, our response ranges from mortification and deep gloom, to mild acknowledgement and a token, and somewhat disposable, comment of condolence. For the family of the deceased, it's an understandable tragedy, even it provides welcome respite from the condition that preceded the terminal breath.  For everyone else, grief will only ever be an assumed state, the acquisition of a character, no matter how genuinely-intentioned it might be.

This morning I woke up to the sad news that Clarence Clemons, the iconic saxophonist in Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band had passed away at the age of 69 following a stroke. By spooky coincidence (and unaware that the big man had even been ill) I'd been playing the Born To Run 30th Anniversary box set only the night before, luxuriating in Clemons' sax solo on Jungleland and considering that after lead guitarist, there is only one other solo star in any band.

Clemons was more than just the cool horn player with his moment in the spotlight each time the middle eight came around; his sax, tied to the blatant Spector soundscapes, shaped the Springsteen sound, and made it and Springsteen himself, a musical representation of the size, scale and enormity of America.

It is sad: life is finite, we all know, but seeing anyone who has contributed - even a little - to the cultural enjoyment of my own life pass away while still active and still able to contribute more, saddens me. Is it a vacant emotion? Should I just get a grip?

Last October it was Solomon Burke, a performer who I'd come to appreciate late in my life and even later in his, but whom I realised - only through accessing his back catalogue - what a true musical pioneer he was.  Just last month I was confronted with the demise of another legend, Gil Scott-Heron, whose early albums like Pieces Of A Man exposed me - relatively young - to another side of jazz, funk and whatever it was you could call Heron's music. I felt compelled to express my sadness about his death, for the simple and self-indlugent reason that like so many others who have gone before they should - John Lennon, George Harrison, Nick Drake and my über-hero, John Martyn, to name just four - their music has had a profound influence on my listening enjoyment.

Keith Richards once famously remarked that some musicians aren't meant to live beyond 30 (or thereabouts): the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Marc Bolan, Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison all had some degree of misadventure to their expiration (though to be fair, Bolan's had more to do with his Mini losing an argument with a tree on Barnes Common). Were they just destined to go young? Should we feel any less grief for John Lee Hooker or Muddy Waters reaching their dotages and then pegging out, much like anyone else who isn't in the spotlight?

Not wishing to get over psychoanalytical about it, it boils down to association and impact. John Martyn's death affected me for days, and still does. I should get over it. One musician out of millions. Likewise the comedian and writer Spike Milligan. He was 83 when he went. "He'd had a good innings" trilled the frequently issued and thoroughly vacuous platitude. To me, it was tragic, because it removed someone who had played a part in my own development, the gradual genetic shape-shifting that is each of our lives. Milligan's sense of humour, channelled through tapes of The Goon Show my father blessed my family life with, influenced my sense of fun, appreciation of English wordplay and the absurd, and to this day, still brings amusement to the moribund downward escalator we call existence.

To see great people taken away from the world at any age is, sadly inevitable and inevitably sad. We should move on, celebrate all the other good things that are out there, of course. But those who make some impact on the lives of many and the lives of only a few - who might have only been responsible for something of just fleeting enjoyment - deserve whatever appreciation comes their way.