New York Times hails upcoming Alabama Shakes album as 'soul stirring'

(Audio above: “Future People” off of the upcoming Alabama Shakes album, “Sound & Color”)

Grammy-nominated Alabama music group Alabama Shakes has a new album dropping next month, but those lucky enough to hear the rock band’s new music are already raving about it. Freelance writer Joe Rhodes earlier this week published a profile in the New York Times Magazine detailing the group’s rise to fame.

In the upstairs dressing room at the Georgia Theater in Athens, Ga., in January, Alabama Shakes was getting restless. The band was about to perform songs from its second album, “Sound & Color,” for the first time, and the room was full of distractions. Friends and relatives had driven over from Alabama: cousins and uncles, wives and girlfriends, crying babies and unrestrained toddlers. Sippy cups and spilled Cheerios were scattered everywhere.

Off to one side, Brittany Howard, the 26-year-old lead singer, stared into the middle distance, listening to the new tracks on her headphones, concentrating on the sections that had given her trouble in rehearsal. She got the last touch-ups on her makeup and hair, a sort of Mohawk-bouffant cropped close on the sides, her bouncy curls left free to run wild on the top, and slipped into her show boots: ankle-high burgundy suede.

Rhodes goes on to describe the antics of Howard’s youth in Athens, from burning down her treehouse, to learning how to play the drums, guitar, and bass while soaking in the music of artists ranging from Led Zepplin to Missy Elliot.

After meeting her other bandmates — Steve Johnson, Zac Cockrell, and Heath Fogg — the band began playing in local bars, surprising audiences with their rootsy sound and mis-matched stage presence.

Howard recalls how the crowd — those who were paying attention — eyed them skeptically as they plugged in, “Usually a band has a look of some sort, but we all looked different and strange, like we wouldn’t even know each other,” she said. Howard told me she was terrified at the prospect of singing for strangers, many of them not even interested, none of them with any idea of what they were about to see. But her fears soon subsided. “As soon as we started doing our thing, they were like, Holy [expletive], it doesn’t suck!’ she said.

Soon, the record companies agreed and came calling, looking to sign the group. Their first record introduced millions to the unique sound of the Alabama Shakes, and pre-sales of their second record are already through the roof, but Brittany Howard says it isn’t the fame and success that matters.

“I don’t care if we get another chart-topping hit,” she told me. “I suppose it would be nice for my family. I could buy my dad a truck.” But if she and the Shakes had to go back to being a barroom band in northern Alabama, she would be fine, she insisted. She would get a day job and write songs, just like before. “I’d write probably even better songs,” she said, “ ’cause then I could write about how I had everything and lost it.”

Check out the whole article over at the NYT Magazine, and listen to the first two singles from Sound & Color “Don’t Wanna Fight,” and “Gimme All Your Love” at the band’s website.