That voice! Full, husky, passionate, shining with hope even when singing about the pains of existence! She was the one we recognized above all when she led the southern rock band Alabama Shakes, which won four Grammy awards in the 2010s. Brittany Howard now expresses herself in a rainbow of musical genres ranging from soul to house, funk, rock and gospel.
After embarking on a solo adventure in 2019, the singer-songwriter did it again last February with What NowSix months later, the album is still in the running among the best of the 2024 vintage. The duty spoke with the musician before her concert scheduled for Saturday evening at the Osheaga festival.
We reach her at home in Nashville, where she’s taking a few days off before hitting the festival trail again. Brittany Howard will be back on stage at the venerable Newport Jazz Festival on Friday, “and I’m really excited about it, you know, I love jazz, but more importantly, I’m learning something from this music.” Jazz is one of the many ingredients that went into the making of the powerful What Nowwho we predict will shower her with Grammys again at the next ceremony in February 2025.
Hey, haven’t you already admitted in an interview that you’re an admirer of the composer? band leader and guru of Afro-futurism Sun Ra, whose 110th birthday was celebrated last Maye birthday? “Yeah!” says Brittany Howard, who also displays psychedelic colors in the music videos accompanying the excerpts from What Now.
“He is an influence because he allows someone like me to project ourselves into a futuristic context, in the sense that we can write our own story, our own history, and become heroes too. When I think of Sun Ra, I think of the power of our imagination, an imagination that takes many forms and culminates in this musical experience that he offered us. When I listen to Sun Ra, all sorts of images come to me that I attach to his music. I myself like to create music in this way, imagining it as the soundtrack to the images that come to my mind.”
I always feel a little joy, even in difficult times. I am grateful to be able to do this job, and even to be alive.
Received as the logical continuation of the first album I like (whose extract Stay High earned its author a first solo Grammy, that of the best rock song in 2021), What Now evokes the psychedelic soul of Erykah Badu — another apostle of Afro-futurism! — on the exquisite I do notprogressive soul on the bold Red Flagssoul-jazz on Samson… In short, we will have deduced that, after the rock in Alabama Shakes, soul serves as a link to the songs on this album in which, incidentally, each song flows into the next, suggesting a beautiful and long story.
In concert, “my musicians and I do what we can to recreate this impression of continuous music, to offer something like a ballad” through the musician’s moods. “We only take two or three breaks so that I can address the audience, but the idea is to try to create a single musical work,” to which she grafts a few excerpts from the album I like.
Two camps
And always with that voice that gives hope even when things are going badly. “Yeah, I always feel a little joy, even in difficult times,” she says. “I’m grateful to be able to do this job, and even to be alive. But I also observe around me. I comment on what I see, in my own way — and of course everything that happens at home, in the United States, makes me think. It’s the nature of artists to observe what’s happening. We’re all affected by events, here and elsewhere in the world. Everyone is a little worried these days, it shows.”
To the point of making a song about it? “The thing is, I’m not the most educated person when it comes to politics,” Brittany says. “But I definitely know, deep down, what’s right and what’s wrong. And when people ask me about it, my answer comes from that, from what I feel. I’m not a political scientist, I don’t know how politics works, but I know whether it’s right or wrong.”
Brittany Howard, in her role as an artist, a public figure with a showcase, feels she can’t remove herself from the conversation taking place in her home, just months before the presidential election. “I don’t think I have a choice in who to vote for—and it’s definitely not going to be Donald Trump!” she laughs. “The situation is terrible right now, and I want people to be able to live freely and have the opportunity to be happy. And I see that one side has drawn a line in the sand and said, ‘You have to live this way to be happy.’ Which is stupid, because that’s not how it works. So there’s definitely one side that’s going to get my vote, and it’s not going to be the one that’s taking away people’s freedoms.”
Brittany Howard will be in concert Saturday at 6:15 p.m. on the Green Stage at the Osheaga Festival.
I always feel a little joy, even in difficult times. I’m grateful to be able to do this job, and even to be alive. Brittany Howard »