Tag: soul music

The Producers: Scott Bomar

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Specializing in gritty, stomping R&B jams reminiscent of Stax and Hi Records, Scott Bomar has become synonymous with the revitalized Memphis sound — the guy you call if you want to sound like 1967 by way of 2017. For him, the sweet soul music that put the Bluff City on the map is a kind of American roots music, as traditional and as important as folk or bluegrass.

He’s been a local fixture for two decades now, first in a raft of local bands, including surf-rock greats Impala, and later working with local film director Craig Brewer on Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan. He played bass for such local legends as Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd, and William Bell. Eventually, he opened his own studio, Electraphonic Recording, in downtown Memphis, where he has recorded records with the Bo-Keys (featuring Stax alumni), the City Champs, and Cyndi Lauper. More recently, he co-helmed the new album by Hi Records songwriter Don Bryant, most famous for “I Can’t Stand the Rain,” a 1973 hit for his wife Ann Peebles.

An expert on local music, he’s not beholden to Memphis history or any soul revival trend. “I’m definitely not interested in re-creating the past,” he says. “I’m influenced by it, but I’m not looking to completely replicate something. I like doing new songs.”

How did you get into producing?

I’ve always lived in Memphis. I’m a lifelong Memphian. There’s just music everywhere here. You can’t go anywhere and not hear music — whether it’s blues, soul, rockabilly, country, gospel, jazz. It’s everywhere. When I was really young, I would hear songs on AM radio. This would have been the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, and there was a country station called WMC 79 that would play the latest country songs with some Sun Records and ‘50s hits mixed in. There was something about that Sun stuff. I didn’t know it was made in Memphis, at the time, but when I would hear Elvis or Jerry Lee or Charlie Rich, that music just jumped out of the speakers. The same goes for stuff like “Soul Finger” by the Bar-Kays and “Knock on Wood” by Eddie Floyd and “Green Onions” by Booker T & the MGs.

I asked my mother and she knew a little bit about Stax Records, and she would tell me, “Oh yeah, that was recorded here.” My dad was a little older. He grew up in the rockabilly era, so he knew about the Sun stuff. It connected the dots in music and, when I as in high school, friends of mine would go down to Mississippi to Junior Kimbrough’s juke joint. I started going to blues festivals and was exposed to all the North Mississippi stuff like R.L. Burnside and Frank Frost & the Jelly Roll Kings. Albert King was still playing back then. I started playing in bands and we would be recording in these studios where I would encounter the ghosts of this past Memphis musical history. I started meeting people and connecting more dots and getting really passionate about local music. There would be certain artists and I would think, “Why has no one made a record with this artist? Why hasn’t anybody brought this artist to Memphis to do a show?” I was producing live concerts — not on a big scale, but on a smaller scale — and that led to me producing records.

Does that give you a chance to work at studios around town?

I’ve had the good fortune to get to work with some really great producers and engineers in Memphis. I worked over at Royal with Willie Mitchell. I did some records at Sam Phillips Studio with Roland Janes. One of the first places I ever worked was Easley Recording with Doug Easley. I just picked up a little bit from everybody. I’ve never worked at Sun, but I’ve recorded there. I’ve done a lot of work over at Ardent over the years. I’ve worked at all of them in one way or another, and I still work at all of them, even though I have my own studio. I still do like to do things at other places. I work everywhere.

Tell me about the Don Bryant record. He seems like such an interesting story: someone who had a lot of success in the ‘70s, then took nearly four decades to really establish himself as a solo artist.

Don was a little nervous about it. There are a lot of artists who’ve spent decades on the road singing in smoky clubs, and they’ve blown their voices. But Don hasn’t. He hasn’t lost anything. He sang in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but after that, he was primarily doing songwriting and singing in church, so his voice is very well-preserved. But he was a little nervous about making a record. I was like, “Man, you just don’t realize how great you sound.” After we recorded the first song for the record, we played it back for him and he was, “Okay, I’m good. I got this.”

Bruce Watson from Fat Possum and I produced that record together. I’m a big fan of the records he did with R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and T Model Ford. Those records were big influences on me. He definitely pushed the project and the aesthetic in some directions that maybe I wouldn’t have gone down myself, but it was always comfortable. It was great having another set of ears on that project, which is similar to other records I’ve done, like the Bo-Keys, but those are usually just me doing all of the production. It was nice to have someone else to bounce things off of.

So you’re the sole producer on most of your projects.

That’s true. And, quite often, I’m not even working with a label. Usually, the artist has done a crowd-funding thing or the artist has their own label, so there’s not that third party with an investment and an opinion. I know a lot of people — and probably a lot of producers — complain about labels, but my experience, for the most part, is that it’s helpful having an outside voice to keep everybody focused. When everybody’s on the same page, it’s a beautiful thing.

If you look at the golden era of record-making, one of the things that made it so great was how collaborative the process was and how many people were involved. You had a team of people: songwriters, arrangers, producers, A&R people. For my records, I like to have a team of people. Mark Franklin has been a constant collaborator. He plays trumpet in the Bo-Keys, but he’s also a great arranger. He does a lot of the arranging work on the records that I do. I tend to use a lot of the same musicians, although it varies a little bit from project to project. We’ve all worked together enough that we know each other really well and get some good work done.

What does the process look like on the front end? What kinds of conversations are you having with artists before you even get into the studio?

The first thing is, I listen to the kinds of records the artist really wants to make. That’s the first conversation, the artist telling me, “This is where I am in my career. This is what my last record was, and now I want to make a record that does this and sounds like this.” I listen to what their goals are and, if there’s a label involved, I talk to them and see what they’re looking for. And then I’m listening to the material the artist already has — the songs they have written so far. Maybe they have all their songs together, but sometimes they’re not 100 percent there with some of them. So I’ll bring in some other songwriters, if that’s needed. But most of the early stages are about figuring out what the record’s going to sound like.

How does that inform the sessions?

I like the artist to be as comfortable as possible. That’s always my goal. I don’t know that all producers agree with me there. I think some producers try to make the artist uncomfortable and think they’ll get something different or new. But I like the artist to be comfortable, so when they come in the studio, they’re not distracted by anything. The only thing on their mind is making the record. There’s no stress. The less you’re thinking about the outside world the better.

That’s the beauty of the recording studio: it’s the one place where time seems to stand still. It’s probably why I like it so much and why I spend so much time in the studio. I get lost in it, and it’s a whole other world to me when I’m in there. Most of the artists I work with, I think they feel that, too. Of course you don’t want to waste time, either. I’ve worked at a lot of different studios, but when people come to Electraphonic to record, they talk about how comfortable it feels. It’s not a fancy studio, but it’s got good energy.

You’re in a neighborhood in Memphis that has a lot of history, as well.

I’ve been down here nearly 10 years. It’s really changed. It was the same for a long time, but the past year, it’s changed more than ever. It’s getting a lot more developed, so now there are a million bars and restaurants that people can walk to from the studio, which is really nice. Before, I was on the far end of it. It was more of an industrial area. You could go up a little bit and be at Ernestine & Hazel’s or the Arcade, but where I am, it’s more industrial. Most of the businesses down here are open during the day, but when it’s closing time, it’s been kind of a ghost town. Not anymore. There’s a brewery next to the studio now. There’s a new bar across the street.

You obviously produce a lot of artists who come from Memphis, but you seem to work with some who come to Memphis wanting that Memphis sound, like Cyndi Lauper.

Well, I enjoy working with artists no matter where they’re from, but I’d say more than half of the work I do is with artists from outside Memphis. They’ll hear something I’ve done, get interested in that sound, and reach out to me. That’s always fun to do that because you get to see your town and its music through someone else’s eyes, which always gives you a fresh perspective. You’re kind of like a tour guide through this musical world. And the artists always leave happy.

Memphis Blues, the Cyndi Lauper record, was definitely one of the most memorable projects I’ve ever worked on and I believe I’ll ever work on. It’s pretty amazing all the guests we had on that record. We were making the record on my one-inch eight-track tape machine. My goal was to keep it on tape the entire time and not have to ever hit the computer. Another thing I remember when we were working out the details of that record, I said that, if you want to make a record with guests on it, they should come to us and perform live with you. It shouldn’t be one of these albums where you’re emailing session files and all over the world for people to paste their parts on. It would feel like it’s pasted on. Everyday it was another new and amazing artist coming in. Ann Peebles came in. Kenny Brown, who played guitar with R.L. Burnside, came in. It was magic hearing Allen Toussaint play piano in the studio. B.B. King was the only artist who didn’t come into the studio. I had to go to him to get the performance.

There were several Memphis records by established artists that came out around the same time, but Memphis Blues stood out because it really knew its history. It wasn’t just painted on.

We spent an extraordinary amount of time on pre-production for that record. I can’t remember how many songs were on that record — 10 or 12, I don’t remember. But she and I probably went through 75 to 100 songs. She spent a tremendous amount of time on research. She really put her time in and didn’t do anything halfway. We worked well because of that.

How is that process different when you’re working with somebody like the City Champs or the Bo-Keys?

It’s actually a very similar process. I go through a lot of material, and we collectively decide on the best material for the project, and then come up with a plan to execute the material. Maybe “execute” isn’t the right word. “Record” might be better, although some people might say I execute it. It’s all about coming up with the best approach and getting the best musicians for the material. That’s another big part of it, just listening to the songs and figuring out which guitar player or which keyboard player would be good.

I have the good fortune to work with some great horn players. I mentioned Mark Franklin earlier. On the Don Bryant record, it was Kirk Smothers along with Art Edmundson playing the saxophone, tenor or baritone depending on the song. They’re both in the Greg Allman Band and have played with Bobby Blue Bland. Kirk has played with everybody, you name it — Ike Turner, even Don Rickles. They’re great players, so you really have to go out of your way to mess up recording them. Typically, I’ll record the horns with one microphone. I know some engineers use multiple mics, but I learned how to record horns from Willie Mitchell and I still do it that way.

How important is gear to capturing that Memphis sound? Could you get that particular feel on a computer?

For me, it’s a big part of it. Over the years, I’ve studied the recordings I really like, how they were made and what kind of equipment they were using, what kind of mics and how they were doing reverb and all those things. And I’ve put together a collection of equipment that I think of as my paintbrushes — a palette of certain things that I know I can go to and get a certain sound out of. I work at a lot of other studios, but I know my own equipment so well. I have that one-inch eight-track that definitely has a particular sound. It’s the same model that Stax was using. Muscle Shoals Sound had one. FAME had one. American Studios had one. It’s the quintessential 1967 to 1970 tape machine, which is my favorite era of recorded music.

That format really forces you to work in a certain way. When you only have eight tracks, you have to arrange your song before you record it. You have to to know what you’re going to do before you do it. It changes the process a little bit, but I think that’s why the older records sound so good: They spent a long time working on the music. Along with the sound of the machine, those limitations are a big part of the records I’ve done.

You’ve worked with a good mix of artists, as well — veterans as well as new artists.

I like doing both. It’s funny: You would think that there would be a big difference between the two. But they’re really similar. The younger artists, they’ve never done this before, but they have a lot of passion and are ready to make their mark on the world. The artists who’ve had a career, they feel the same way. They’ve done good stuff in the past but are ready to show people they still have it. Wherever they are in their career, a good artist is always looking to prove a point.

Counsel of Elders: Lee Fields on Walking the Positive Line

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Singer and incontrovertible soul man Lee Fields can’t help but emanate positivity. It’s not the annoying kind, the sickeningly sweet — almost naïve — approach to life that willfully ignores the world’s more deleterious moments in order to pretend everything’s hunky dory. Fields’ positivity exhibits a greater degree of realism. It’s a choice to recognize the bad while finding ways to work against it. To lead, in other words, with love.

Music helps do much of that leading. Since putting out his first album in 1969, the North Carolinian has dedicated himself to writing and recording songs tasked with spreading a little light. Arriving last November, his latest album, Special Night, co-written and recorded with his band the Expressions, offers an array of feel good songs at a time when that very purpose has become as necessary as ever. But Fields doesn’t pen escapist fare. “I’m trying to say what people do,” he says. “I’m trying to write what people actually do.” On the titular track, Fields found inspiration in his 47-year marriage and, specifically, how he and his wife make time to appreciate one another, thereby making every night a special night. It could edge toward mawkish territory, but Fields isn’t being blasé about his relationship. It takes work and mindfulness and gratitude. With that underlying sentiment informing the lyrics, “Special Night” takes on an edifying note.

I’ve heard you talk about your intention to spread positivity with music, which seems like something we need now more than ever. But how do you stay positive?

Through prayer. I truly believe that my spiritual self is more important than my physical self because I think the spirit continues on and everything else is temporary. My spiritual beliefs keep me intact, keep me going.

It’s so easy to get bogged down in the daily grind and forget there could be something more beyond this existence.

And thinking that way keeps me grounded because, as they say in the Bible, “What good is a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” The spirit is the most important thing a person has.

On “Make the World,” you say people can improve the world by working together, but the country seems more divided than ever. What’s your take on how people can overcome that division?

If we love the spirit of God with all our heart and soul and mind, and if we love our neighbor as ourselves — in other words, do to people exactly how we would want to be treated — those two things right there. If we did that, we’d be promoting the product of love. When you have concerns about others, you’re not selfish. “Make the World” came to me in a dream. Actually, it was a nightmare dream. I dreamed I took a trip in the future. In the nightmare part, I saw so much pollution: The water, the air, the fish were dying and there was anarchy. The air was so polluted, it was like a fog. I woke up out of that nightmare gasping and then, when I realized it was a dream, I went back to sleep. In that dream, I was going down the same road that I went over before in the nightmare, but this time, it was green and pretty, the water was clear and pristine, people were getting along, helping each other, and everything was just absolutely beautiful. Matter of fact, I could’ve stayed there.

I don’t blame you. I would’ve wanted to, as well.

Yeah. [Laughs] When I did awake, it came to me that those two roads were what we could take. We could take the bad road with the pollution and the anarchy, or we could take the good road. We could do things to prevent that bad situation. With love, that can be achieved. If we love and care about mankind, we’ll find a way out to solve the problems.

But caring about mankind means first recognizing everyone as equal, and that has been a hard point to make across history. How do you encourage humanity and kindness when some people look down on those who are different?

Well, people who don’t see things the way I just described. They’re very materialistic. A person has to be materialistic to a certain point in reality, but being totally materialistic brings out the beast in us. You see a dog with a bone and another dog comes along and starts growling. It makes people hostile. We need to have faith in a higher power and we should encourage the young ones to be more humane. See, what it is, as long as we worry about ourselves — being selfish — that breeds hate. Everything that you feel gets taken away from you. You hate it. Love is the panacea, and we are born in a time where we can actually make the world better. We can do that.

There was a sign recently outside a Quebec church that read, “If you have more than you need, build a longer table not a bigger wall,” which speaks to your point. It strikes me that you’re doing more than spreading positivity through your music — you’re almost being prophetic.

Yes, it’s a bit. But that dream, I felt, came to me for a reason, so I put it in music and hopefully somebody hears it and can be a catalyst to make the world better. So I pray that that will be the consequence of the song, more so than even profits for me. I pray it will put people in more of a loving state of mind. I’m hoping, through music, that I can give some sort of relief. That’s the reason I write the songs I write, like “Special Night.” My wife and I have been together for 47 years…

Congratulations!

Oh, thank you. That song was based upon the way I see things between my wife and myself. Every night can be special. Everybody is changing as time unfolds; we’re changing physically and we’re changing mentally, and that’s because of what we learn. You’re not the same person you were five years ago because you know more than you knew five years ago. And you’re not the same person that you were five years ago because you’ve changed physically. But every night can be a special night of appreciating these changes of your better half. Every night is special because, although you’re with the same person, you’re with a better model of the person you first met because the person is growing.

That’s how you grow together instead of apart? Appreciation?

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about exactly. So that song came about trying to give that message. We have another song, “Coming Home,” and, you know, everybody works hard and some people have extremely demanding days and, matter of fact, I’m quite sure everybody has said at one time or another: “Oh man, the boss nearly worked me to death today.” So you get home to your soul mate and now you’re away from that place and you’re so glad to be home in the company of that person.

Okay, on that note, you say at the end of ‘Special Night” that, essentially, listeners should go find someone special if they’re lonely. But it seems harder than ever to make a special connection, especially with dating apps providing people with endless options. What’s your take on successfully enacting what you say at the end of the song? I guess I’m asking for dating advice.

[Laughs] I think, nowadays, when you meet someone of interest, I think you have to allow things to be natural. A lot of people today are so … it’s probably more difficult today because you have more people into the “me, me, me” thing. Show really genuine concern about that person that you may have interest in, but if that person is all about the “me me me” thing, then you got to count your losses.

Walk away, in other words.

“Let me move on.”

That is smart.

But I do believe that love is out there today, true genuine love, and I think a person should always keep that in mind. Stay positive.

I like that. Well, lastly, is there anything that still surprises you about your drive and ambition?

Well, my drive is still what it is because I enjoy when people tell me, “Oh, I really love this song” or “My wife and I met over your music.” Those stories like that. That is the icing on the cake; that makes me feel so wonderful to hear. In Spain, we had three people on one tour propose onstage.

Oh my goodness! You’re like a love ambassador.

Well, I don’t know, that kind of puts things up there, but it makes me feel good that my music is a positive thing.

I think it all comes back to appreciation. You’re spreading appreciation through your music and it comes back to you.

Oh, I never thought about it that way, but that was beautifully said.

Well, let’s end on that note then.

Photo credit: Sesse Lind

The Sound of the Shoals

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Attempts to codify the “Muscle Shoals sound,” which fueled a plethora of rhythm and blues hits in the ‘60s and ‘70s, often result in anthropomorphizing. Musicians, producers, and fans alike refer to its heart, its pulse, its gut, and, above all, its soul. Originating in the Shoals — a group of small towns located along the Tennessee River in northwest Alabama — it drew musical heavyweights like Aretha Franklin, Etta James, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. Now, the public can experience a slice of that musical history. The success of filmmaker Greg Camalier’s 2013 documentary, Muscle Shoals, prompted Beats Electronics and Google to put up nearly $1 million for the restoration of Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, the site of some of the region’s most legendary recordings. While the studio just reopened for tours on January 9, the Alabama Tourism Department has already named it the state’s top attraction for 2017.

Located at 3614 Jackson Highway in Sheffield, Alabama, the studio dates back to 1969, when the session musicians at a neighboring musical hallmark, FAME Studios, decided to open their own facility. Affectionately known as the Swampers, the Muscle Shoals rhythm section consisted of Jimmy Johnson on guitar, David Hood on bass, Barry Beckett on keyboards, and Roger Hawkins on drums. During their time at FAME Studios working with founder Rick Hall, they played on classic records ranging from Wilson Pickett’s popular cover of “Mustang Sally,” to Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You),” and Etta James’s rendition of “Come to Mama.” Their approach wasn’t anything like the arranged compositions played in the studios in New York. Instead, their process was reminiscent of a jam session: Once in the studio, they would noodle around on their instruments together and come up with an arrangement to go with the vocal. While Nashville had country music and Memphis had the blues, Muscle Shoals sat between the two, becoming a melting pot of Southern rock, R&B, and soul. And the Swampers, with their bass-heavy funk, helped catapult that sound. The result was a musical renaissance that crossed racial boundaries. During a time of extreme racial tension, some of the most iconic Black artists in music history would travel to the South to record with a white producer and a white band.

Four towns make up what is considered the Shoals: Florence, Sheffield, Tuscumbia, and Muscle Shoals, itself. With a combined population of around 71,000 according to the most recent census reports, this small, rural region was an unassuming hotbed for musical innovation. “It always seems to come out of the river, you know, even in Liverpool, you know, the Mersey sound and, of course, the Mississippi,” U2 frontman Bono says in the Muscle Shoals documentary. “And here you have the Tennessee River. It’s like the songs come out of the mud.”

The Shoals’ rich musical roots can be traced back to the water. The Yuchi Native American tribe first made note of the Tennessee River’s musical power, naming it “The River That Sings.” It was their belief that a woman in the river sang songs to protect them. Years later, the town of Florence became the birthplace of both WC Handy, known as the “Father of the Blues,” and Sam Phillips, the “Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Phillips went on to become the owner of Sun Studios and Sun Records, putting Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis on the map. Through Rick Hall’s production at FAME Studios, Muscle Shoals became the “Hit Recording Capital of the World,” with Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records sending his artists to the Shoals to record.

Once the Swampers struck out on their own with the help of a loan from Wexler, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio was a haven for popular artists who flocked from recording hubs like New York City and Los Angeles in search of the “Muscle Shoals sound.” Cher became the first artist to record at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, followed by the Rolling Stones, who recorded both “Wild Horses” and “Brown Sugar” from their 1971 album Sticky Fingers. Before long, the Swampers were cutting around 50 albums per year, with countless legendary artists. The shortlist includes Paul Simon, Boz Scaggs, Levon Helm, John Prine, Joan Baez, Cat Stevens, the Staple Singers, Willie Nelson, Santana, Leon Russell, Bob Dylan, and Bob Seger. (Yes, that’s the shortlist.)

Measuring about 75 feet by 25 feet, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio is located across from a cemetery and had once been a storage unit for headstones, grave slabs, and coffins. There’s something poetic about the fact that the very room that housed markers of death ended up becoming a space of remarkable rebirth. The Swampers closed the location in 1979, moving to 1000 Alabama Avenue. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was sold to the Muscle Shoals Music Foundation in 2013.

Judy Hood, the wife of Swampers bassist David Hood, is the chair of the Muscle Shoals Music Foundation, which still owns and operates the studio. The facility’s recent renovations aim to bring an authentic Muscle Shoals recording experience to tourists. Replete with vintage recording equipment in the production booth, original guitars, basses, organs, pianos, amps, and retro chairs and paint colors, the atmosphere stays true to how the studio looked in the early ‘70s. Studio tours start in the basement, also known as the “den of debauchery,” where musicians hung out during breaks from recording. Visitors will also be able to visit the bathroom where Keith Richards wrote “Wild Horses,” the couch where Steve Winwood took a nap, and the “listening porch” where the Rolling Stones took smoke breaks. But most importantly, visitors will have access to archives of music, bringing the “Muscle Shoals sound” front and center. More than anything, the “Muscle Shoals sound” is a feeling, and visitors can now walk on hallowed ground and experience that Muscle Shoals soul firsthand.

“What music built there is not something that you can see with your eye,” Bono explains at the end of the Muscle Shoals documentary. “In fact, if you look at the recording studios, they were humble shells. But what they contained was an empire that crossed race and creed and ethnicity. It was revolutionary.”

Photos courtesy of Music Shoals Music Foundation

The Producers: John Leventhal

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John Leventhal makes records that are almost impossible to categorize. Is Shawn Colvin’s 1989 debut Steady On folk or country? Is Rosanne Cash’s The River & the Thread country or blues? Are they roots or rock? Americana, perhaps? The man himself, a native New Yorker with a genial sense of humor and a geek-level knowledge of pop history, refers to his wheelhouse as “singer/songwriter,” but he says it in the off-hand way that lets you know it’s merely a placeholder: shorthand for a music much larger and more complicated than one simple term could ever convey.

Call it simply American, then. Nearly 30 years after his first producing gig — Steady On, which won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album — he works with musicians whose songs sprawl across many genres, alluding to various styles without settling into one in particular. In addition to Colvin and Cash, he’s worked with Michelle Branch, Kim Richey, Joan Osborne, Jim Lauderdale, Rodney Crowell, and Loudon Wainwright III, among others. He’s backed many more artists and co-written with even more than that. His fingerprints are on an impossible array of records; even if you don’t know the name, you’ve heard a Leventhal song before.

Fittingly, he defines the role of producer very loosely and admits it can change from one project to the next. He’d rather not sit idly in the control room fidgeting with the levels or supervising a small army of engineers and session players. Instead, he likes to dig in, get his hands dirty, and work as closely as possible with his collaborators, whether that means co-writing songs, choosing good covers, plucking out a bass line, banging a drumbeat, firing off a guitar lick, or laying down a bouzouki riff, if that’s what the song needs. From one moment to the next, he’s a sensitive sideman or a one-man band, Bacharach to your Hal David or Felice to your Boudleaux Bryant.

Perhaps his greatest gift as a producer, however, is that fanboyish excitement over every aspect of the music: his simple joy in the act of creation. That animates the music he makes with other artists, lending it a distinguishing liveliness, a sense of energy and urgency. All of those traits come to bear on Leventhal’s latest project, This Is Where I Live, the first album by Stax soul legend William Bell in 10 years, not to mention his first for Stax in more than four decades. Bell is most famous for penning hits like “You Don’t Miss Your Water” and “Born Under a Bad Sign,” both of which are American standards by now, and, at 76 years old, his voice retains all of it vigor and expressiveness.

It’s ostensibly a soul record, but for Leventhal, it’s something more — it’s a “singer/songwriter” record.

At what point in the process did you come in on William Bell’s album?

Right from the get-go. A year-and-a-half ago, I was doing a show in San Francisco and I was walking to a soundcheck. The phone rang and it was Joe McEwen, who works at Concord, which owns the Stax imprint. He asked if I would be interested in producing William Bell. Really, it was like a lightbulb went on and, within a few seconds, I not only knew I wanted to do it, but knew what it should be. If people even think about me at all, they know I do a lot more singer/songwriter stuff, but I actually grew up playing R&B and soul music. It was the first music I learned when I became a musician. It’s a huge part of my DNA. So I was really excited. I knew all about William. I love his voice and I love a lot of those old records. The only caveat I had was that I wanted to write the songs with him.

Why did you want to do that?

I want to say this in the right way so I don’t sound arrogant. I can’t explain it. I just knew I would be able to do it really well. I felt confident. I do a lot of collaborating and a lot of songwriting, and maybe that’s slightly unusual among producers of rootsy music. But I just felt immediately this intuitive sense that I knew the shape of the record. I knew immediately that it should have some substance to it and that it shouldn’t be a pastiche or a nostalgic rehashing of Stax and Muscle Shoals clichés. I knew it needed to honor that tradition, but move past it at the same time. I can’t explain why, but I just understood that intuitively. So that was how I approached it. I had to woo William a little bit. He’s a reserved guy. I don’t think he had done any real collaborating for a while.

It doesn’t seem like a soul revival album. It’s a bit more comfortable in that style, and it sounds like you put a lot of thought into that aspect of the record.

This kind of project can fail if it gets too enamored of the language and clichés of when the music was vibrant and on the radio — the early '60s through the mid '70s. When people fall in love with that language, they just rehash it and spit it out again. But it can never be as great as it was. So I’m not going to go in and make this the Stax cut or make this the Motown cut. You can hear when people do that. But, for me, it’s always a losing proposition. I trusted that enough of this language was in my DNA, and I know it’s in William’s DNA, so I knew we could honor what had already been done without getting bogged down in it.

But I want to say this the right way. I say this with a creative and loving attitude. I love the tradition of great soul music, but in some ways I’m completely uninterested in re-creating it. That’s not interesting to me, in the least. What it really boils down to is this: It’s just like doing any other record. I really want to write and produce great songs with meaningful vocals and some real feeling at their core. I want to listen to a song and really be moved by it. William was communicating some real feelings, some deep feelings. That voice is so glorious. Even though I love soul music and wanted to make a soul record, at the end of the day, for me, it just boils down to great songs, great vocals, and hopefully some thoughtful arranging and production.

What kinds of conversations did you have to prepare?

It’s hard to put into words. William is a reserved guy, and he didn’t know me from Adam. We had arranged for him to come up to New York and hang for a couple of days at the studio. I was already so inspired that I had come up with ideas for four or five songs … some lyrics mostly. William is 75, and he’s in amazing shape physically and vocally. But when you’re that age, you can’t sing what you sang about when you were 25. You’ve lived 50 more years. You want to pick the songs a more experienced man is going to sing. And William has got this beautiful, dignified reserve. He’s ultimately a ballad singer. He can get down with the best of them, but when you think of “You Don’t Miss Your Water” and “Everybody Loves a Winner,” those are two of the best soul ballads ever written. Those songs cast long shadows.

Short version is, my friend Marc Cohn and I had started this song “The Three of Me.” I had some music and we had a little bit of the lyric. I played it for William and he started singing it, too. So that was a good first song. We finished the lyrics, and he sang on the demo, which basically ended up being the final record. I was lucky enough to play everything.

It sounds like an extension of what you’ve done in the past — the singer/songwriter album as a soul album. Which is interesting because, when most people think of roots music, I feel like they think of country or folk. They don’t think of R&B or soul.

I am so with you on that, man. I really am. I love country music, and I love bluegrass, too, but so much of roots seems to come from those perspectives. I look at what I did with William to be exactly the same thing that I did on Rosanne’s last record, which won Americana awards. I see them coming, in many ways, from the same tradition. The language is slightly different, but I think you’re right. I hope William is embraced by the roots community, because this record sits right there.

You mentioned that R&B was the first music you learned and played professionally.

When I was growing up in New York, if you were going to make a living playing guitar and bass, it meant you were going to play in bars and clubs. If you were going to play in bars and clubs, it meant you were going to play music that people liked to dance to. And the music that people liked to dance to was R&B and soul music. Not exclusively, but that was what you had to play and you had to play it well. I’m very grateful for it.

One of the first gigs I got as a working musician was with this guy Billy Vera, who lives in L.A. now but grew up in the New York area. I was in his band, and we played for dancers. Billy pulled deeply from the soul and R&B tradition. I studied all the great drummers and bass players and guitar players. Cornell Dupree was the premiere R&B guitar player in New York, and I used to go hear him play all the time. My guitar ideas tend to be people like him and Curtis Mayfield and Reggie Young and Bobby Womack. I just inhaled all that stuff. My favorite bass players were James Jamerson and this guy Tommy Cogbill, who played on a lot of great Muscle Shoals records, including “Chain of Fools.” So working on William’s album felt like I was coming back to the beginning for myself. In some ways, soul music is closer to who I am than all this singer/songwriter stuff I’ve done up to now.

How did you transition from that role to producing?

My first successful collaboration as a songwriter and producer was Shawn Colvin’s first album, Steady On, in 1988. I produced and co-wrote most of that album, and it won a Grammy. That was the first thing I did. Up until then, I was a sideman and was starting to get slightly disgruntled. I wanted to do my own thing, whatever that might be. Luckily, I developed this collaboration with Shawn. The next thing I know, I’m a record producer.

It sounds like you play three roles: producer, songwriter, and sideman. Do you feel like a good producer needs to be able to multi-task?

The short answer is, I think it’s unbelievably valuable. But I also think you could probably be a successful small producer without knowing a whole lot about music or engineering. It’s an amorphous job description. It can go from someone who knows when to order the right bottle of wine, to someone who’s hands on and is essentially an engineer and arranger. I’m, at heart, an arranger and a musician. I love songwriting. I love playing. I love arranging great rhythm tracks. I just love all of it. In some ways, my perspective is, it’s my life. I love all of it. So, if I can do all of it, all the better.

In the beginning, I think I approached it in a slightly more traditional way, where I stayed in the control room and cut tracks. Over time, I learned how to be a recording engineer and started playing more instruments. For me, it’s great, but I can’t say if it’s right for other people, particularly current producers — because I’m probably not as up to date as I should be about what other people have been doing. People can make valid records even when they don’t know that much about music. But my heart tends to be drawn to people who are very musical, as well as very soulful and creative. To me, just being musical alone isn’t enough. You have to have a creative, soulful heart and a thrust toward originality. There are a lot of factors that go into making great music for me.

The role of the producer, especially in the roots world, is so nebulous that people can define it very differently. They can be hands-on or hands-off. They can play or they can find the right musicians to play. They can write songs or help others write songs.

For me, it’s really hands on. I think the hands-off approach has value to it, as well, and I should probably try it occasionally, but it’s just not as much fun for me. I get really excited. That’s the musician in me — the fanboy. On one hand, the producer part of me needs to retain a detached perspective on what’s happening in the studio, but the musician part of me gets really excited and wants to get in there and play bass. So it’s really hard for me to resist, and at the point it’s like, "Why even bother resisting?" It’s such a joyful thing, and I have to say this: Making this record with William was one of the most joyful things I’ve done in my life. Hopefully that comes through when you listen to it.

Like a lot of the albums you produced, This Is Where I Live was recorded at the place where you live. But it doesn’t sound like all of these records are coming from the same place or the same studio.

Some effort does go into not repeating the same old strategies. If you do this job long enough, you’ll start to develop some paths or strategies — certain ways to record instruments, certain ways to write a song, certain ways to arrange them — which will give you decent results but nothing new. That path will be too well worn. So I have definitely put some effort, spiritually and specifically, into not doing those familiar things all the time. I try to inject some element of mystery and surprise on all levels. I’m always looking for moments that end up having a little bit of surprise — an unexpected chord change, a surprise lyric, a mysterious piece in the arrangement. All that stuff is important to me, and I think it keeps the listener involved, as well.

How does that work for an artist that you’ve had a long-term collaboration with, like Shawn Colvin or Rosanne Cash?

You always needs a break, at a certain point, to recharge, but there are certain people I just click with. Shawn Colvin and I, we just get each other. She’s done plenty of records without me, but the records we’ve done have been pretty successful. Rosanne and I have a complicated deal since she’s my wife. Our collaboration is awesome now, but if I go back to the beginning, maybe it wasn’t quite as awesome. It took us a while to really find the best in each other. I’m always up for doing new stuff.

Rosanne’s most recent album, The River & the Thread, grew out of a road trip that you took together.

We had been looking at whatever her next record was going to be. I really wanted to write with her, and I kept thinking it would be great to do … I hate this word, but it would be great to do a "concept" record. What I really wanted was to find something to write about other than just the random collection of your next 12 songs. Not that there’s anything wrong with a random collection of your next 12 songs, particularly if they’re great songs. But I thought it could be amazingly powerful and fun to find something to hang it on, and we just happened to be taking a trip to Memphis and rural Arkansas to look at the house that her dad grew up in. It had been falling apart, and Arkansas State University was making plans to rehabilitate it. So, we decided to make a road trip of it.

We had a friend in Muscle Shoals, and I had always wanted to go there because so much great music has come out of that area. A few things happened on the trip that seemed incredible — like something you could write about — and we had this vague idea that we could write an album about these places and these people. We wrote two songs right away, one called “Etta’s Tune” and another called “A Feather’s Not a Bird.” One is bluesy and the other is country. I took those as the parameters of what we were gonna do, and we just ran with it. It was really fulfilling for both of us, and thankfully it seems to have connected with a lot of people.

I associate your records with a strong sense of place, especially that album, but also others like Rosanne’s Rules of Travel and the Wreckers’ Tennessee. Is that something that’s important to you?

It certainly was on [The River & the Thread]. You know what, I don’t think it’s ever come to the forefront in the way I think about myself or how I’m inspired, but I do think you’re right. Both Rosanne and I travel a lot. We do 50 shows a year. I love going to American towns and cities and trying to soak up some of the vibes on all levels, musically and spiritually, just to get a feel for places and people outside of my own New York experience. I think that’s inspiring. Shawn and I wrote a song called “Wichita Skyline,” and I remember thinking that, when we were kids, that tradition of writing songs about places and folding a compelling story into a place was a big part of some of the great songwriting when I was younger. I think it has a lot of power, but I think I carry with me this sense of being an outsider when I go to a new place and just hover. There’s a gulf between being somewhere and feeling like you belong there. What is the idea of home? What does that even mean? That’s a thing I always carry with me.

Especially since home is a place not only where you live but where you have your studio, where you create, where you turn those experiences into music.

There’s a song on William’s record along these lines. Part of my job as his producer and collaborator was to get a sense of him on the record. He has a slight reserve to him, and I wanted to inject … I didn’t really care about injecting a lot of Autobiography with a capital "A." But I thought it would be great to have elements of his story in some of his songs. We were in the studio one day, talking about how we knew all these musicians who, as they got older, maybe they grew up in Shreveport or New Orleans or wherever. At their heyday, they either went to L.A. or Nashville, but when they got older or the recording scene dried up or the vibrant part of their career ended, they ended up moving back home. That happens with a lot of people. And Williams said, "People just want to go home." Everybody wants to go home — metaphorically, spiritually, literally. So the last song on the record is us playing around with that idea. Everybody wants to go home. Everybody wants to have that place that feels like them, that centers them.

I heard that as a gospel song, where home is heaven. Everybody wants the comfort of salvation.

It’s definitely a gospel tune, and of course it could be read as heaven. The soul tradition is heavily indebted to the church. A lot of those feelings people can have toward Jesus, a lot of those feelings people can have toward their lover. The yearning is similar, I think. We all need it. We all want it. It’s why we write all these damn songs.

The Heart and Soul of Daptone Records

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A young girl asks her mother, "How can Santa Claus visit them, when they don’t have a chimney? How can he leave presents under the tree, when he can’t even get into their apartment?" These are common questions most parents hear around the holidays, but it resonates powerfully in Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings’ new Christmas chestnut, “Ain’t No Chimneys in the Projects.” “I said, ‘Mama, how can this be?” Jones sings in that outsized voice of hers, gift-wrapping every syllable for the listener as the horns flare and flash around her, the rhythm section grooves and the backup singers repeat her not-quite-rhetorical question. Somehow she conveys the innocence of the daughter pondering the rules of Christmas, as well as the affectionate concern of the mother who concocts a story about a magic chimney.

“Ain’t No Chimneys in the Projects” could easily have been cheesy and goofy, especially with its references to the projects and the ghetto — terms that sound antiquated in the context of a Christmas tune. Fortunately, the musicians play it straight, grooving hard to reinforce the powerful emotional resonance of the lyrics. It’s only when the little girl grows up and stops believing in Santa that she starts believing in something even more magical: It was her own mother who saved money throughout the year and put those presents under the tree. “Mama, now I know that you were the one!”

In addition to appearing on the new Oxford American Music Issue CD sampler, the song anchors It’s a Holiday Soul Party, the first holiday album from the venerable indie R&B label Daptone Records. It’s billed to Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, but it sounds like they invited the entire roster: Charles Bradley testifies mightily on “World of Love,” Saun & Starr harmonize beautifully on “Big Bulbs,” and seemingly the entire office staff sits in with the Dap-Kings. The album more than lives up to its party designation: With its lively energy and inventive interpretations of well-worn carols (This “White Christmas” is more Tina Turner than Bing Crosby.), it’s easily the best holiday album of the year.

“There’s some cute stuff on there and there’s some traditional stuff, as well,” says Neil Sugarman, who co-founded Daptone, produced the new record, and played saxophone on almost every song. “The nice thing is that there was no pressure. It was very impromptu. We just went in and jammed. And Sharon sings her ass off.”

The same, of course, could be said of nearly every Daptone release. Since it opened in 2001, the label has cornered the market on neotraditional soul music while also showing how loose that word “soul” can be. It obviously applies to the Stax- and Motown-derived R&B sung by Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley, and Saun & Starr. But it also includes the instrumental grooves of the El Michels Affair and the Sugarman 3, as well as the raw gospel of the Como Mamas and Naomi Shelton — even the cinematic funk of the Budos Band and Antibalas. Their records all sound like they could have been made in the 1960s or 1970s then excavated by extremely dedicated crate diggers at estate sales or junk stores. Yet, the music remains anchored in the 21st century and targeted to a contemporary audience.

It’s not a soul revival, precisely because no one at Daptone believes that soul needs to be revived. “People don’t say jazz music is retro or Latin music is retro,” says Sugarman. “But they do say soul music is retro.” It’s an odd popular prejudice, one that Daptone combats with music that consciously emphasizes the past while remaining doggedly engaged with the present. “It’s absolutely roots music,” he says, noting that it’s more urban than rural, more ghetto than holler. “We wear our influences on our sleeves, and there’s a lineage that we pay homage to every time we pull our instruments out of our cases. We try to groove as hard as the records that we love.”

When they formed Daptone nearly 15 years ago, Sugarman and Gabriel Roth tried to emulate the labels they loved, establishing a particular sound, a strong brand, and a loyal following that would take a chance on unknown artists. Charged with running a business, they both remained musicians first and foremost. Roth (sometimes known as Bosco Mann) plays bass, Sugarman blows the sax. “At this point in my life, I like having both. I like controlling the business and controlling my destiny as a recording artist. I love getting on the road with people like Sharon and Charles, and getting the kind of insight into their music that I couldn’t get if I was just sitting in the office answering emails and writing checks.”

For most of its life, Daptone only signed New York artists, many of them older and practicing their craft on the margins of the music industry. Charles Bradley was trained as a carpenter and had been hired to help Roth and Sugarman build a new studio, but he turned out to be an amazing singer whose live shows have galvanized audiences around the world. “He’s the guy we would call any time we needed help. We loved this guy so we wanted to work for this guy. We wanted to help him build a career.”

Similarly, Saundra “Saun” Williams and Starr Duncan Lowe originally came into the Daptone fold as back-up singers in the Dap-Kings, after having performed for decades as the Good 'N Plenty Girls. They quickly established themselves as a core part of the band’s sound — both in the studio and on the stage. “We always talked about making a record with them, but it takes a while to figure out who these people are,” says Sugarman, noting that it took them five years to plan, write, and record their debut, Take a Closer Look, released in May 2015. It was worth the wait, as the album reveals two spry singers with incredible chemistry, not to mention a band that adapted to complement their dynamic.

But the present is not what the past used to be. The market is changing, with newer labels like Colemine and 180 Proof crowding the scene, soul revivalists like Leon Bridges jumping straight to major labels, and consumers relying more and more on streams rather than outright purchases. “I’m not going to lie — it’s getting tricky,” Sugarman says. “Streaming services are taking a big chunk out of our revenue. When you look at the numbers, close to two million people per day click on a Daptone song. It’s exciting to see those numbers. The audience is there, but we’re not getting compensated. It could get to the point where it’s not sustainable as a business anymore, so you have to figure out how to keep putting records out.”

One way of surviving is to grow and expand, albeit very carefully and very gradually. In 2015, Daptone founded an imprint — Wick Records — to release 7-inch singles by New York garage rock bands, starting with a ferocious debut by the Mystery Lights. The label also signed a reggae band called the Frightnrs, whose first full-length is slated for release in 2016. Another upcoming release stands out even more: James Hunter’s Daptone debut, Hold On!, will hit stores (and, of course, streaming services) in Feburary. “He’s an English artist, so he’s the first artist we’ve signed who’s not from New York.”

Sugarman insists that the key to Daptone’s success has been — and will continue to be — its emphasis on community over market shares or compensation. “Not only do we need to like someone’s music, but they have to function within this family. That’s the way it has to be for the music to progress and stay honest. I don’t think we could have pulled off Daptone any other way.”

Photo courtesy of the artist

Squared Roots: Ruby Amanfu on the Simple Brilliance of Bill Withers

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To escape the wilds of West Virginia, a young Bill Withers joined the Navy, where he worked as an aircraft mechanic. After his service, he landed a job in an airplane parts factory, but soon realized he could get girls by singing, so he decided to give it a shot. He taught himself guitar, wrote some songs, and got a deal with Sussex Records. Fun fact: His first single — the Grammy-winning, platinum-selling “Ain't No Sunshine” — was inspired by the 1962 movie Days of Wine and Roses starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick.

Withers kept up that pace with a string of hits that included “Grandma's Hands,” “Lean on Me,” and “Use Me.” After three records on Sussex, he shifted over to Columbia in the mid-1970s, where he released a few more albums … and encountered a bit of resistance. The label execs, which he called “blaxperts” because they were trying to change his sound to sell more records, all but halted his career. Withers has commented that he found it hard to swallow that his label would put out a Mr. T record while preventing him from releasing anything.

Though he collaborated with other artists and issued one more LP, 1985's Watching You Watching Me, Withers pretty much walked away from music. Since then, he has noted, "What few songs I wrote during my brief career, there ain't a genre that somebody didn't record them in. I'm not a virtuoso, but I was able to write songs that people could identify with. I don't think I've done bad for a guy from Slab Fork, West Virginia."

Singer/songwriter Ruby Amanfu was born in Ghana, and moved with her family to Tennessee when she was three years old. Growing up in Nashville, Amanfu couldn't help but gravitate toward music, studying at Hume-Fogg Academic Magnet School before heading off to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music, and finishing up back home at Belmont University. Around the time that Amanfu had a dance hit in Europe (2001's “Sugah”), she also connected with Sam Brooker in Nashville, and the two began writing, recording, and performing acoustic soul as Sam & Ruby. A handful of years on the road landed them a deal with Rykodisc for their debut LP, The Here and the Now, in 2009, and a follow-up EP, Press On, in 2010.

Appearances on NBC's The Sing Off (Season 3) and Jack White's Blunderbuss — as well as collaborations with Brittney Howard, Wanda Jackson, Patti LaBelle, Ben Folds, Chris Thile, and others — eventually led to Amanfu's latest release, Standing Still. It's a collection of songs by Bob Dylan, Brandi Carlile, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Woody Guthrie, and the Heartless Bastards stunningly re-imagined and rendered in Amanfu's smoky soul voice.

Bill got a late start, but he came out of the gate with “Ain't No Sunshine” and followed that up with “Lean on Me” and “Use Me.” Even now, when he talks about those songs, he plays them way down … as if they hadn't made a mark on music at all. But we know better …

Yeah, yeah. In everything I've seen and heard from him, when he speaks or when people write word-for-word what he's spoken, he seems to be the epitome of humble. And it is so opposite of what most artists are. Most artists feel like, “Well, I need to be not humble because I have to act like I'm the greatest so that other people will believe I'm the greatest.” I'm just so fascinated by Bill Withers, and I adore him so much because he is so humble. And I think that's kind of the mode of operation that is more enticing, at least for me — in how I like music and how I receive music. If I have an artist who is like, “I'm the shit!” then I'm probably, just out of spite, be like, “Uh, nope. You're off my list.”

And yet you recorded a Kanye West tune.

Oh, I sure did. Guess what? That was a battle to the bank, honey. That was a battle to the bank. I had a couple of producers on this project and sometimes you gotta listen when people talk. There were obviously things I had to come around to, and I had to come around to that. What I heard in that song … when “Street Lights” was presented to me, I heard lyrics that I connected with. I heard a story, when I stripped away all of that production and I stripped away his voice, and I just received the words. I was like, “Oh, damn! That's actually legitimate.” He co-wrote that with a fella, Mr. Hudson, who is a brilliant writer and producer. I couldn't do a disservice to Mr. Hudson just because Mr. Kanye West was out there shootin' and salutin' and highfalutin! [Laughs]

[Laughs] That brings up an interesting point. To me, classic R&B like Bill Withers, you can feel the rhythm and you can hear the blues. That's not always the case in contemporary R&B. Sure, there's a slickness to the new stuff, but is there a more significant difference in the artistry between then and now?

Well, yeah, I'd say. With someone like Bill, I don't even know if he knew what slick was. And I think, now, I don't know why this happened, but part of me thinks that, as the world continued, as the years went by, as technology increased, I feel like people — artists and record labels and producers — I think they felt like they had to do more to keep fans' interest and attention. The attention spans, I do believe, have become less and less long. So I think there can be a bit of desperation where some of it is concerned.

I won't say it's all of it because I still listen heavily to R&B, currently. Sometimes you definitely hear production where you're like, “Man, slow your roll. Let's just hear the song.” But there's still a lot of classic-sounding singers out there who are still doing it. Even somebody like John Legend, when he just strips it away and it's him and the piano, he's a great example of somebody … you know that he gets that it's just about the openness and the vulnerability of the music. The attention span is shorter, so you gotta get hyped quickly. Obviously, I didn't do that on this record. [Laughs] I'm trusting that people will be able to take a breath and listen to this record from a completely open place. That's how I fit into this whole thing.

Right. Another difference is that, in the mid '70s, Bill released an album a year for five in a row. To be that prolific and, then, to just turn it off … because he kind of counts that as the end of his eight-year career. What does that take — because he wrote all his own stuff?

I know. I think he got fed up with the system which … [Laughs] is not hard to do. I got my first record deal — I was a baby — in 1999. Even then, the system was baffling. I did it as a means to an end … record deals and management deals and all of that. But it felt sickening on a number of occasions. I did it, but I can see how he, who is who he is unapologetically and is so homegrown and so grounded, that he was like, “You don't care about me. Why am I going to care about you?” This man who was … at first, he still kept his other job, even when he had a couple of hits. That's brilliant because he wasn't resting his laurels on that. Then, the labels were taking advantage of him. I heard once that he'd had a couple of hits and he was going to put out this album and his label said, “We don't hear a hit on that.”

Yeah, they wanted him to cover an Elvis tune.

Oh my gosh, that's right! “In the Ghetto.”

Yeah.

What did he say? Something like, “That's like asking to buy the bartender a drink.” Or something like that. And he was like, “I'm not going to go there.” It cracked me up. Because, exactly! They don't get it. They don't get you. That's the separation that has been cycling through the business.

I will say that I have seen a big difference here, in 2015, because everyone got hip to what was going on and got wiser, started to change the system to make it a little more genuine … at least for indie artists like myself choosing different paths that allow us to have creative rights again, and freedom. But Bill, at the time, was like, “No. That's not good enough for me.” And I respect that.

Well, when one of your A&R guys tells you, “I don't like your music or any black music, period” … you're not off to a great start.

No. No. And that's the thing … he knew it. He was like, “I'm gonna try this out and see what people are talking about.”

[Laughs] Or not.

Yeah. “That's what I thought you were talking about. Goodbye.” [Laughs] It's brilliant. And I'm like that, in a way. I don't think it was arrogance with Bill, and I'm not like that. But I definitely have convictions and sometimes people don't understand or relate to my convictions. But I still stand by my convictions. I have to. I think … I know for a fact, actually, that I have been inspired by Mr. Withers because of that. Because you can stand by your convictions and still do what you do, still be out there doing the music. I oftentimes say that, if I were ever to get to a point where I was surrounded by a team of people who didn't get that, then I would gladly, happily walk away and go put on my apron and start cooking in the kitchen. I would do that. But I'm really lucky right now. It's been a long time coming. This team around me totally gets me — what a concept — and supports me. We'll ride it out that way.

But there are no Withers' tunes on your new album. Are there deep cuts of Bill's that you love?

Well, “Grandma's Hands” I love so much. It's funny … the first version I heard of “Grandma's Hands” was … [Laughs] “No Diggity.”

Oh, yeah yeah yeah. [Laughs]

Sam [Brooker] and I had looked through a bunch of his songs to see what we could maybe do because I've always wanted to do a Bill Withers song. There were some on the short list for this record, too, but I had presented Sam with a song from Still Bill called “Who Is He (And What Is He to You)?” It's so simple, but that song is one for me.

Me'shell NdegeOcello did a pretty slamming version of that one.

She did. She nailed it. That's why I was like, “If Sam and Ruby are going to do it, it's going to be different.” But that's the thing … you bring up a good point … I find myself in that situation because there are some songs on this record that I'm like, “People I admire and respect have done slamming versions of these songs, but they mean so much to me and I believe in them so I'm going to go for it.” Not to do a copied version, but do something different. Obviously, when Brandi Carlile spoke up that she liked what I'd done [with “Shadow on the Wall”] … It was stressful. I was nerve-wracked to do that because I knew what she'd done with it.

But, anyway … the song “Hello Like Before” is amazing. “I Wish You Well” … but that's more of a hit than a deep cut. “Make Love to Your Mind” … that's a great one. That's the thing, just too many.

Photos by Shervin Lainez and Columbia Records