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Amy Black From Muscle Shoals to Memphis |
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Nashville based singer and songwriter Amy Black is a lot of things, but
there are some things that we should dispel immediately about what she
is not, just in case readers get the wrong idea from some of the titles
for her original songs from her new album
Memphis. Her song “It’s Hard
To Love An Angry Man,” is not about any men she knows, unless we want to
count the men she has encountered and observed at Home Depot (more about
that later) and it is definitely not about her main squeeze, her hubby,
whom she describes as her Zen master. The killer tune “The Blackest
Cloud,” in no way suggests that Amy Black suffers from a Chicken Little
syndrome either, far from it, as in the view of this writer she projects
as being a happy, positive individual and our conversation was often
punctuated with her laughter.
Memphis
is the fourth album that Amy Black has released and in some ways is a
continuation of the stylistic thread of her previous record,
The Muscle Shoals Sessions.
Talking about the evolution of her music Black says, “I think the shift
started with my second album,
This is Home that I recorded in Nashville and you can definitely
hear on the first three songs on that album a little bit more of a
soulful, Blues thing going on, before the rest of the album goes onto
singer / songwriter kind of Americana.
About the same time that I was recording the Nashville album I had this
day booked at Muscle Shoals and I was going to record this song called
“Alabama,” that I wrote for my grandfather who was from the Muscle
Shoals area I thought it would be cool to go to FAME (Studios) and
record that song. (Instead) we knocked it out in Nashville, so there was
no need to record it (at FAME). I also got sick after that recording, so
we had to reschedule FAME. By the time I went to FAME I had a totally
different mindset. I had already finsished the Nashville album and I
thought I am going to FAME for one day and Spooner Oldham is coming. We
booked Spooner to play organ.
I thought let’s do something totally different, so I started digging
around in the Muscle Shoals catalogue. I think the Muscle Shoals film
had come out at that time and I had seen that. That is where my family
is from and I was excited about what I had just learned. I thought let
me find some songs from Muscle Shoals that had been recorded back in the
day and that I felt I could do something with them, (as well) as
recording them with Spooner. I recorded a five song EP the first time at
Muscle Shoals and then I went on a national tour for my album. I really
enjoyed singing that music way more than I thought I was going to and so
I started doing a live show, a Muscle Shoals show. That went really well
and it developed a whole other side of me as a singer and that I didn’t
realize was there. I decided I wanted to go back and turn that EP into a
full length album. That’s
what I did in 2015. That’s how we got to the Muscle Shoals album.
At the time that I recorded the album I had been singing Muscle Shoals
music live for about a year and one-half or a year. I already had made a
lot of changes, as an artist and Muscle Shoals helped me to communicate
that through music. That put me on a new path that led me to
Memphis.”
What is it about the Memphis sound that appeals to Amy Black? Well for
the daughter of a minister, who had a band while attending Berklee
School of of Music that was called Amy Black and the Minor Prophets and
whose first bands upon graduation was called Sound Doctrine, her answer
might surprise you.
She says about the Memphis sound, ““I feel like it is like a good gut
punch (she laughs). It is gritty and not as smooth as some of the
soulful music that I listened to. For instance when you listen to Ann
Peebles (singing) “I Pity the Fool,”
she digs into that line “look
at the people,” I can’t even explain what it does to me.
It gets me. I feel so sucked in that my whole body becomes a part
of it. There is something about it that involves my whole person and I
feel it all the way down to my gut and my soul.
I am pretty innocent. I grew up a minister’s daughter and I wasn’t the
kind that ever broke too loose. I think I have it in me, but I think
that I have a ton of self control, which is for better or for worse.
Sometimes I wonder. Maybe that’s what it is, because I am so “good” and
I try to be. There is something about this music that releases another
side of me.”
The Memphis sound is front and center on the album that bears the city’s
name.
Black explains, “When I made the decision to go to Memphis and I decided
that was my next move, I very much had a mindset of place and the impact
of the place where you record music and the history of that place is
very meaningful to me. I think it has a real impact on the kind of music
that you make.
(In going) to
Memphis I remembered a guy that I had met five years ago in Nashville
when I was visiting and playing on the show called Music City Roots. He
had a Soul band with a bunch of older guys and his name was Scott Bomar
and the band was the Bo-Keys. I remembered talking to him and hanging
out with “Skip” Pitts who had been the the guitarist who had done the
wah-wah on “Shaft,” (Isaac Hayes) and hanging out with him (Bomar) in
the green room. I hung out with one of Otis Redding’s players who had
survived the crash. I thought back to that and I wanted to get in touch
with Scott, because I knew he was connected with the Memphis music scene
and with some of those guys and who used to play on some of this music
that I loved so much.
With thunder booming in the background, somewhat appropriate, while
discussing an album that boasts a great song, like
“The Blackest Cloud,” Amy Black talks about the
musicians that appear on the
Memphis album.
“I got in touch with Scott and I started talking about the project. I
went down to Memphis and I met with him there. I talked about some of
the guys that I wanted to have on the project. They happened to be guys
that were in the Bo-Keys and the Hi Rhythm guys. Pretty quickly we
determined that we were going to go after having those guys on the
project. That was Howard
Grimes on drums, Rev. Charles Hodges on keys and Leroy “Flick” Hodges on
bass.
When we were
talking about filling in the rest of the band we definitely pulled from
some of the younger Next Gen guys. I thought it would be really cool to
get a guitar player who had played for Stax or one of the other record
labels, so Bobby Manuel who played for Stax for years was still around
Memphis and we reached out to him. He was able to join us. He has seven
stents in his heart, so life has been tough, but he was able to come in.
He came up to me after the recording and he said Amy thank you so much
for having me on this project, you made me feel like a kid again. That
was encouraging and he sounds great on the songs that he is on. He just
nailed it.
It was through working with Scott that I was able to get those guys and
build relationships with them. Since I have released the album I have
gone back to Memphis and done a show. Charles and Leroy played with me
live in Memphis, which was great,” she says.
The conversation drifts back to talking about Scott Bomar, “Scott has
the Memphis sound that I was looking for, the classic Memphis sound that
is so dialed in and that is both because of the type of music that he is
making with the Bo-Keys and these are his guys that he makes music with.
Without Scott I wouldn’t have gotten the Hi Rhythm guys. I was
really familiar with Scott’s music and what he had done with the Bo-Keys
and I was looking for a similar sound. When you record at his studio,
because he has done all of his records there he really knows how to get
the sound that he wants out of that room and his players are used to
playing in that room.
Having Scott really made it for me. I am not saying somebody else
couldn’t have done a great job, but I just knew that I liked what he was
able to do and that is what he delivered on.”
The songs “Reach Out and Help Somebody” and “Nineteen,” both feature
strings and Black says, “They were from the Memphis Symphony. There were
five of them. It was an overdub, so I came back from Nashville to
Memphis, just to be there for strings, because I didn’t want to miss
that. It was beautiful, a cello player, three violins and one viola. It
was stunning and beautiful. I just felt really happy to be able to have
strings on my album.”
Marc Franklin did both the strings and horns arrangements for the album.
The conversation segues back to the collection of songs on
Memphis and Black’s original
song “What Makes a Man,” one she has described as being a tribute to
singer Anne Peebles.
“I discovered Ann through this process of digging into everything that I
could find and all of the Memphis music that I could get my hands on
when I was writing for the project and trying to figure out what I
wanted to do for covers.
Also, I do a live review show and so I was trying to figure out what
songs I could do justice to in that. I knew Ann Peebles from “I Can’t
Stand the Rain,” and a lot of people know that song. I have known it for
a long time, but I really didn’t know much of her other work. With
digging through her albums and her other work it really got to me.
I think she is
amazing and I think she is one of the best singers out there. I like
what she offers and what she brings to the table. She has some ballads
that are beautiful and stunning, vulnerable and really touching, but man
when she wants to come after you (she laughs) in a song that is where
the gut punch piece comes in for me. She’s fierece. I just love that
about her. It’s very different to me. Of course I grew up listening to
Aretha (Franklin) and other Soul singers, but I think Ann has something
very unique that she offers and you have the Hi Rhythm guys behind her
doing what they do. That’s just an infectious kind of groove. I don’t
want to be repetitive, but I think it is a groove that just marches
forward. It is consistent and you get to lock into it.
When I wrote
“What Makes a Man,” with my friend Karen Leipziger here in
Nashville we were listening to Ann Peebles before we wrote the song. We
were thinking of her, the feel and the groove of “I Pity the Fool.” That
was the song we had in our heads. When I took it to the studio and I
talked to the guys about what I was trying to accomplish I just said to
them, this is my Ann Peebles song and that is all they needed to hear (she
laughs). They locked right in,” she says.
There is a nice call and response on the chorus for “What Makes a Man?”
Home Depot will never seem the same to you again after listening to Amy
Black’s song “It’s Hard to Love An Angry Man,” and she tells us why.
“I have no idea
where the inspiration came from (you can hear her smile), it just came.
I joke at my live shows that I started this song in a Home Depot parking
lot and my only thought about that is there are a lot of angry men at
Home Depot (she laughs), who thought drywall was a good idea (she is
still laughing). It is kind of funny that is where I wrote it and I hate
Home Depot. I was in a parking lot at Home Depot and I just started
writing it on the road and in the parking lot and I got back later that
night and I took a bath and I started singing some more in the bath.
Then I forgot about it. I forgot that I had written this song. I
recorded it on my iPhone, which is what I do when I write and I brought
Scott all the originals for the album.
He rejected a few that I thought were good and there is one that I stand
by until this day, but I was that’s fine. I had to go back to the
drawing board and see if I could pull out another original and I
listened to songs on my iPhone. I had totally forgotten about this song.
I love this song. I got together with a friend of mine and who is better
on guitar than I am and we worked it out. It is pretty dark, but I like
it (she laughs).
For me a song takes on a storyline and I become the character in the
song. I have always been like that since I have been writing. Once I
grab onto an idea then I just lock into it and I become that person, as
I sing in the first person about the story. For me this started with
“It’s Hard To Love An Angry Man,” and I don’t know
why I thought about that, but I did. My husband is not an angry guy, but
I have known angry men. I have worked for CEOs in my past life and I
have been around them (light laughter) and they’re not fun. I imagine it
would be really hard to love one. I think it ended up being a song about
someone being caught and just being empowered enough to make the choice
that they need to make, like I refuse to be treated this way and I don’t
want to live on a rollercoaster ride. I’m outta’ here.
The song ends with them being pulled back into the whole thing
all over again. I think that happens a lot and I have seen it. I get it,
but I think that is just the reality of some people’s lives. I channeled
that when I wrote the song,” she explains.
While she was growing up Amy Black spent time in Huntsville and
Birmingham, Alabama, as well as thirteen years in Missouri, so it seemed
natural to ask if that southern groove or vibe comes easily to her.
“It does and I have no idea why. It definitely does. It took me a while
to get here, but I had to do some things that I wasn’t planning on doing
that were organic and then just started opening up some doors for me. I
don’t mean doors in the industry, I just mean musically. Now that I am
here (in Nashville), it feels incredibly natural. I feel like I am right
where I should be,” she says.
As for the
original song, “The Blackest Cloud,” which really showcases Black’s
ability to capture that mix of Memphis Soul and R&B, she says, “I went
to Memphis last September when this was all starting. When I decide to
do something I move very quickly and I went to Memphis in September and
I rented an Airbnb for a week. I really haven’t spent much time in
Memphis, but from Nashville I am only three and one-half hours, but I
have only lived here for two years, so it’s not like I had a ton of
access. I started going out and I
toured the studios (in Memphis) and the different ones that I was
thinking of working with. I went out for music every night and ate good
food and I was writing.
Every morning I would get up, make a cup of coffee, get back into bed
and just write. “The Blackest Cloud,” was one of the first songs that I
wrote when I was there. What was interesting about the song is it
started with the horn line (she
then vocalizes the horn line). I had that horn line running and then
I wrote a chorus. I wrote the verses. That was cool for me, because it
was the first time that I came into a studio and said here is the guitar
and horn line for this. This is what I want.
I remember hearing Otis Redding and I think it was in the Stax
documentary (that I heard that) Otis would usually have what he wanted
the horns to play already worked out. He would be like hey this is what
I want to do. I don’t mean that in any way that I am comparing myself to
him, but I think it was cool and it inspired me to realize I can
contribute more than just the
lyrics and the melody and communicating the feel that I want, I
can have an impact on some important lines that the instruments are
playing.”
That provides us with a nice segue to Amy Black’s cover of the Otis
Redding song, “If I Could Reach Out (And Help Somebody).”
“I love it. Scott sent it to me and I had never heard it before.
He sent to me the original
version that Otis had recorded and I listened to it one time and I was
yes, I want to do this song. It communicates how I feel and my religion
if you will. I do believe that life is better when you look outside of
yourself and you look for opportunities to give to other people. It is
better to give than to receive. It is very easy to be selfish and
self-focused and when I first moved to Nashville I was pretty down. I
was living outside of the city and I wasn’t really connected with what I
considered to be my kind of people. I had moved from a creative little
part of Boston and I was feeling very lonely, alone and isolated. I made
a decision to start coming into Nashville, which at the time was fifteen
minutes away when I was in the suburbs and I volunteered for this
organization that I learned about when I was in Boston called Thistle
Farms. They help women to be rehabilitated who have been in the sex
trade. They make great products. It is a really cool organization. I
started coming in a couple of times each week and working in shipping
with the ladies who are graduates of this program. It did so much for my
soul and it lifted me out of so much of the funk that I was in. I live
in East Nashville now, which is my kind of place, but that was just a
really hard time for me.
I think when Scott sent that song it really resonated with me, because I
had such a specific experience seeing the difference that made and
getting out, focusing on other people and serving them versus nursing my
sadness. It gave me perspective and I think it works for everybody. It
is the way to live.
Audiences are very responsive to this song in most places. I have been
to a couple of places where it was come on people do you believe in this
or not? Most of the venues that I played this summer and I just did a
twenty-seven date tour (the people) were exuberant after that song was
over. I get everybody clapping and then at the end when the song is over
we are all clapping for the song. They are clapping for me, but I think
they are (also) clapping for the song and I am clapping for the song. It
is a really nice moment. I usually go from that right into the Staples
Singers’ “Feels Good.”
Two things happen with the cover of Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “Further On Up
The Road,” first the listener gets another taste of just how good Amy
Black’s vocals are and secondly she shows that when needed she can
inject a growl into her voice. The guitars are excellent, but the horns
are what drive this song.
I listened to everything I could find of Bobby’s and I am absolutely in
love now with Bobby. I somehow had missed him and what a great
discovery. I think that I heard “Goin’ Down Slow,” a couple of years ago
and I was who is this guy? I listened to everything I could find and I
felt like I could do something with that song. His recording was pretty
old and I wanted to do that one over again. I wanted to hear the horns a
little more clearly, because it is such a good horn song. It is a killer
horn song and I felt that we could do it justice. I don’t want to do
something over again if I don’t feel that I can bring something new to
it or make it worthwhile to do and I just felt like I could (with this
song).
That was the hardest song for me to sing in the studio. I thought it was
going to be easy, but it wasn’t. It is a mix vocally, you don’t just
power it. You really have to have this balance. I had to sing it through
a few times, to really find my place. We
ended up adding piano to it, which we didn’t have originally. I was able
to lock in with the piano and then make it more my own at that point. I
want to be me and bring what I can new to it, but with absolute respect
for the people who went before me and who made it what it is. I am not
trying to compete with them at all,” she says.
Amy Black has come a long way from the first band of her own that she
fronted, Amy Black and the Red Clay Rascals. Her album
Memphis is well worth you
shelling out for and telling your friends about it too. If you do not
live in Memphis and cannot afford the time or the money to go there
right now, this record brings the sounds of Memphis to you.
You can catch Amy Black at Americanafest in Nashville on September 15th
when she is performing as a showcase artist. She will be performing with
an eight piece band. On November 1st she will be appearing on Music City
Roots, which is broadcast nationally from Nashville.
She also has her designs on
performing in Europe and Australia.
Please visit the
website for Amy Black
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