blues
The Blues Brothers are back — this time, in graphic novel form.
Dan Aykroyd’s family and the estate of the late Judy Belushi-Pisano have announced The Blues Brothers: The Escape of Joliet Jake, the first official Blues Brothers graphic novel. The project marks the first step in a broader plan to expand the Blues Brothers universe through new TV shows, films, live events and music.
The book is being written by Stella Aykroyd, Luke Pisano and James Werner, with illustrations by Brazilian artist Felipe Sobreiro. It is described as a “love letter and a sequel to the original Blues Brothers film.” Z2, the graphic novel publisher known for musical collaborations, will publish the title.
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Dan Aykroyd, who created the Blues Brothers alongside the late John Belushi, has editorial oversight and will provide a foreword.
“Elwood and Jake are precious to me. In fact, one of them is actually my dad,” said Stella Aykroyd, as told to Deadline. “I’ve helped him sharpie ‘ELWOOD’ onto his knuckles before Blues Brothers shows with ‘Brother Zee,’ I’ve walked behind him as he’s made his way through a sea of fans dressed as Elwood and Jake all over the world and I’ve been his co-pilot on the road, where he’s explained to me the proper way to T-bone a car.”
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The novel will also honor Judy Belushi-Pisano, who passed away in July 2024. She was instrumental in preserving and expanding the Blues Brothers legacy for more than 40 years. Luke Pisano and the creative team said the project draws on real-life experiences and stories from Judy, John and Dan.
Josh Bernstein, president of Z2, called the Blues Brothers “comedy, pop culture and musical royalty,” adding that fans can expect “the epic return of Jake and Elwood Blues.”
The Blues Brothers: The Escape of Joliet Jake will be available for pre-order through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and independent bookstores, comic shops and record stores.
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners – a Southern Gothic vampire-musical-period epic led by Michael B. Jordan – is an irrefutable juggernaut. With thousands of moviegoers clamoring for prized IMAX 70mm tickets and endless discourse across social media, Sinners is perhaps 2025’s first genuine cultural phenomenon – and the haunting Raphael Saadiq-penned “I Lied to You” sits at the center of it all.
Performed by breakout star Miles Caton in a pivotal – and instantly viral — scene tracing the history and legacy of Black music, “I Lied to You” is, at its core, and simple acoustic guitar-and-vocal track that effortlessly conjures the spirit of 1930s Delta blues. Already a leading contender for 2026’s best original song Oscar, “I Lied to You” marks the union of Saadiq, a Grammy-winning R&B maestro and founding member of Tony! Toni! Toné!, and two-time Oscar-winning composer and longtime Coogler and Childish Gambino collaborator Ludwig Göransson. Built around a refrain Saadiq, now 58, first came up with when he was around 19 years old, the song’s journey also mirrors the timelessness of blues songwriting.
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Saadiq — who’s no stranger to scoring films, having contributed music to everything from Soul Food and Baby Boy to Empire and Love & Basketball – could pick up his second career Oscar nod for “I Lied to You.” In 2018, he earned a best original song nomination alongside Mary J. Blige and Taura Stinson for Mudbound’s “Might River,” bringing him one step closer to an EGOT. In addition to a 2021 Emmy nod, Saadiq has collected three Grammys, including a recent win for album of the year thanks to his work on Beyoncé’s culture-quaking Cowboy Carter LP, the latest addition to a catalog that champions the breadth and depth of Black music.
“We’re the ones chosen to raise the bar – and the bar has been pretty low in a lot of different areas,” he tells Billboard of artists like himself, Beyoncé and Coogler. “Some choose to not let the bar be that low, and that’s what happened. When somebody calls your name, you go to be ready.”
For an artist and musicologist like Saadiq, all of that hardware pales in comparison to connecting with the fans who have sustained his nearly four-decade career. At the top of the year, he launched an exclusive vinyl club for fans to peruse his legendary vault, access exclusive artwork, and enjoy quarterly releases of old and new work. On May 31, the esteemed multihyphenate will launch his No Bandwidth one-man show at New York’s iconic Apollo Theater, his first totally solo trek.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Billboard, Raphael Saadiq talks working on Sinners and Cowboy Carter, drawing inspiration from Mike Tyson, and where he hears the blues today.
When did Ryan Coogler first approach you to contribute a song to the film?
I think maybe a week before he went to shoot it in New Orleans [in April 2024]. He reached out to me and gave me the full scope of what the movie was about. He told me that his uncle was a blues guy and explained how the church had a problem with blues players. There was a separation. But it wasn’t that the blues players didn’t believe in God, it’s just that the blues was their church.
It was right up my alley because that’s exactly how I grew up. Playing R&B music, I was told that I was playing the devil’s music, too, so it made sense to me.
What was your initial reaction to the plot?
I don’t even know if I really understood the plot completely. There’s really no way to understand it by someone telling you. You need to see it. He gave me some guidelines, and I took it from there. I was used to doing that because I worked with John Singleton a lot on some pieces – he was the one who told me I should score film. John would tell me what was happening in the scene, and that was really good practice because I didn’t really have enough time [to write “I Lied to You”]. The movie wasn’t shot. I didn’t hear [the song] until the movie came out.
What was most unique about the Sinners process?
The passion of the story. I have so many stories of Howlin’ Wolf, O.V. Wright, Bobby “Blue” Bland and B.B. King playing in my house growing up. This process really brought me back to my Baptist church roots. Even the humming that I’m doing on the track – I got that from Union Baptist Church. We call it devotion-type singing.
Without seeing any of the dailies, I knew [that humming] would fit. I didn’t know how well it would fit, but it was really some kind of ancestral-pilgrimage-storm. And [Miles Caton’s] voice… oh my God! That voice is crazy. I never heard his voice, so I just wrote the song how I would sing the blues.
They wanted me to put my demo out as well, but I felt like the movie is so amazing that when people go to DSPs – they should only hear Miles. I love his voice.
Where do you think Sinners fits in the legacy of Black music films?
I would say it could match The Color Purple. I would have said Superfly, but Curtis Mayfield had way too much music in there. But the way Ryan likes to work, one day, I know he’ll make a very musical shoutout to the world, like what Curtis Mayfield did with Superfly. I feel like that’s on the horizon.
Walk me through the session in which you and Ludwig Göransson wrote “I Lied to You.” How did you capture the essence of 30s Delta blues despite using modern tech?
In a modern time where people have a lot of outboard gear and different compressors, it doesn’t matter what you have, it’s really in the fingers. It’s in the hands. It’s in the mind of the person that’s doing it. I was playing an acoustic guitar in Ludwig’s studio, and we jammed for a second. I wrote the lyrics on the spot right there, and recorded everything that night. And then Ludwig scored the hell out of it [for the Black music history montage] – I wasn’t there for that.
What musical touchstones from your career and catalog did you pull from to write this song?
I’ve always had blues ideas, but I never thought I had the voice for blues. I would just sit around and make blues hooks because blues hooks are the best hooks ever. When I was younger and struggling to tell my girlfriend the truth about something, I said, “You know what would make a good blues song? They say the truth hurts, so I lied to you.” I’ve always had that.
I had another one when I was a kid; my mom asked me to do some work, and I remember thinking, “I’m so young, with the way she’s treating me, I might as well grow a beard.” [Laughs]. I never told her that, but I sang it in my room.
For [“I Lied to You”], I thought Sammie’s character was lying to his dad, but he wasn’t really doing that. He was telling him the truth. But [at the time], I thought he was lying, so that’s why I landed on those lines.
What makes a real blues voice?
You hear how Miles talks? He sound like somebody grandpa. He got that thing; he got that it factor. You gotta sound gravelly. I have to try to sing a blues song. He just gotta open up his mouth. My dad would tell me all the time — that I had to change my tone if I was gonna sing the blues. But I’m a tenor dude, I got a pretty voice. I just don’t think that I have a blues voice. I’ve gotten raspier and know how to do it now, but when I was in Tony! Toni! Toné! in the 90s – and it worked, I’m not complaining! — [my voice] was cute. Once I did my The Way I See It album, I learned how to sing and act like David Ruffin. Never had his voice, but I could mimic things. But this kid [Miles] doesn’t mimic nothing! That sound just comes out.
What was it like when you finally saw that key scene?
Honestly, the second time I saw it, I closed my eyes, and I prayed. I saw it for the first time with Ryan in IMAX at the premiere in Oakland. But the second time, I understood the movie even more. I hadn’t been back in Oakland since my brother [D’Wayne Wiggins] passed about two or three weeks [before the premiere]. I had a whole lot in my mind, and I was just very grateful and thankful.
The music from all those time periods – from the ‘30s to Parliament-Funkadelic – is all the things I grew up with. I’m not old enough to have been there with John Lee Hooker, but my father was born in 1929 and he’s from Tyler, Texas. My mother’s from Monroe and Shreveport, Louisiana. The gospel quartets I played in as a child, all those men — they all picked cotton. That was their job. So, I’m not removed; I grew up in a house with people who did that. When the movie opens up? That was probably my father. To be able to contribute music to a piece like that… it just came out.
Did you also feel a link between Remmick’s character and predatory record execs?
Definitely. When he said, “I want your stories…” Wow… We all make music — Black, white, Asian, etc. A lot of people are really good at it; it’s a universal thing. I know some bad players in every genre, singing, drumming, bass guitar, arranging, anything. The gift is not given to just one nationality, it’s given to all.
But the one in Blues, we own it. The soul s—t, we own it. Nobody got us with that one. This is ours. I know this because in my car I’ll listen to everything from classical to classic rock – and I still come back to the soul station or some blues station. I think the world understands that about Black culture and Black music. It’s not like they don’t know. We put spice in the game.
That bluesy storytelling is also present on “16 Carriages” and “Bodyguard,” two Cowboy Carter tracks you worked on. What was that moment like when they called the album’s name for best country album and album of the year?
I’m not big on Grammys or awards, but I was that day! It felt really good. I had a nice glass of champagne and a really good time just being there. Beyoncé works so hard, it’s just crazy; when somebody works that hard, they deserve it all. I really like to work with people who can work harder than me and match my work style – and I work really hard! It’s great to see someone who has accomplished so much already – who you would think Grammys don’t mean that much to, but I’m sure they do – continue to be driven by something that’s definitely not awards. It’s something deeper. I was honored to be a part of it.
I don’t really remember too much about working on the record, because we were just having a good time. The only thing I remember is when I played the guitar solo on “Bodyguard.” I don’t normally do guitar solos; I’d probably just call my boy Eric Gales, who plays guitar all over [Sinners]. We were going to have an eight-bar solo, and Beyoncé was like, “Nah, you can go 16.” We were in a time crunch, and I didn’t have time to call somebody, so I had to go in the room and play the solo, which I could already hear in my head. I loved that challenge. I always love passing work to great people, but this time I had to jump on it. It was fun cutting a Dirty Mind-era Prince guitar solo.
Sinners and Cowboy Carter are two landmark works that, at times, feel in conversation with each other. How does it feel to be able to work on these projects and intertwine your own legacy with theirs?
I love the storytelling on both Cowboy Carter and Sinners. It feels like we’re the chosen ones. I’m just in the right place at the right time. Not to sound cliché, but people can either wait for things to happen, or take the road less traveled and find other people traveling that road who don’t have the platforms to be heard. Like what Bey did on Cowboy Carter, grabbing different artists like Shaboozey. Look at him now. Look at Ryan grabbing Miles and giving him a platform.
There’s a lot of people who don’t have a platform and probably could do it better than we’re doing it. But with these projects, we’re showing that we hear you. We hear that something real has to happen in music and film. We’re the ones chosen to raise the bar – and the bar has been pretty low in a lot of different areas. Some choose to not let the bar be that low, and that’s what happened. When somebody calls your name, you go to be ready.
Your one man show, No Bandwidth, kicks off at the end of May. What are you most looking forward to about taking the stage by yourself?
Looking at Neil Young’s one-man show and watching Mike Tyson’s [show] is what really made me want to do one. When I saw it years ago on HBO, I was like, “Man, Mike did a good job. I wanna do that!”
I feel like I have some stories to share with people about my life, and [I get to play] some of my favorite songs. I’m gonna play a little bit of piano. I’m no Prince on the piano, but in the pandemic, I fell in love with the piano. I might play a couple of tunes I learned during that time. When I was a kid, I took piano, but I quit because I wanted to go play basketball and football with my friends. My teacher told me, “You’re gonna wish you kept playing,” and I knew she was telling the truth, but I was already pretty good on the bass. [Laughs]. But I’ve always written songs on piano, just never retained anything. Now, I’ve bought maybe three or four different pianos, so I took up lessons again.
Why did now feel like the right time to open up the vault and launch your vinyl club?
Some people may have loved some of the music that I put out, and some of their friends may have never heard it. It’s always good to be discovered. If you can be discovered twice, and be discovered on vinyl, that’s even more of a thrill for me. It also puts you in a different creative space of creating artwork, which makes them more of a collector’s item. It kind of feels like when the Grateful Dead had people going to different cities just to get different cassettes with different artwork.
I [also] wanted to create some new vinyl with music I haven’t even made yet. I wanted to start [the vinyl club] off with some things I have in the vault.
Where do you hear the blues today?
I once talked to B.B. King, and I asked him, “You think more Black people should play the blues?” He said, “Let them do what they do, and we do what we do.” I think the energy came from his being okay with his huge fan base playing the blues. But I felt like more people should know about it and play it. It’s a big genre. It’s something you should always have in the vault and listen to.
I think where it is now in the South is more like [Hampton, Va.-born soul/R&B singer] King George’s “Keep on Rollin.” That’s the blues today. Sometimes when you hear different MCs, they also sound a bit bluesy to me. But in terms of blues guitarists, it’s more others doing it than us. That’s just how it goes. But back in the day, that Delta blues was just a whole different life, a second language.
Everybody’s had the blues.
Merle Haggard‘s observation was true in the 1970s, and it still resonates in 2025 in country music as the genre welcomes a new wave of blues-tinged artists.
Valory released Preston Cooper‘s first radio single — “Weak,” bolstered by Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar tones and Hammond B-3 — to broadcasters via PlayMPE on April 23. RECORDS Nashville took Texas singer-songwriter Ty Myers to radio on April 10 with “Ends of the Earth,” a spacious, almost churchy ballad. And Big Loud’s Alabama-born Kashus Culpepper has steadily rolled out tracks over the last year with videos that feel akin to the Mississippi Delta circa 1945. Culpepper’s catalog invites comparisons to Keb’ Mo’ and Leon Bridges, and his latest track — “Southern Man,” released March 27 — features sweaty slide guitar from bluesy Americana figure Marcus King.
“I think the blues is the root to every genre out there,” Ohio-bred Cooper says. “You always have to have a rhythm, you know. You always have to have a beat. And I think blues starts that for all genres.”
The rise of the blues makes sense in a genre like country that appeals primarily to a working-class audience. The nation has experienced years of division, and economic uncertainties are turning the screws even tighter on the average pocketbook. Consumers are already singing the blues.
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“Blues connects with the human emotion,” Culpepper reasons. “It’s our deepest emotions, it’s pain and sometimes love. And I think blues is always going to be around. I think it’s always going to recirculate and come back around.”
The blues grew directly from pain. Black workers in the mid-1800s — both slaves and free men — were primarily limited to difficult jobs with no possibility of upward mobility, and they used music to keep a consistent pace at their labor and express their misery. W.C. Handy, crafting such titles as “The St. Louis Blues” and “The John Henry Blues,” established the genre’s commercial potential in the early 1900s, and Mamie Smith‘s 1920 recording “Crazy Blues” became the first blues recorded by a Black woman. New York record executives assumed that only African Americans would appreciate the music and established a “race” records market. When country was subsequently committed to disc, it was frequently referred to as “the white man’s blues.”
While the labels segregated the music in their promotional efforts, the sound itself wasn’t that different. The songs recorded by the father of country music, Jimmie Rodgers, in the 1920s and 1930s overlapped in sound with the music of Robert Johnson in the 1930s.
“I love Robert Johnson and Hank Williams,” Culpepper says. “I think at the core, both of them [were about] great storytelling, raw emotion, the real man’s music talking about real emotions. You could have a song talking about the bar, and that’s great. They both had songs [about] being with a lover, or just hanging out, or going down a road and feeling great, or a song about just feeling so down low that you don’t even want to be on this Earth.”
Country’s blues influence was particularly evident in Western swing, and it continued to pop up in the music of Willie Nelson (especially in his song “Night Life”); in Southern rock, which would influence such country acts as Travis Tritt, Hank Williams Jr., Confederate Railroad and The Cadillac Three; and in the Texas soul of Lee Roy Parnell.
Much has been made of Chris Stapleton‘s incorporation of outlaw country and R&B over the last decade, but the new acts all say the blues component of his music had an impact on them.
“A lot of people who are going down the path that I am — you know, country, but also adding a little bit of the old blues and soul influences — would not be able to do what we do without Stapleton,” Myers says. “That artistic flair that he added to country music expanded the lines a little bit, made the box a little bigger.”
Indeed, The Red Clay Strays — which are nominated for two honors at this year’s Academy of Country Music Awards — incorporate a blues thread in their rootsy country sound, and Stephen Wilson Jr.‘s performance of the national anthem before the NFL draft on April 24 in Green Bay, Wis., was a rough-cut, gnarly, acoustic country-blues.
While the sound reflects the current sociopolitical mood, it’s also a reaction to the increasing influence of technology on 21st-century life. Many Americans spend more than half their waking hours tied to an iPhone, a computer and/or a TV. With those impersonal devices commanding people’s attention, it’s natural for consumers to gravitate toward music that more closely reflects humanity and all its imperfections.
“Kids my age, we’re starting to like vintage stuff,” Myers, 17, says. “Old cars, old shoes, old clothes, old fashion — even old lingo is coming back. And especially old music. I think we’ve realized that they did shit better in the ’60s and ’70s. That’s why not only is blues and soul coming back, but also old country. Look at Zach Top. I mean, that’s old, straightforward country, and it makes my heart happy that it’s coming back.”
One of the reasons the blues seem to hang around is that the hard times they address are always present, and the listener is reminded that their heartbreak and heaviness are not unique. Knowing someone else shares their pain frequently helps revive their spirit.
“Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you,” B.B. King once said. “I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore.”
That’s why Culpepper came to appreciate the blues. He heard King, as well as Jimi Hendrix and Albert King, in his household, right alongside Kenny Rogers and Bob Seger. He hopes that, as stylistic walls drop and once-segregated music recombines, his generation of blues-based country artists will provide an emotional tonic for music fans the way that his predecessors influenced him.
“I got an old soul,” Culpepper says, “and I hope that my music is an inspiration for young, upcoming musicians to continue to put that blues and that old rock stuff in new music. That’s my whole [thing]: to be an inspiration.”
New Orleans blues guitarist and singer-songwriter Tab Benoit first debuted on Billboard’s charts in September 1995 with his third studio album, Standing on the Bank. The set opened at No. 12 on Billboard’s Blues Albums chart before peaking at No. 9 the following month. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, […]
The 2024 Kennedy Center Honors will feature a mix of the psychedelic and the soulful with a touch of jazz. The John F. Kennedy Center For the Performing Arts announced the selections for this year’s 47th annual Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements on Thursday (July 18), a list that includes director Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now, The Godfather), jam godfathers the Grateful Dead, blues singer/guitarist Bonnie Raitt, jazz trumpeter/pianist/composer Arturo Sandoval and, in a first, The Apollo theater in Harlem in a special honor as an iconic American Institution.
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“The Kennedy Center Honors recognizes artists who have made an extraordinary impact on the cultural life of our nation and continue to have an immeasurable influence on new generations,” said Kennedy Center chairman David M. Rubenstein in a statement about the event that will take place in Washington, D.C. on December 8 and air on CBS (and later stream on Paramount+).
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Rubenstein continued, ““A brilliant and masterful storyteller with an unrelenting innovative spirit, Francis Ford Coppola’s films have become embedded in the very idea of American culture; a social and cultural phenomenon since 1965, the Grateful Dead’s music has never stopped being a true American original, while inspiring a fan culture like no other; Bonnie Raitt has made us love her again and again with her inimitable voice, slide guitar, and endless musical range encompassing blues, R&B, country rock, and folk; ‘an ambassador of both music and humanity,’Arturo Sandoval transcended literal borders coming from Cuba 30-plus years ago and today continues to bridge cultures with his intoxicating blend of Afro Cuban rhythms and modern jazz; and on its 90th anniversary, The Apollo, one of the most consequential, influential institutions in history, has elevated the voices of Black entertainment in New York City, nationally, and around the world, and launched the careers of legions of artists.”
The Kennedy Center Honors celebrates individuals whose unique contributions to American arts and culture at an event where the the honorees are seated in the box tier of the Kennedy Center Opera House while their peers pay homage with performances and tributes.
In a statement, Raitt said, “I am deeply honored and thrilled to have been chosen to receive one of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors. I have long been an admirer of the awards and have been so blessed to be able to participate in several shows honoring others. There is no higher level of esteem nor as delightful a celebration and I want to extend my sincere thanks to all who have chosen me to receive this honor. I look forward to the upcoming ceremony and festivities, which I know will be one of my life’s peak experiences.”
The Dead’s living members — Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Bobby Weir — were equally effusive in their excitement about receiving one of the nation’s highest artistic honors. “It goes without saying that the Kennedy Center Honors represents the highest of reaches for artistic achievement,” they wrote in a joint statement. “To be recognized alongside the artists who have in the past received this honor is beyond humbling. The Grateful Dead has always been about community, creativity, and exploration in music and presentation. We’ve always felt that the music we make embodies and imparts something beyond the notes and phrases being played — and that is something we are privileged to share with all who are drawn to what we do — so it also must be said that our music belongs as much to our fans, the Dead Heads, as it does to us. This honor, then, is as much theirs as ours.”
They continued, “From our earliest days in San Francisco and as far as our tours have taken us, it has been and still is an incredible ride. We’ve had the opportunity to play with many talented musicians, interact with many gifted people—and to be part of something much larger than ourselves. Our music has always been about exploration and breaking through or finding our way around barriers, not just musically but also in bringing people together. The energy, the love, the connection and sharing — once again, that’s what it’s all about. As we enter our 60th year of the Grateful Dead’s journey in 2025, we’re beyond grateful for this recognition and for the journey we are on together. This honor reminds us of all those moments and the people who helped us along the way. Thank you, Kennedy Center, and to all the folks who had a hand in bringing us here, for this incredible honor.”
Sandoval, too, said he was “profoundly humbled and deeply honored” to be selected as a recipient of the prestigious award. “This recognition is an extraordinary milestone in my career and a testament to the support and encouragement I have received from my family, friends, colleagues, and fans,” said Sandoval. “Throughout my journey, I have strived to create, perform, and inspire with passion and integrity. Being acknowledged by such an esteemed institution validates my efforts and motivates me to continue pushing the boundaries of my art. I am incredibly grateful to the Kennedy Center for this honor, and I look forward to contributing further to the vibrant cultural tapestry that the Center celebrates and nurtures. Thank you once again for this incredible honor.”
Michelle Ebanks, president/CEO of Harlem’s legendary Apollo — which over its long history has hosted everyone from Josephine Baker and Count Basie to James Brown, B.B. King, Bob Marley, Sam Cooke and Michael Jackson , among many others — also said her organization was elated by the first-time honor for an institution.
“We are thrilled to be the first organization honored in the history of the Kennedy Center Awards, emphasizing The Apollo’s impact on the past, present, and future of American culture and the performing arts,” Ebanks said. “From the longest-running talent show in America with Amateur Night at The Apollo, which launched the careers of icons like Ella Fitzgerald and Lauryn Hill, to performances from beloved legends like Smokey Robinson and Lil’ Kim and today’s biggest stars like Drake, The Apollo has always been a home for artists to create and a home for audiences to see incredible music and art from legendary artists.”
Last year’s honorees included Queen Latifah, Dionne Warwick, the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb, comedian Billy Crystal and soprano Renée Fleming.
To learn more about this year’s honorees click here.
Slash charts new territory on Billboard’s rankings, as the guitarist’s new album, Orgy of the Damned, debuts at No. 1 on the Blues Albums chart (dated June 1). The new set, largely comprised of covers, is an all-star blues project, featuring guest vocalists including Gary Clark Jr., Beth Hart, AC/DC’s Brian Johnson, Demi Lovato, Iggy Pop and Chris Stapleton, among others. (It’s also Slash’s first entry on the Blues Albums tally.)
Orgy is Slash’s first solo studio album since the rock icon’s 2010 self-titled set. Between the two solo endeavors, he’s released four studio sets featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators.
Orgy also launches in the top 10 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales, Vinyl Albums and Indie Store Album Sales charts, while also bowing in the top 20 on the Independent Albums and Top Rock Albums charts.
The Blues Albums chart ranks the top-selling blues titles of the week in the U.S., based on traditional album sales. Orgy sold 10,500 copies in the week ending May 23, according to Luminate. It marks the largest sales week for a blues album in a little over two years, since Bonnie Raitt’s Just Like That… launched at No. 1 on the May 7, 2022-dated list, with 14,000 sold in its first week.
In a press statement, Slash said, “I love blues music, but I haven’t really done the blues thing because I was always so busy with something else … [the album] was a very spontaneous thing. We just threw it together. There was no researching or trying to find the right tracks – these are just songs I like.”
Among the songs on the album: Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” with Gary Clark Jr. on vocals and guitar, Willie Dixon’s “Hoochie Coochie Man” (made famous by Muddy Waters) with ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons on vocals and guitar, and Peter Green’s “Oh Well” (first recorded by Fleetwood Mac) with Chris Stapleton on vocals.
Events that prevented Rachel Dangermond from properly reopening 100 Men Hall, where Ray Charles, B.B. King and Etta James once performed, in the beach town of Bay St. Louis, Miss., over the past six years: Flood. Hurricane. Pandemic. Hurricane. Tornado.
“It is very much spit and glue,” Dangermond says. “Venues are hard.”
Dangermond, a 65-year-old journalist, has spent that time turning the 400-capacity Black-history landmark in a one-story house with blue front steps into a community center. On the hall’s schedule this year: a Saturday-morning writers’ group; a drag brunch; “cigars under the stars”; a performance by bluesman Cedric Burnside; two battling harmonica players known as Harps On Fire; and a festival celebrating the late New Orleans pianist James Booker. Dangermond’s goal is to “keep this juke joint with its historic value open and continue to keep its sacred act of playing music.” She adds: “I’m no longer the owner. I’m more the facilitator of the story of this place.”
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100 Men Hall didn’t start as a hall at all — it began in 1894 as an African-American co-op in which 12 founding members pledged to help each other pay medical and burial expenses. As it grew, the club evolved into the Hundred Members Debating Benevolent Association (DBA), a community support group during Jim Crow and segregation, which, according to Scott Barretta, a University of Mississippi sociology instructor, “helped elevate people into the economy and provide them with social benefits and respectability, where otherwise they were being persecuted.”
In 1922, the DBA built the hall as a meeting space — a worn wooden pediment marked “100 MEN D.B.A.,” recreated based on the original, is at the top of the building — and it soon evolved into a venue for live events. At first, these were plays, wedding showers, Mardi Gras balls and drag shows. By the ’30s, the club became a stop on the Chitlin Circuit, a network of American clubs catering to Black audiences that helped make stars of acts from Billie Holiday to the Jackson 5. “It’s like going back into the past,” says James Keating, a retired physician who publishes the newsletter for the Hancock County Historical Society, of the hall. “It looks like a place that music is performed.”
In 2018, Dangermond was “in a mood” when she found herself in Bay St. Louis, about an hour’s drive from New Orleans and a sort of unofficial suburb with a population of roughly 10,000. She had just lost two promising job prospects, including one as a spokesperson for the New Orleans police chief, and was staying with a friend when someone texted her that 100 Men Hall was available for sale — for $389,000, according to Zillow — including an attached apartment that a previous owner had built. (The value of the property today is nearly $670,000.)
Skeptically, Dangermond and her adopted son, then 9, showed up in bathing suits (they’d been swimming) to the property. “It was just a whim,” Dangermond recalls. “I had this sort of divine clarity. I walked through the door. There was nothing on the walls. It was just a vibe.
“Next thing I know, I was closing.”
Then came the unpleasant surprises. First was a notice that the State of Mississippi had revoked the club’s nonprofit status, and Dangermond had to sign a consent agreement to resurrect it and pay a fine. She had to wait out the bureaucratic process for nonprofit status because without itm the club could not sell liquor at public events. Until she could resolve the issue, she put on political fundraisers and other private events at the hall. This set the table for public concerts by Burnside, the northern Mississippi guitarist, drummer and grandson of the late blues hero R.L. Burnside. “We’re like, ‘Okay, this is going to be great!’ and we’re building, building, building,” Dangermond says. “We get to mid-year, and Hurricane Barry bore down on us. Before that, the rainstorm started flooding the neighborhood. I had an F-150 parked on the street and I looked out and the water was up to the window of the driver’s side. The musicians can’t get here.”
Dangermond and the hall “lost a lot of money,” she says, but they rebounded and booked acts to play every month of 2020 — until the pandemic shut down live music. Like many venues, the hall tinkered with outdoor, masked concerts, but then came Hurricane Zeta and a corresponding tornado that tore the roof off the building, causing $150,000 in damage. Dangermond had sold her New Orleans home to pay for the club, then depleted her savings for the opening, so she relied on insurance and donations to pay for repairs.
“It was like joy and pain,” she says.
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Today, 100 Men Hall puts on events almost daily and breaks even. Blues is a staple and an almost automatic sellout, no matter who’s performing, even as the genre struggles to support clubs throughout the United States. Bay St. Louis locals stop Dangermond at the grocery store and regale her with tales of sneaking in as children to hear Sam Cooke perform. As a ninth grader in 1967, Maurice Singleton learned the swing-out dance from his sister and aired it out during a hall show by soul singer Roscoe Robinson. “It was the first time I went in any building that was dimly lit for a performance,” recalls Singleton, a 71-year-old writer and teacher who lives in town.
Burnside, who performed an outdoor event at the hall just after the tornado literally blew the roof off in 2020, set up his band under a large tree near the “tin house,” a separate structure containing a mural of Etta James, founding Hancock County NAACP president Albert Fairconnetue and others. “It makes me feel real juke-jointy. It was a certain energy about that building,” Burnside says, by phone from a tour stop in Athens, Ga. “It reminded me of a big house party. Everybody [comes] together and drink a little moonshine, have a little food and listen to great music.”
The hall closed in 1982 after the Hundred Members Debating Benevolent Association finally broke up, and the building wound up in the hands of the Disabled Vets of America. In 2005, a couple ran it as an art gallery. Later, a musician and his wife reformed the DBA and scored a state grant to renovate the building, leading to the state historical marker in 2011. Dangermond still can’t articulate the quality of the 100 Men Hall that led her to buy the place. But, she says, “Musicians want to play here, and they hear those voices in the walls. They get up on the stage and they feel it.”
Mike Wheeler says he has 16 gigs lined up in April at clubs in his hometown of Chicago — a solid run but nowhere near the number he was playing before the pandemic. “Things are 50% normal,” says the veteran singer-guitarist, who has performed with Buddy Guy, the late B.B. King and Koko Taylor. “[There are] more clubs open now, but mostly Wednesday through Sunday. We’re trying to find the most gigs I can get in the city, but as far as tours and revenue, it’s kind of limited.”
Even in a blues mecca like Chicago, the genre has taken a significant hit over the past few years. Artists and club owners in musically vibrant cities cite numerous culprits — rising crime rates, the lingering pandemic-era habit of staying home, competition from nearby music festivals, home alcoholic-beverage delivery and the recent deaths of such headliners as Lonnie Brooks, Jimmy Johnson, James “Tail Dragger” Jones and members of The Kinsey Report.
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“It is sporadic, to say the least,” says Lisa Pellegrino, who manages Chi-town’s famed Kingston Mines blues club. “I don’t think anybody’s having a banner year.”
While Tony Mangiullo, founder and owner of nearby Rosa’s Lounge, is more upbeat — “The business is good, that’s all you need to know,” he says — he acknowledges the pandemic changed fans’ concert-going habits. “By 1:30, 2 in the morning, people are tired, the musicians are tired, and we’re tired. In the past, you would have people staying late. I’m really hoping we go back to that.”
Through its rickety constellation of indie labels, roadhouses and juke joints, the blues business is reinventing itself. Its biggest stars have died, retired or reduced their touring activity, leaving fewer headliners to carry festivals and weekend club dates. And while artists like Wheeler and clubs like Rosa’s keep the lights on with hard-drinking customers, door fees and ticket sales, the pandemic and its aftermath have forced many to rethink their models.
Mangiullo has invested in livestreaming and hopes to release live album compilations this fall; venerable Chicago-blues indie label Alligator Records partnered in 2021 with a new music company, Exceleration Music — founded by former Concord Music Group CEO Glen Barros — to handle physical distribution and other functions; and a new generation of stars, from singer Shemekia Copeland to guitar hero Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, has expanded the playing field from traditional clubs to gigs at arts centers and festivals, social media and satellite radio.
U.S. streaming numbers for the genre have increased 41% since 2020, from 1.7 billion in 2020 to almost 2.5 billion last year, according to Luminate. (In comparison, Taylor Swift racked up 17.5 billion on her own.) But owners of indie blues labels say the revenue has little impact on their bottom lines. “It takes a lot of streams to make a nickel,” M.C. Records owner Mark Carpentieri says. “Our better-known classic artists, like Hound Dog Taylor, Koko Taylor and Albert Collins, have a lot of life in the streaming services,” says Bruce Iglauer, founder of 53-year-old Alligator Records. “Our lesser-known artists do not particularly benefit from them.”
The genre remains reliant on touring, and if blues stars use social media to market to their older-skewing fan bases, they’re more likely to use Facebook instead of TikTok. They also sell albums and CDs at gigs for autograph-seekers, and labels are scrambling to make as many titles as possible available on vinyl.
Ingram, whom Iglauer calls Alligator’s “big success story,” is a 25-year-old guitar hero who has grown into an international festival headliner, even though his most popular album, 2021’s 662, has just 9.3 million streams in the United States and has sold 29,000 copies. Many in the blues business point to him as the future, a young talent who can refresh the genre. At first, Ingram’s friends were into hip-hop and didn’t much care for blues; today, he tells Billboard, “I see a resurgence in young people liking it, especially young Black kids.”
Ingram’s manager, Ric Whitney, says blues artists are expanding their audiences by supplementing club gigs with shows at festivals, arts centers and other venues that feature a wider range of music genres and styles. “There are a lot more places that are open to booking blues talent that aren’t necessarily blues clubs,” he says.
Veteran blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa, who estimates his post-pandemic ticket sales are “back and then some,” says he has broadened his marketing efforts to rock fans who attend Foo Fighters, Eagles and Red Hot Chili Peppers shows. “We’ve always looked at it from the point of view [that], ‘If Eric Clapton can pull 15,000 people in a market, there’s clearly 15,000 people who like this kind of music,’” Bonamassa says. “It’s a classic rock-/blues-based audience, and that’s where you want to target.”
Bonamassa suggests artists and clubs identify fan base demographics through Google Analytics and other data tools, then “laser-focus marketing to the people that love this shit.” An effective blues cross-marketer has been Copeland, who uses her show on SiriusXM’s Bluesville channel to promote her albums and steady weekend touring. “This year is going to be one of the best financially that she ever had,” says her manager, John Hahn.
Joe talks with Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast about touring, covering Tom Waits, and which younger blues musicians he thinks are exciting.
Others are struggling or modifying their business strategies. Terra Blues, the 34-year-old club in New York’s Greenwich Village that books acoustic locals such as guitarists SaRon Crenshaw and Jr. Mack, relies on the lenience of a landlord. “If not for that, we probably would be closed,” owner Ilan Elmatad says. “Bluesmen do not tour anymore. It’s too expensive. These days, they’re staying where they are, whether it’s Mississippi or Arkansas. There are no blues clubs from Philadelphia to Montreal. We’re the only one.”
The departure of reliable artists from the touring circuit, whether they’ve retired or died, led Austin talent buyer Zach Ernst to rethink his approach to booking acts at Antone’s Nightclub and the Austin Blues Festival. For years, the club’s late founder, Clifford Antone, was strict about sticking to traditional artists, but Ernst says he’s “lucky if I can do one or two blues shows a month.” And whereas blues festivals throughout the United States once relied on straight-down-the-middle artists from Luther Allison to Koko Taylor, the Austin Blues Festival has expanded its lineup beyond the genre, much like the New Orleans Jazz Festival in recent years. This year’s festival stars Buddy Guy (whom Ernst calls “the last Chicago blues headliner, period”), Brittany Howard and blues-adjacent acts from Big Freedia to Dumpstaphunk.
“Everywhere, promoters are dealing with: ‘How do you deal with an aging fan base? How do you deal with a reduced number of headliners that are appealing to the baby boomer generation?’” Ernst says. “We don’t get too prescriptive by explaining exactly what we’re doing. We’re just like, ‘Hey, this is great music. Have a great time.’”
This story appears in the April 27, 2024, issue of Billboard.
From Barbie: The Album to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, soundtracks tied to blockbuster films have dominated much of the year. As 2023 draws to a close, Quincy Jones, Scott Sanders and Larry Jackson hope their new expanded soundtrack, released last Friday (Dec. 15) for the forthcoming Color Purple movie musical (which hits theaters Dec. 25), marks a new era for R&B soundtracks and continues the healing Alice Walker sparked with her paramount novel 41 years ago.
Walker’s story has undergone countless iterations over the past four decades: an Oscar-nominated Steven Spielberg-helmed film in 1985, a Tony-winning Broadway musical in 2005, a Grammy-winning Broadway revival in 2015, and now a new movie musical directed by Grammy nominee Blitz Bazawule. Led by Fantasia, Danielle Brooks, Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo and Halle Bailey, the new film offers a fresh perspective on the timeless narrative, as evidenced by its accompanying star-studded, globe-traversing Inspired By soundtrack. The new set is comprised of 21 new songs inspired by the film, in addition to 16 tracks taken from the Broadway musical. The genre-spanning set is heavily rooted in R&B — a conscious decision given the way R&B has been counted out by major labels over the past decade.
According to Sanders, who produced the 2005 Broadway musical and serves as executive producer on both the 2023 film and its soundtrack (released through Warner Bros. Pictures/WaterTower Music/gamma), Warner Bros. was always planning to do a soundtrack. “We knew it would be an opportune moment for them to add another dimension to The Color Purple brand extension,” he remarks.
And that’s precisely what the new soundtrack is. As cinematic universes continue to dominate mainstream media, The Color Purple has been crafting its own interconnected web of stories for 40 years — and the new soundtrack became a holy site for reunions and healing among the producers, artists, and cast.
The idea of a proper Inspired By soundtrack started to take form during an April lunch between Sanders and Jackson after the gamma. CEO had seen the film and felt its impact on early audiences. “Whatever veneer of impenetrable stoicism I had at that time, [the film] pierced it,” Jackson reflects. “To me, the great Black films are the ones [where] people are talking back to the screen, they’re applauding, there’s conversations going on, and whooping and hollering. It’s an interactive spirit, and this film has that.”
For Jackson, it was Fantasia’s performance that most moved him. The Billboard Hot 100-topping R&B star leads the film as Celie Harris-Johnson, a role for which she has already earned a Golden Globe nomination. Almost 20 years ago, Fantasia captivated America’s hearts and won the fourth season of American Idol. Shortly after her victory, she headed to the studio to record her debut LP, a Grammy-nominated effort on which Jackson would serve as A&R. That album featured singles such as “Truth Is” and the Missy Elliott-assisted “Free Yourself,” a collaboration that now has a three-way connection to The Color Purple universe.
“That was a lot for me at that time of my life — [Fantasia and I] were basically the same age and really related to what needed to be achieved,” Jackson reflects. “I was saying to Missy Elliott last night, she really helped me craft the sound for Fantasia’s first album.”
On the soundtrack, Elliott appears on two remixes: the Shenseea-featuring “Hell No,” a song from the original musical, and “Keep It Movin’,” a new addition to the musical co-written by Bailey. Like most of the artists involved in the soundtrack, Jackson says that the “Work It” rapper decided to join the project after a private screening of the film. It’s the same way he landed Alicia Keys, who co-wrote and co-produced the soundtrack’s lead single (“Lifeline”), Johntá Austin, whose “When I Can’t Do Better” marks his first collaboration with Mary J. Blige since their iconic “Be Without You,” and The-Dream. Fresh off a Grammy win for his work on Beyoncé’s Renaissance, The-Dream could be headed down to the Oscars thanks to “Superpower,” a new song he penned for the Color Purple end credits.
Often, end-credit songs are performed by artists who don’t appear in the film — but in the case of The Color Purple, everyone was in early agreement that Fantasia was the only correct choice to belt the closing ballad. For one, both the song and the movie are Fantasia’s formal re-entry into the public eye as a performer, but her specific voice and story were the best vehicle for The-Dream’s lyrics. “This is older Celie singing to her younger self — it is a quintessential ‘it gets better’ song,” Sanders gushes. “It’s so f—king moving. I can’t stop listening to it. I cry when I listen to Fantasia’s rendition.” For “Superpower,” Jackson told The-Dream, “I just want a spiritual, a song that will move on far past our time. Something that will be sung in high school graduations.”
Although the SAG-AFTRA strike almost prevented Fantasia from recording the song, the timing worked out and she was able to cut her vocal in time. Given that Fantasia played Celie on Broadway for eight months during the Broadway show’s original run, her rendition of the end-credits song is the kind of full-circle moment that most artists dream of. “Superpower” is a rousing song – one in which she deftly displays the expanse of vocal range and control – and a potential comeback vehicle for not just Fantasia, but the R&B soundtrack in general. In crafting The Color Purple (Music From and Inspired By), Sanders, Jackson and film director Blitz Bazawule drew inspiration from iconic R&B film soundtracks of decades past, including Sparkle, The Bodyguard, Boomerang and Waiting to Exhale.
“It had always been on my bucket list to do a soundtrack that felt like the great soundtracks of the 1970s, or the ones in the ‘90s,” Jackson says. “I’ve been involved in a few of them, but Clive [Davis] was always the one who was leading it. It never was something that I was driving with my own personal taste and sensibility, and this was an opportunity for that.”
The Color Purple soundtrack bookmarks a year that began with troubling layoffs for one of the most storied labels in Black music history. In the middle of Black History Month (Feb. 16), Billboard reported that Motown was set to be reintegrated under Capitol Music Group – hence the layoffs – making for a less-than-preferable outcome after the company attempted a run as a standalone label back in 2021. Despite a precarious start to the year, R&B artists have once again forged a spot at the forefront of the mainstream, thanks to acts such as SZA, Victoria Monét, Usher, Coco Jones and more. It’s a level of momentum, Sanders and Jackson hope to continue with their generation-bridging Color Purple tracklist.
In addition to the cast, The Color Purple soundtrack features contributions from Jennifer Hudson, Keyshia Cole, Mary J. Blige, Mary Mary, H.E.R., Ludmilla, Megan Thee Stallion and more. Like Fantasia, Jennifer Hudson’s track marks another full-circle moment for The Color Purple universe. Hudson took home the 2017 Grammy Award for best musical theater album thanks to the Broadway revival, and, of course, she was a contestant on the same season of American Idol as Fantasia. In another connection, Hudson herself also starred in a blockbuster Black movie musical that hit theaters on Christmas Day: 2006’s Dreamgirls, for which she won the Academy Award for best supporting actress.
Although Walker’s novel specifically highlights the stories of Black American women in the American South during the early 20th century, the new Color Purple soundtrack both globalizes those narratives and translates them to contemporary times. Megan Thee Stallion’s remix of “Hell No” — a selection from the original musical – carries a special weight given the way she has refused to let misogynoir drown out her voice over the past few years. Jamaican cross-genre star Shenseea appears on a different “Hell No” remix, and her inclusion on the tracklist – alongside Brazilian singer-songwriter Ludmilla – highlights how The Color Purple’s narrative resonates with Black women around the world.
“Every day was meeting to reaffirm why I’m doing this, to remind myself the importance of this work,” explains director Blitz Bazawule. “It’s daunting. You’re talking about a legacy that you don’t approach if you don’t have anything real to contribute.” Bazawule aimed to contribute new perspectives of childhood and Celie’s inner dialogue in his version of The Color Purple. In translating a Broadway play to the silver screen, Bazawule was pushed to think about which characters and moments in the plot needed songs. “Keep It Movin’,” co-written by Bailey and Grammy-winning songwriting duo Nova Wav, was one of those songs. “Nettie’s character, as I saw it, needed to impart to Celie some level of confidence that will stay with her sister before they reconnect at the very end,” Bazawule says. “[The song] shows a young girl’s innocence which will very soon be snatched away quite violently. I need that moment to be memorable and really reflect the love the sisters have for each other.”
Bailey, who starred as the titular Little Mermaid earlier this year, is, of course, one-half of the Grammy-nominated sister duo Chloe x Halle. The “Angel” singer drew from her relationship with her sister for “Keep It Movin’,” a dynamic that exemplifies the symbiotic healing nature of The Color Purple soundtrack. As artists completed their contributions to the project, they experienced moments of healing themselves. According to Bazawule, those moments occurred throughout filming, spurred by the omnipresence of faith and gospel music on set. Gospel music is a clear throughline between the original music, the Inspired By soundtrack, and the way the musical’s songs were reworked for the film.
“Gospel is the foundation. When you think about how our version of The Color Purple functions, which is the oscillation between joy and pain and turning our pain into power, it’s the definition of gospel,” remarks Bazawule. “You don’t have anything without gospel, so, for us, it was central to how we advanced everything. I also was very clear that I’d have to split my musical journey into 3 three parts: gospel, blues and jazz.” To bring a more cinematic, gospel-infused feel to the original Broadway music, Bazawule tagged in Billboard chart-topping gospel star Ricky Dillard; He also recruited Keb’ Mo’ to bring in the blues, and Christian McBride for jazz. He even made sure his DP (Dan Lausten) and production designer (Paul D. Austerberry) got an authentic Black church experience. With both Fantasia and Domingo regularly leading the cast and crew in prayer, The Color Purple transformed into “spiritual work that shows up in the amount of healing that a lot of us went through making this film,” says Bazawule.
“You cannot work on The Color Purple without understanding what anointing looks like,” Bazawule asserts. “When those singers open their mouths, that’s church talking. That was very clear and it stayed critical up until the end.”
Just days before The Color Purple is set to open in theatres, a Hollywood Reporter piece exploring the hesitancy of studios to promote movie musicals as musicals started to make the rounds online. Black movie musicals are few and far between, especially when holiday films and biopics are removed, and The Color Purple is hoping to dispel the notion that audiences aren’t interested in seeing musicals on the big screen.
“I hope [The Color Purple] opens the door to many more and I hope directors and studios take more chances with Black movie musicals,” muses Bazawule. “Again, when it comes to music, we are unmatched, so you just have to find the narratives. I hope and pray our movie will move the needle.”
When Dan Auerbach, best known as the singer and guitarist of The Black Keys, decided to launch his own record label in 2017, it was largely out of his love for the music he was working on.
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“I had just been making so many records at that point, and I would make an album and give it to whatever label I was working for and it would just be, you know, kind of bittersweet,” Auerbach tells Billboard. “A lot of times I felt I had maybe something more to add in the label department.”
Six years later, he’s proved that to be true. The label, Easy Eye Sound — named after his recording studio in Nashville — has released more than two dozen albums, picked up 16 Grammy nominations and, in 2021, was named Billboard’s No. 1 Blues Imprint following a partnership it struck with Concord in February of that year. “Even in a Nashville landscape crowded with exceptional artistry, Dan has built something genuinely unique,” says Concord CEO Bob Valentine. “His commitment to talent and originality are clear on every album.”
The label is home to a mix of young, emerging acts (Nat Myers, The Velveteers, Early James), established artists (Yola, Shannon & the Clams, Hermanos Gutierrez) and veteran bluesmen (Robert Finley, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes), many of whom are releasing projects with Auerbach serving as producer. Already, the label has grown beyond just a vanity imprint for a successful rocker to use for whatever he’s working on at the moment, and into a full-fledged company, with five employees and a wide purview that extends across multiple genres.
“We have some real breakthrough artists, young and old, and we’ve shown that we’re able to help an artist through a career, not just one record,” he says. “We’re working with an artist like Shannon and the Clams for three albums, and they’ve doubled their shows and the amount of people that come to see them. Someone like Robert Finley, who was playing on the street when I first met him, this is now what he does for a living and he’s going back to France for the third time this year to play more shows. Those kinds of wins get me excited about future projects.”
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But its roots are in the blues, and Auerbach’s latest album, Tell Everybody!: 21st Century Juke Joint Blues From Easy Eye Sound, is a passion project that calls back to his earliest days playing music. The compilation features contributions from Finley, Holmes, Myers, RL Boyce, Gabe Carter, Moonrisers and the late bluesmen Leo “Bud” Welch and Glenn Schwartz, as well as a solo song by Auerbach and one from The Black Keys.
“I’ve got stockpiles of songs — I’ve had the studio now for 13 years, and there’s hard drives full of music, hard-hitting, amazing-sounding records that we didn’t have scheduled to come out,” he says. “I was thinking about how great those early Fat Possum Records samplers were when I was younger, and how it really introduced me to a lot of my favorite artists. So I wanted to do something a little bit like that, to be able to showcase some of the artists that people know and then some ones that they don’t, some that they’ve never heard of and some that we’ve never done recordings of before.”
Building on that lineage of Fat Possum — which began in the early 1990s as a label dedicated to recording lesser-known Mississippi blues artists, before branching out — extended to a show that Auerbach and Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney hosted at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville earlier this month, which brought the living contributors of the record together to perform live. That show was an homage of sorts to the Fat Possum Juke Joint Caravan shows of the 1990s and early 2000s, where the label would package artists like R.L. Burnside, “T-Model” Ford and Paul “Wine” Jones for a revue that would tour the country. “That was a really beautiful moment for us, and it felt very natural, too, because the music is such a big part of who we are,” Auerbach says. “It’s good for the soul, you know?”
Dan Auerbach performs at the “Tell Everybody!” Album Release Show on August 9, 2023.
Larry Niehues
That may mean more compilations on the horizon — Auerbach said that drummer Kenny Kimbrough, guitarist Eric Deaton and guitarist Kenny Brown were in town for the show, and they “may or may not have” gone into the studio to record afterwards — but he and Easy Eye Sound have plenty going on in the interim. There’s a new Black Keys album on the way, which he says is “taking shape now,” and Easy Eye Sound is reissuing Auerbach’s 2009 solo album Keep It Hid on Sept. 29, with new artwork and six new vinyl variants. But the blues is never far from his mind.
“It’s just so raw and unpretentious, like unrefined beauty. Something that you can’t really study in school,” he says. “It’s just a very free-flowing, f–kin’ wild music, you know? And I just loved it for so many different reasons.”