Alabama Shakes

The band’s style can be described as a mixture of genres, from roots rock, Southern rock and garage rock to soul, Americana and blues rock. The group currently consists of lead singer and guitarist Brittany Howard, guitarist Heath Fogg, bassist Zac Cockrell, keyboard player Ben Tanner and drummer Steve Johnson. Howard and Cockrell formed the band while still in high school together, find a calling playing roots rock. Early influences for the band include Led Zeppelin, James Brown, Otis Redding and AC/DC.

Alabama Shakes big breakthrough came when they released the four-song, self-entitled EP ‘Alabama Shakes’ in September 2011. This gained them media attention and earned them an invitation to play at the CMJ Music Marathon industry showcase in New York, a performance which was heavily praised by the press.

In November 2011, the band rose from relative obscurity to international stardom. The band was signed by Rough Trade Records in the United Kingdom and ATO Records in the United States. Their debut album, ‘Boys & Girls’ was released in April 2012 and was an instant success: it achieved gold record status for sales of over half a million in the USA. The band has received several Grammy nominations for their work: the categories they were nominated for include Best New Artist, Best Rock Performance for their single ‘Hold On’, and Best Recording Package for ‘Boys & Girls’.

Laura and Lydia Rogers were born into a very musical family. The Rogers sisters had already seen one family band formed in the form of their grandfather and great uncles’ band The Happy Valley Boys. However, though both of them were singing from an early age either in church or with their family, nobody expected them to form a band together. If anything, Lydia was going to be the one with a career in music, while Laura left home after high school to pursue a career in business at the Middle Tennessee State University. However, life would have a plan of its own, as it do often does, and as Laura’s degree went on, she found herself wanting to sing professionally more and more.

It got to the point that Laura shipped herself up to Nashville, Tennessee to audition for a new singing group that Lydia was trying to make the cut for as well. It was a completely spur the moment idea, and it was just as well that she did, since Lydia got stuck in traffic and couldn’t make it in the end. Laura stunned the executives forming the group with her audition and when they asked her back, she brought along Lydia for the audition as well. When they heard the sisters sing together in harmony they formed the group right there and then. Taking the name The Secret Sisters, Lydia and Laura were flown to Los Angeles, California to record some demos.

These were shopped around to a number of record companies, but the fledgling group found their most fervent admirer in the form of production legend T Bone Burnett. He loved what he heard so much that he created an entirely new imprint of Universal Republic Records called Beladroit just to release their records. Their self-titled debut album came out in October 2010 and since then; they’ve continued to work with Burnett while also collaborating with Jack White for a single release on his Third Man Records label. The band released their second album “Put Your Needle Down” in 2014 and remains one of the most exciting country artists around right now. For that reason, they come highly recommended.