Paradiso, AmsterdamBrittany Howard’s deeply personal solo detour from
Alabama Shakes fuses funk and spiritual and leaves Amsterdam rapt
When Brittany Howard, erstwhile singer of the US garage-soul band Alabama Shakes, was a young child, someone slashed the tyres on the family’s car and left a goat’s head on the back seat. Who could have done such a thing? The question has troubled Howard all her life. She knows one thing for sure: it was someone in her native Athens, Alabama, who was unimpressed by the fact that Howard’s mother was white and her father black.
She relives the incident on a new song, Goat Head, and ponders the
American south’s obsession with race on her forthcoming solo album, Jaime, an album the 30-year-old singer has been touring with a lavish, stylish eight-piece band ahead of its release on 20 September.