Crate Digging: Adrian Womack, Senior Creative Producer and Music Supervisor
Adrian Womack, senior creative producer and music supervisor at Racket Club, discusses his top two finds from Concord Label Group.
Black Bayou by Robert Finley
As an adult, I find myself hungry for music I overlooked in my Southern upbringing and exploring both my parents' music as well as local icons to connect with my roots. My folks, from rural towns on opposite sides of the Louisiana and Mississippi border, met and raised me in New Orleans. Roadtrips to "the country" to visit their hometowns offered family connection and insights into their musical tastes: namely my dad's ceaseless appetite of the blues. Robert Finley is a living comeback story, trudging through a decades-long, semi-professional career to now releasing 4 albums in the last decade in the styles my dad would love.
Listening to Robert Finley's "Black Bayou" is like watching a man wipe the mud off a nice, sturdy pair of boots. Robert has a voice that sounds like an ancestor or a deacon telling you stories from across the room about everything they've bore witness to. His vocals roll on top of the gritty textures of the drums and bass. The smooth sensations of the the keyboards, with strikes from the guitar, while the wavering sounds of harmonica sweep through the ears in combination feel like shooting back a shot of whiskey, sending delightful pangs through the body.
I thought it would be hard to beat the vibes on "Livin' Out a Suitcase", which opens the album like a bad man just walked inside the bar, hushing all the other patrons just from being in the room. But them rollicking, anthemic energy from "What Goes Around" is just too fun and infectious not to mention. The title of the track says it all and set up a great story bookend. Lyrics like "I don't feel no pain, and I ain't got no shame. I got my whiskey and my woman, and I ain't worried 'bout a thing" feel like he's actually come to the joint with his lady and got the whole place jumpin' accordingly.
Any track on "Black Bayou" sounds like it would pair perfectly with a film set somewhere in the south, exploring the setting with a modern lens. The styling is vintage blues but the recordings take advantage of contemporary production's ability to capture its grit and texture with high fidelity. I think of the success we're seeing with Ryan Coogler's "Sinners" which you can almost argue is a Blues-based Musical, set in Mississippi, featuring blues legend Buddy Guy, exploring historic themes with sensibilities of today and through the eyes of one of today's great visionaries of cinema. With the interest sparked by Beyonce's "Cowboy Carter" and its reclamation of Black Country music, we're seeing a rediscovery of pride in the the genre from the people who've been making country music all along, a recreation of adjacent styles like blues or folk with pop music, and reconnection to classic soul and funk that folks are more broadly familiar with. "Black Bayou" offers an opportunity to take advantage of this newfound permission folks have to explore the music verse of country and blues without reservation. Even with Robert Finley as an artist, I think of the late Charles Broadley who has a similar career story and left his mark in music sync with a track of his becoming the theme song to HBO's "Barry" and many more of his songs winding up in the cuesheets for soundtracks of TV and film - I can easily see much of the same being possible for Mr. Finley.
Black Rhythm Revolution! by Idris Muhammad
For me growing up in the city, hip-hop, R&B, and pop were dominant - jazz felt both familiar yet foreign background music to me as a second-generation New Orleanian during that time - I enjoyed the flavor but couldn't wrap my head around the ingredients. I grew distant from these places and the music I associated with them while developing a diverse listening palette along the way, but lately I crave sounds of home, and I'm getting my fix now from artists like Louisiana bluesman Robert Finley and New Orleans jazz legend Idris Muhammad.
Hearing Idris Muhammad's "Black Rhythm Revolution!" feels like sipping on a cocktail at a jazz club with your date in the West Village and washing your Cadillac on the street during a hot day in 7th Ward all at the same time. It could be today; it could be 1972. From the instrumental covers of timeless classics like "Express Yourself" and James Brown's "Super Bad" to the longer, original works on the end of the record, listeners are sent on a groove journey with no bounds of time or place, with smooth horn and drums that build the pocket and stay in it.
The lengthy record "Wander" is probably my favorite. It's a perfect recording of a jazz ensemble doing their thing; I could close my eyes and feel like the set is being played right in front of me and it feels new on every listen. Idris Muhammad's entire catalogue should always be considered when doing anything intended to feature jazz music, but "Soulful Drums" specifically sounds like a slow and deliberate heist taking place. The meandering bassline and the horn stabs guided along with the tenacious drums and percussion sounds to me like candy for an editor on a period piece or action-thriller.
Idris Muhammad, with his percussive contributions to Fusion, is an outright music icon.
If you’d like to know more, or you’re keen to discover more of our repertoire, please contact: labelsyncuk@concord.com.
