Alabama Shakes

The Arc of Alabama Shakes

The pivots — what forced Alabama Shakes to reinvent.

1. 01

   The Bombshelter Sessions

   They tracked the debut album on a shoestring budget using vintage analog gear that was literally falling apart in Andrija Tokic's Nashville studio. Heath Fogg's guitar was plugged straight into old Ampeg and Fender amps with no pedals, forcing the band to rely entirely on dynamic control and Howard's throat-shredding delivery. The resulting album, Boys & Girls, sounded like a lost Stax session recorded on a humid July night. It caught the ear of ATO Records, turning a bunch of blue-collar Alabama kids into international touring acts overnight.

2. 02

   The Blake Mills Mutation

   For their second record, they holed up with producer Blake Mills to systematically dismantle their retro-soul reputation. Mills had them using rubber-bridge acoustic guitars, analog synthesizers, and bizarre mic placements to capture a colder, more experimental sound. The sessions for Sound & Color were tense and experimental, pushing Steve Johnson's drumming into weird, delayed grooves that sounded more like D'Angelo than Otis Redding. The record won four Grammys, proving they weren't just a nostalgic bar band.

Influences

• Otis Redding — Brittany Howard has repeatedly cited Redding as the blueprint for her vocal delivery, specifically his ability to transition from a whisper to a scream. You can hear this direct lineage on 'These Arms of Mine' reflecting in the quiet-loud dynamics of 'You Ain't Alone.' The band even performed a tribute to Redding at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.
• Candi Staton — The band grew up on Muscle Shoals soul, and Howard specifically pointed to Staton's early Fame Records tracks as her vocal masterclass. The raw, unpolished grit on Alabama Shakes' self-titled EP is a direct descendant of Staton's late-60s output. It's the sound of Alabama dirt mixed with Southern gospel.
• Led Zeppelin — Before they were a soul band, Howard and Cockrell started out playing classic rock covers in high school, obsessing over Jimmy Page's heavy blues riffs. Heath Fogg's guitar work on 'Heavy Chevy' borrows its swagger and overdrive directly from Led Zeppelin II. They even covered 'Your Time Is Gonna Come' during their early live sets.
• Curtis Mayfield — During the writing sessions for Sound & Color, the band immersed themselves in Mayfield's 1970s solo records to learn how to space out their arrangements. The falsetto vocals and vibraphone textures on 'Future People' are a direct nod to the production style of Superfly. It shifted them away from basic garage rock into cinematic funk.
• James Brown — The tight, interlocking rhythm section of Zac Cockrell and Steve Johnson was built on the foundation of the J.B.'s. Howard has noted that Brown's rhythmic discipline taught the band how to use silence as an instrument. On tracks like 'The Greatest,' the band employs that classic, sudden stop-and-start funk precision.