Spotlight On: BRITTANY HOWARD (revisited)

ABOUT this week’s podcast guest + radio hour featured interview:

It’s official, friends; we’ve just passed the halfway mark of 2024. The reason this is on my radar is that the first round of “Best Of” lists have been published with critics proclaiming their picks of the “Best Of The Year So Far” - and this is often a good indicator of what will be on those coveted year-end “Best Of” lists, and even for Grammy nods which get announced in early November. However you may view these types of lists (and I often find them more frustrating than exhilarating), I get excited to see the artists and albums that are so deserving rise to the top and even cut through the mainstream pop machinery. This is no small feat. Brittany Howard is one of those extraordinary artists that not only continued to evolve, but is also critically hailed and recognized for the undeniable force that she is. It’s been thrilling to witness that evolution and her awe-inspiring presence in music unfold in real time. She started with the Grammy-winning band Alabama Shakes’ 2012 debut album, Boys & Girl, which drew on their southern roots and rock and roll. She then brought in a genre-defying and cosmos palette on Sound & Colors in 2015, then veered into lo-fi, garage and glam on her side project Thunderbitch, the front porch folk songs with Bermuda Triangle in 2018. From there, she released the universally critically acclaimed 2019 solo debut, Jaime, which brought her 5th Grammy win and made her a sixteen time Grammy nominee. The sonic worlds that singer, songwriter, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and producer, Brittany Howard, creates are always expansive and truly visionary. Her second solo effort, What Now, is no exception. Back in February we celebrated its release here on SHEROES with a special two part featured interview, and it’s been a tremendous year so far - she has just played Glastonbury, is headed to Newport to play both Newport Folk Fest and Newport Jazz Fest (a rare thing in the same year), and in September will embark on a big co-headlining tour with Michael Kiwanuka. With What Now newly anointed as one of the best albums of the year so far, I’m thrilled to bring you an encore presentation of Brittany Howard as this week’s SHERO in the Spotlight.