Brittany Howard would like to introduce herself. The celebrated vocalist, guitarist and songwriter from Alabama Shakes has participated in her fair share of projects outside that acclaimed band — Bermuda Triangle and Thunderbitch among them. But with the release of her new album, Jaime, Howard announces herself as a spectacular solo artist.
Jaime takes the soulful rock of the Shakes, the no-holds-barred punk of Thunderbitch and the heartfelt introspection of Bermuda Triangle and refracts it through a glistening prism of funk, jazz and hard-earned wisdom. Accordingly, it’s the rare kind of album that grows more interesting with each listen.
Howard conceived of Jaime while on a road trip with her partner. Reflecting on all she’d accomplished since the Shakes released their debut album Boys & Girls in 2012 (four Grammy wins, among many other awards), she began to wonder what was next. She had no shortage of opportunities — Thunderbitch and Bermuda Triangle were well-received, despite the latter project having not yet released a full-length. But she wanted the opportunity to put herself out there in a way she hadn’t yet been able to do.
“I had turned 30 and was taking a road trip across the U.S.A. and had a lot of time to think,” Howard tells the Scene via email. “I knew that my next step needed to be something that challenged myself in a new way and stepped outside of my comfort zone. I wanted to share more of my story and write more personal music, and the only way that made sense was to do it under my own name.”
Howard’s new album is a declaration of musical selfhood, but the title Jaime pays tribute to her older sister. Jaime died at age 13 (Brittany was 9 at the time) following complications from retinoblastoma, a cancer of the eye that spread to her brain. The elder Howard had introduced Brittany to artists like Prince and Elvis, influences that were formative to her development as a young artist, and which you can hear clearly across all of her projects to date.
“It means everything,” Howard says of memorializing her sister with Jaime. “It is a way for me to share this achievement with her and to also take the pain out of her name and associate it instead with pride.”
Lead single “History Repeats” builds on those early influences from Jaime. It has shades of Howard’s past projects too: The Shakes’ Zac Cockrell joins in on bass, and that funky staccato guitar is unmistakably Howard’s. But the song still sounds like nothing else released in recent memory, by Howard or otherwise. The track tells of a romantic mistake made one too many times, and it also serves as a rallying cry for those fed up with the current news cycle.
“I initially started [‘History Repeats’] years ago when trying to show a friend how I use my recording software,” Howard explains. “And I would come back to it here and there, eventually adding vocals, then completely forgot about it. Randomly, when we were in the studio recording this album, one of the guys said something about how history repeats and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I have a song about that!’ So I quickly called my friend Azal [Khan] and had him go to my house and send me the track, and we finished it in the studio. It has such a great vibe and groove and seemed like a perfect first introduction to this project.”
The rest of Jaime is just as adventurous, both sonically and lyrically. “He Loves Me” grapples with spirituality and organized religion over a masterful beat from jazz drummer Nate Smith. “Goat Head” recalls a horrific moment from Howard’s childhood, when her father, who is black, woke to find someone had slashed his tires and left a severed goat’s head in the bed of his truck. (Howard’s mother is white, and her life as a biracial person also has a significant influence on her songwriting.)
Howard’s trip across the country inspired her to travel more deeply into her own story, a journey that so far has proven to be a fruitful one. Whether her next project is another solo album, a return to other projects or something else entirely is yet to be seen, but Jaime leaves little doubt that it will be just as compelling as the rest of her body of work.
“I have traveled a lot over the years, but rarely ... where I could stop and see the sights and really take [in everything] that this beautiful country has to offer,” she says. “I got to firsthand see its beauty, and at times ugliness, and that led me to want to more personally share my story.”
