“JUST RAW, ALWAYS REALLY RAW.”
Four key records that influenced Sound & Color
DAVID AXELROD
Songs Of Innocence
CAPITOL 1968
Axelrod’s sumptuous orchestral funk is not an immediately obvious influence on Sound & Color, but Brittany Howard’s focus on the likes of “Holy Thursday” tends to be beyond the extravagant strings. “The bass tone is so exciting, the drum tone,” she says. “And the guitar tones are always amazing,” adds Heath Fogg. “Just raw, always really raw.”
CURTIS MAYFIELD
Curtis
CURTOM 1970
Howard appropriates Mayfield’s lissom falsetto for “Guess Who”, and has been studying everything from early Impressions sides to the Superfly soundtrack: “Some of the material can be really dark and far-out. Whilst I was writing songs I thought I wanted to do that, but then I went elsewhere. You can be inspired by something and take it somewhere completely different.”
FUNKADELIC
Maggot Brain
WESTBOUND 1971
“I like Funkadelic because they blurred the lines of genre, a funk band with shredding, weird, fuzzed guitar solos that are super spaced-out. A good groove, and laser beam keyboards. It makes me wanna dance and it also makes me think.”
ERYKAH BADU
New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh)
MOTOWN 2010
Disorienting nu-soul opus that’s a clear precursor of liquid Sound & Color songs like “Over My Head”. “Love Badu,” says Howard. “I’ve been listening to Badu for years. If you look at my record stack, she’s like Number Two.” A quick glance at her record stack suggests, at least today, Number One is Miles Davis.