Fire & Brimstone, an apt description of Trombone Shorty's
performance style, is also the title of a new song from his upcoming
album. The tune premieres at USA TODAY.
In the midtempo jazz-funk
workout, the horn player sings, "Until I'm through and God takes me
home, everything that comes out of my trombone is fire and brimstone."
The 10-track Say That to Say This, the follow-up to 2011's For True,
will be released Sept. 10 on Verve Records. Raphael Saadiq produced the
album, which finds Trombone Shorty facilitating a reunion of The Meters
and Cyril Neville on the ballad Be My Lady, their first studio recording since 1977.
Born
Troy Andrews, the trumpeter/trombonist grew up in a musical family in
the storied New Orleans neighborhood of Tremé and was a bandleader by
age 6. He attended the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts.
For True spent 12 weeks atop Billboard's contemporary jazz chart and garnered raves from The New Yorker and Rolling Stone.
Dubbed "New Orleans' brightest new star in a generation" by NPR and an "unstoppable force" by The New York Times.
USA Today: Singer/songwriter and New Orleans piano great pay tribute to a Louisiana songwriting legend.
Songwriter Bobby Charles would have been 75 today.
Shannon McNally has a birthday present for the late songwriter of early rock 'n' roll hits like Fats Domino's Walking to New Orleans and Bill Haley & The Comets' See You Later, Alligator -- a sweet cover of his I Must Be in a Good Place Now, recorded with Dr. John on piano.
"It sums Bobby up pretty perfectly," says McNally. "The guy would sort of rather be fishing than doing anything else."
I Must Be in a Good Place Now will appear on the alt-country singer/songwriter's forthcoming Small Town Talk album, out April 30.
McNally previously covered Charles' Tennessee Blues on her 2005 album Geronimo.
That recording led to Charles asking her to play a tribute concert at
the 2007 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, where she met
keyboardist Dr. John. Dr. John, aka Mac Rebennack, had played on the
original version of I Must Be in a Good Place Now for Charles's 1972 debut album for Bearsville Records.
McNally
floated the idea of re-recording the Bearsville album in its entirety
with some of the same musicians. "To my amazement, and pleasure, they
both went for it," she says.
McNally cut basic tracks for the
album before Charles' death in 2010, so he was in the studio for the
sessions. However, the concept of the album evolved: "There were so many
great songs to choose from, and a few real gems that had never gotten
released, that it turned into more of a retrospective," McNally says.
Small Town Talk still includes several songs from that 1972 album, as well as a rendition of one of Charles' better-known tunes, But I Do, originally a 1961 hit for Clarence "Frogman" Henry.
"People will recognize that song," McNally says, "people of a certain record collection or age."
