(All photos by Steve Levine)
Nearly five years have passed since Brittany Howard last graced an Austin stage. Her appearance closing the Austin Blues Festival on Sunday night revealed an artist in a much different musical, emotional and spiritual space.
“It’s been a long time, Austin – too long,” the former Alabama Shakes singer/guitarist said from the front of the stage at Moody Amphitheater in Waterloo Park. “A lot has happened to me. Let me tell you about it.”
Howard (top photo) proceeded to bare the heartbreak of broken relations and unrequited love along with unvarnished statements of her mores and principles, mixing material from her new solo album, What’s New, and 2018’s Jaime.
“This is a little lesbian R&B sampler,” she said, introducing “Georgia” from her first solo release. “This is a song I wish I had in the sixth grade.” (Howard came out in 2014 at age 25.)
“Power to Undo” from What’s New relates a romantic breakup that “used to be a painful memory.” No longer.
“Love is not something you hang onto,” she told the crowd. “It’s a gift you’re given. So thank you. Move on. It’s all right.”
The roof-raising rocker “13th Century Metal” featured a nearly five-minute syncopated solo from jazz drummer Nate Smith. It also featured syncopated lyrics that come across as a Howard manifesto.
“I promise to think before I speak, to be wary of who I give my energy to – because it is needed for a greater cause, greater than my own pride,” she preached and pledged and pleaded and exhorted during the song. “I am dedicated to oppose those whose will is to divide us and who are determined to keep us in the dark ages of fear. I hear the voices of the unheard, speak for those who cannot speak.
“We are all brothers and sisters.”
In a flowing, black-and-gold gown consonant with her flowing, braided locks, Howard dominated the stage, her powerful voice owning the crowd. Her sound has become simultaneously smoother and edgier than her earlier works. Her guitar work is more limited, but the crowd hushed when she picked up a thin, white acoustic axe for “Short and Sweet.”
“I only want the beginning,” she sang. “We’ll give each other all of our best, and then time can do what it wants with it.”
The five-time Grammy winner brought a tight backing band that included Smith on drums and Howard’s Alabama Shakes co-founder Zac Cockrell on bass. They formed a rhythm section that brought a sense of urgency and movement to the headliner’s songs.
Storm before the storm: Buddy Guy’s Louisiana lightning
Howard’s set closed out a festival that felt warm, comforting, even intimate at times. Promoters estimated the two-day crowd at more than 5,000 – respectable given the competition from Eeyore’s Birthday and Austin Psych Fest, not to mention Sunday morning’s thunderstorm that dropped nearly an inch of rain downtown. Lines for food, drinks and merch were short and friendly.
Musical styles at the event were extraordinarily diverse for something billed as a blues festival. Traditional blues, soul, jazz, techno, hip-hop, zydeco and funk acts showed up on the bill, as did the multi-Grammy-winning Blind Boys of Alabama – belting gospel since 1939. The variety gave fans of any genre occasion to dance in front of the stage or bop along on blankets on the lawn.
Fully half of the 14 acts hailed from Louisiana, including Saturday night’s headliner, Buddy Guy. The oldest living king of Chicago blues – on stage, he exaggerated his age by three months, but who’s going to quibble with an 87-year-old man who can play guitar like that? – Guy kept the crowd whooping and laughing with his musical pyrotechnics, stage banter, and a guitar solo he brought down into the crowd. Following a stagehand pointing the way with a flashlight, Guy wove his way through the fans, eventually letting a young lady participate in the music-making by rubbing her sweater against his guitar pickups.
Guy’s set list included his signature “Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues” and Muddy Waters’ “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “I Just Want to Make Love to You.” He stopped cracking jokes when he introduced “Skin Deep,” a song he co-wrote with Derek Trucks.
“Just like you can’t judge a book by the cover, we all gotta be careful how we treat one another,” he sang. “Skin deep. Skin deep. Underneath we’re all the same.”
Austin’s own Jimmy Vaughan & the Tilt-A-Whirl Band prepped the crowd for Guy with a mix of Vaughan standards. He shared the spotlight with hometowners Soul Man Sam and the self-proclaimed Ice Queen, Sue Foley. Audience members joined in the one-word chorus of “The Crawl” from Vaughan’s days with the Fabulous Thunderbirds. And they listened wistfully as he played his version of “Texas Flood,” one of the songs that launched his late brother, Stevie Ray, into stardom.
Dumpstaphunk took a “break” from a grueling New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival schedule to travel to Austin for their one-hour Saturday afternoon set. Along with their musical chops, the band brought their grief over Friday’s death of founding member Nick Daniels III, one-half of the two-headed bass guitar that gave ‘phunk its distinctive sound.
“We will continue to honor his legacy the best way we know how,” bandleader Ivan Neville said in announcing the sad news, “by playing our hearts out even as our hearts are breaking, because Nick was born to make people happy, and he will always be with us in spirit.”
See more photos from the festival below.