It is the middle of September and everywhere you turn, there appears to be a new tragedy somewhere in the country. Historic flooding from all over the south has cancelled numerous music festivals including Bonnaroo and the Delta variant of the Coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on Americans, and especially hospital systems, all over the country. The one sliver of light from the darkness is that there is beginning to be a chill in the air signaling a change in seasons. The beginning of hoodie season, spooky season, or whatever you want to call fall is my favorite time of year.
The nights get longer and a little spookier as we race towards Halloween. One of this week’s new releases is from a Nashville-based artist that tells her often haunting tale of being a black woman in the south, and her new release is an album perfectly made for the change in the air.
Adia Victoria A Southern Gothic
Nashville based singer-songwriter Adia Victoria has been screaming for years that she only belongs in one musical genre and one musical genre only. That genre is not indie rock or Americana as so many critics try to pigeonhole her into or any other genre for that matter. Adia Victoria makes blues music and is a blues musician and demands to be classified as such. If there was any doubt on what her music should be labeled, that has been put to bed on her new release, A Southern Gothic.
A Southern Gothic is not your stereotypical blues record in the sense of 12-bar shuffle one is accustomed to but rather in its themes. The album explores her relationship with the south and that as a woman of color exploring race, religion, and sex. Gothic is Victoria’s third album and fits perfectly in her catalog showcasing her incredible ability to tell a story.
Her storytelling hit a roadblock during the early days of the pandemic. Adia went back to her roots in South Carolina to get past that roadblock. She sat under a magnolia tree at her mother’s home and ran her hands through the dirt around the tree to help as inspiration. The result came in the form of the open track “Magnolia Blues.” The song finds her being taken away from the south and into the cold of the north while following a relationship that wasn’t an even one. Quickly, the narrator learns she has made a dire mistake and is determined to return to the south and anchor her roots once again underneath that magnolia tree.
The production on A Southern Gothic is led by the legendary T-Bone Burnet who has produced masterpieces for Elvis Costello, B.B. King, Robert Plant and Allison Krauss, and Sara Bareilles as well as soundtracks for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Big Lebowski, Walk the Line and Inside Llewyn Davis. Adia’s desire to not be labeled an Americana artist is not helped any by the artist she enlisted to play alongside her. Jason Isbell shreds a bluesy guitar solo on “You Was Born to Die” while Margo Price and Kyshona Armstrong share vocal duties on the song with Adia.
Adia Victoria opens for Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit’s final night of their Ryman Auditorium residency on October 24. @adiavictoria
Make sure you push play on some of the other amazing albums out this week….
- Jelly Roll Ballads of the Broken
- Lil Nas X Montero
- Marcus Mumford and Tom Howe Ted Lasso: Season 2
- St. Vincent The Nowhere Inn
- Fatboy Slim Everybody Loves a Mixtape, Vol. 6: Brand New
Steven McCash is the Lead Music Writer and Utility Man for SoBros Network. Steven is the host of the ‘Drinking With…’ podcast, and the pioneer of New Music Friday, highlighting each week’s new releases in the world of music in addition to the occasional live show review. He also pitches in as a Nashville lifestyle writer and football analyst (hence the ‘Utility Man’ title). Follow on Twitter: @MC_Cash75
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