Deep In My Soul by Big Daddy Wilson, recorded and produced by the legendary Jim Gaines, will be released April 18, 2019.
The American South casts a powerful spell. The sons and daughters of those deep states might stray from their hometowns, make their fortunes and families overseas. But wherever they roam, the South is there under their skin, and one day it will call them home. So it was with Deep In My Soul, the album that lured Big Daddy Wilson from his base in Europe back to the U.S. “It was like a homecoming,” he says, “To take it back home like this, back to my roots, was very sweet and special.”
Wilson is not the same man who left a quarter-century ago. Born and raised in Edenton, North Carolina, the bluesman still remembers his earliest years as a “real country boy”, whose family urged him to sing in church to avoid the temptations of drugs and gangs. But the epiphany came in 1979, when he enlisted in the US Army, travelled to Germany and discovered the power of live blues in the local clubs. “It was here,” he says, “that I found part of me that was missing for so long in my life.”
Watch album trailer here
As a rising artist, Wilson was quickly embraced on the European circuit for his unforgettable smoked-honey voice, alongside original songwriting that took in blues, funk, soul and reggae on albums like Love Is The Key (2009) Thumb A Ride (2011), I’m Your Man (2013), Time (2015) and 2017’s Neck Bone Stew, praised for its “authenticity” by Classic Rock Magazine. Through it all, the South always simmered beneath the surface.
Deep In My Soul embraces Wilson’s southern roots. The seeds of this stunning album were sown in May 2018, when Wilson traveled to Memphis, for pre-production alongside respected guitarist Laura Chavez and rock-steady bassist Dave Smith. That December, all the pieces fell into place when the band began tracking with Grammy-winning producer Jim Gaines, famed for his work with Santana and Stevie Ray Vaughan, at Bessie Blue Studios in Stantonville. “To work with a legendary producer like Jim is certainly a humbling experience,” reflects Wilson, “because here your ears and eyes are fully alert to pick up anything you might be able to take with you.”
Completing the album at the iconic FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Wilson was aware of walking in the footsteps of the greats. But even in a recording studio that once hosted titans from Etta James to Duane Allman, these new songs measured up. There’s the brassy soul of “I Know” and the heartfelt ripple of “Mississippi Me.” Wilson takes us from the rubberband funk of “Tripping On You,” to the reggae flavored “I Got Plenty” to the funky wah wah of “Voodoo” to the slow-burn atmosphere of “Crazy World.” “Normally, I go with the acoustic vibe,” he explains, “But I was shooting for something soulful, a more electric vibe with a band on this one.”
Some things change. Others stay the same, and with Deep In My Soul, Big Daddy Wilson’s music and career come full-circle in style. “I see it as a journey,” he says of his incredible backstory. “It’s the journey of a man who found himself deep in this beautiful music called the blues and finally, after 25 years, made it back home…”
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