Shannon comes from a strong musical pedigree. By seventeen, he had penned the lead single, “Sinner,” on Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens’ 2014 Cold World LP. Raised in Princeton, NJ, at fourteen Max emailed Gabe Roth of Daptone Records with a rough, home-recorded demo. By that time, Max was already a musical wunderkind. Max and Shannon met while going to the same NYC high school. It’s contradictions like this that signify something intriguing is happening with The Shacks. Most of their musical influences are from before they were born. Here’s the thing: Max and Shannon are barely in their twenties. Like The Five Keys met Neil Young and cut a record with Brigitte Bardot - but in English. Combine that with a deeply personal songwriting approach and it’s a familiar-yet-fresh sound. There are elements of doo-wop and early, pre-Elvis rock in their musicianship. Then, in one take, the song “Strange Boy” had a singer who completed the vibe. They put Shannon in the booth to try it out. Max was playing guitar on a track produced by Leon Michels - the producer and co-founder of Big Crown Records - and Michels needed a vocalist. The story goes that Max brought Shannon to the studio. And while they describe themselves as a rock band, don’t expect the conventional kind. This dreamy, voyeuristic sound was born in a Queens, NY studio in 2014. The Shacks - equal parts Max Shrager and Shannon Wise singing in her soft whispered voice - sound like they’re playing alone with nobody watching. “I hope people take a good listen to it and find the magic.” “All the songs on that record have special meaning,” he says. Everything you do has consequences.’ And today, I live like I’ve always lived.”Ī credo that continues with Special Night. “I was a little naive, so I told myself, ‘Think about the future in every song you make. “I was already talking to myself in the beginning of my career about the end of my career,” he says. “And that’s a blessing.”Īs for his late success? Fields regrets nothing. I’m hoping that song has a chain reaction, helps somebody put into action whatever contribution they can to change what the world is going through.”įields and his six-piece band will tour in the fall, where he notes the audiences seem tgrowing and changing. “And we’re the only living species on Earth who can alter that process. “The world was designed to last indefinitely,” says Fields. Meanwhile, album standout “Make This World” works both as militaristic funk and a cautionary tale about the health of the planet. And every moment I’m recording, those moments are real.” On Special Night I’m talking to my lady - literally, expressing the way I feel. For one example, he cites the yearning “Work to Do,” which entails a “a guy going to counseling, drinking too much, apologizing to the old lady and trying to keep family together, doing the manly thing.”Īdds Fields: “When I record, I make every song like I actually mean it. “This is a record about what people do in real life,” says the singer. Possessing a voice that’s equally raucous and tender, Fields crafts a truly honest, soulful work. And hints of Stax, Chess, Fame and Motown.īut this is not a throwback. You’ll hear Fields flexing those strengths on Special Night. Special Night follows the the critical success of his Truth & Soul recordings My World, Faithful Man and 2014’s Emma Jean - the last one American Songwriter hailing as “more than just a stroll down memory lane … it’s the sound of a man who understands his musical strengths and plays to them with class, authority and soul searching intensity.” Now Fields returns with his most triumphant and honest record yet, Special Night, recorded with The Expressions and released on Brooklyn’s Big Crown Records. “In a curious case of musical evolution, the older Fields becomes, the closer he gets to perfecting the sound of soul that he grew up with as a young man,” noted NPR music writer Oliver Wang (and that was back in 2009). And somehow found a newer, younger audience and become more prolific as the years transpire. Recorded with French house DJ/producer Martin Solveig. Since that time, Fields has toured the world with musical legends like Kool and the Gang, Sammy Gordon and the Hip-Huggers, O.V Wright, Darrell Banks, and Little Royal. “And my inner voice, my driving force, wants me to put out music and keeping making better records.”Īpologies to the late, great James Brown, but you’d be hard pressed to find another singer who’s ever worked as hard as Fields, a man who’s been making soul and funk anthems since 1969.
“I feel that every human being’s purpose is to do what their inner voice says to do,” says Lee Fields. No service charge on tickets purchased in person at The Sinclair Box Office Wednesdays-Saturdays 12-7PM.
Tickets available at AXS.COM, or by phone at 88. Patrons under 18 admitted if accompanied by a parent or legal guardian.
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