As the title of Rebecca Lynn Howard's debut album
handpicked to launch the new Saguaro Road Records label, these
two words sum up this songwriter's approach to music in
general but most specifically on this extraordinary release
… extraordinary but not surprising, for fans have come to
expect the unexpected from the young woman who has accomplished
so much so soon.
Established in Nashville as a writer whose catalog has been mined
by Reba McEntire, Patty Loveless, John Michael Montgomery, Trisha
Yearwood and other headliners, and in demand as a guest vocalist
on sessions with the likes of Vince Gill and Dolly Parton, Howard
has above all been celebrated as an artist in her own right since
hitting the country music Top 5 with her album Forgive in
2002.
From the start, Howard has taken inspiration from throughout the
broad vista of American music. True, she was raised in
Appalachia, but there was more music around her in eastern
Kentucky than the bluegrass and country with which she has been
associated. Gospel flowed through that world as well, in more
than one stream. And Howard drew nourishment from it all.
“My family's sister church was an all-black,
full-gospel church,” she remembers. “So I grew up
singing that kind of music too. But even though I was bursting at
the seams, wanting to bring out this soulful aspect of what I do,
I never really touched on it in my albums – until
now.”
Work on the project began several years ago, when Howard began
feeling the urge to explore. From its earliest moments, the album
embraced the idea of letting the music set its own direction,
without category or preconception – with no rules. And the
more freedom she allowed herself in her writing, the more this
side of her creativity began to emerge.
“My approach to No Rules differed from what I was doing a
few years ago because I consciously stepped back from the
recording aspect and dove into pure songwriting,” Howard
says. “Once I did that, my writing started to change. And
as my writing changed, my way of singing and interpreting songs
became completely different. It's almost like I've
been given a new voice, with a little more freedom and a lot more
soul.”
The feeling in her music was evolving, reaching back to untapped
parts of her past to invigorate her established sound. Howard
rode this current from the writing stage to the recording studio
too. It meant taking a few risks – but with no rules at
play, these were risks worth taking.
Howard wound up heading out of Nashville to record in the remote
neighborhood of Muscle Shoals, AL, whose place in R&B history
mirrored the directions she was mapping out for No Rules. With
producer Michael Curtis, a fixture on staff at the legendary Fame
Music Company, she assembled a band that knew how to enhance
great songs with a backup that's both raw and tight. Then,
over the band's steamy grooves, she laid down the most
emotional performances she's ever committed to disc.
“I didn't want anything overproduced,” she
says. “I wanted an album whose tracks let the songs speak.
Each song says exactly what I wanted it to say, so I didn't
want anything getting in their way. And that's what we
achieved.”
In fact, the spirit of No Rules was so irresistible that Howard
upped the ante even more, by mixing a few R&B classics in
with her new material. “It's hard to take a song you
didn't write and make it your own,” she admits.
“Of course covering something that, say, Aretha Franklin
sang was more than intimidating, because nobody can sing like
Aretha. But then Michael told me, ‘Look, nobody expects you
to sing like her. They want you to sing it like you.' And I
really did want to pay homage to Muscle Shoals … so I
sucked it up and went for it, all the way.
“Besides,” she adds, with a laugh, “it was fun
to pretend to be Aretha, even just for a few minutes.”
No Rules, then, offers the familiar with the new, in the songs
themselves and in Howard's infusion of her country roots
with a gospel passion. Even she admits to being surprised at the
results of her work. “I heard that in particular on
‘What Dying Feels Like,'” she says, referring
to the stunning ballad she wrote late one night in Georgia with
her friend Rachel Thibodeau. “That song really speaks to me
in a personal way. In fact, that's the track vocal on the
album; it was so live and real on first take that we had to keep
it. The same is true of ‘Do Right Woman, Do Right
Man': I was so moved, as I sang it, that it felt almost
like I was back in church again – although it's not a
gospel song at all!”
It's not easy for an artist to know what any new album
signifies in the context of his or her career, but Howard already
has a pretty good notion of what No Rules means for her. “I
do think that No Rules shows how I've bridged the gaps
I'd sometimes felt in my own music,” she muses.
“I've always had touches of bluegrass, traditional
country, pop and maybe a little bit of soul in my music. But
I've always written and sung the truth. It's not
something I have to sell, because I only sing the truth. If it
doesn't move me, I won't sing it. And for me, this
album is as true as it can be.”
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