AMERICAN EPIC | Sessions: Alabama Shakes | PBS

Official website: to.pbs.org/2pzOUDG | #AmericanEpic
Sessions: Alabama Shakes performs “Killer Diller”
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Go inside one of the greatest-ever untold stories: how the ordinary people of America were given the opportunity to make records for the first time.

[@henok8191]

Man Brittany Howard has an amazing voice. Sounds like something right out of the golden years of blues-rock.

[@pearcephan3132]

She sounds so much like what a 50 year old blues recording would sound like.

[@bassmanjla]

helps thats shes being recorded by a microphone thats almost 100 years old.

[@thisisBmusic]

it's in the delivery as much as the technology. Really classic sounding. Love it!

[@bneum]

She basically is Sister Rosetta Tharpe reincarnated haha

[@guaguancos.montunodcubop8923]

@@bneum ..u aint lying brotha. Every time i see or hear her thats the first thing that comes to mind. And recording in that studio with that recording system makes it even better right!

[@TheKcstein7]

@Alabama Shakes should do an entire album of blues covers recorded like this.

[@patrickcummins8666]

Wish they had done an extended version of Killer Diller! Say a 3.50 extended cut.. Love this song with Brittany singing it! Awesome!

[@javtimestwo]

i don't know about that. they only have 2 studio albums to date. i think another few records should be in order before the band expands their horizons into a blues covers record.

[@andrewbarrett1537]

Patrick Cummins They could cut a 12" 78 like was done in the old days for classical music

[@freestone9738]

Agreed!

[@Anderson-sg1qu]

jack white simply adopted music and now he's it's father.

[@mfnd502]

João Estrela, no doubt. He has reached a place, after years of hard work, where he can do whatever the hell he wants. He is a bluesman at heart and I cant wait to watch this series.

[@VictorVyeNYC]

more of a custodian cause no one else is stepping up to the plate.

[@JG4EVER]

*its

[@oneworld9071]

That chic is BUSTIN' with soul....... born to BE music. I hope this band enjoys a LOT of success, and they all stay healthy...... nothin like this anywhere else on this planet.

[@gailremp3628]

OMG. Jack White and Alabama Shakes doing this incredible music on the system. And 10 people didn't like it? God help them. Or as we say down south bless your heart

[@DMSProduktions]

Ritalin addled dubstep kiddies!

[@mavjimbo]

How does JW even know to record great stuff like this ?

[@DMSProduktions]

@@mavjimbo You'd be surprised! Ever SEE 'It Might Get Loud'?

[@larevanchedufilm]

Can't stop watching this

[@boynafriend]

She reminds me so much of Sister Rosetta Tharpe

[@Lambys23]

They just keep getting better and better. Miss Howard's voice puts me in a comfortable, happy place.

[@pray4peace2day]

There aren't words for how happy this makes me! XD

[@rachelfrazier7010]

Carrie Hotchkiss

[@IncrediguyPro]

God damn, that sound!

[@animalrights55]

This is the real........... I can’t begin to express how this particular era of music can bring our families and children of the future relate and understand how this venue in time shaped many of our lives. Keep the past alive so we can enjoy, respect, and appreciate what our ancestors gave us for today and forever. We learn from them so that we can make it better not worse.. Let us not forget how much we are learning today from our musical ancestry and family members. I am so grateful for this multicultural phenomenon. Please pass it along for OUR positive future.

[@andrewbarrett1537]

Who is on piano? He’s great!

[@elainesmith7512]

Now that is MUSIC!

[@3NU]

So, this just won a Grammy...

[@POET444]

no BS.... no posturing .... as authentic as it gets ..... kinda reminds me of early canned heat ...wonderful

[@dclnmre]

wow! this was great. love Alabama Shakes even more

[@rachelle_duncan86]

This was definitely Epic!

[@MRATOMIC-yz2cx]

The Alabama Shakes represent Athens Alabama very well. Jack White and PBS have given us all one more piece of music GOLD! I love it.

[@venanciofilhoyoga]

Pure gold! Thanks for sharing.

[@blueblackred11]

a lot of talk about the BH's voice but the guitar playing is just as convincing. I'm a fan as of today.

[@mavjimbo]

That solo was blistering

[@filipobecerra]

Someone left the time machine on

[@Briguy1027]

Very nice -- love the raw sound.

[@juliapearson8382]

this is just plain awesome...such a great great wonderful sound

[@pjriverdale8461]

Her voice, which is perfectly fine especially for the material this band does, is one in which early equipment finds hard to capture due to her timbre and range. That said, the 1920s W/E system used here captures everything quite nicely. The limitations of the microphone frequency range favor a different vocal range. Early microphones are not that far removed from telephone elements which even today are not high fidelity units. Considering the other parts of the recording/ reproduction chain as exsisted 90 years ago, this would be seen as a quantum leap over acoustic based recording. Most of the advances in electronic recording technology until 1948 were overshadowed by the problem of surface noise in the type of material used for discs. The limited range and power of early public address systems designed to be used in a 3000 seat theater plus the loudspeaker limitations of the time would dictate certain compromises at the recording point. Until the advent of the 33 1/3 and 45 rpm formats, albeit an increasingly small number of people were still listening to non electric powered phonographs that could play the 78rpm "shellac" discs of the time. Even if one could have pushed the recording process above the 8K range threshold, technologically everything else forward to the eventual audience would have had to improve range directly in proportion to the source material range. For whatever reason, wartime constraints nowithstanding, audio reproduction technology lagged behind what could be done in the recording process. In just one example, stereophonic recording was demonstrated in the 1930's, yet no phonograph or audio amplifier exsisted outside of the laboratories to exploit the advance. Disney's 1941 "Fantasia" utilised a multitrack soundtrack for which only a few first run theaters installed the equipment required to experience it's original sonic vision. Prior to the postwar era, the "Mad Rush" of technology didn't exist. So much of what one could experience aurially was " good enough" especially as only a few had any point of reference regarding alternatives to what had been in existence to that point. Moreover, the average listener would have been hard pressed to discern any real difference between a disc made in 1925 and one from 1945, all things being equal as to material style and reproduction qualities. The advent of magnetic tape, first developed in Germany during World War II, raised the dynamic range at the recording process while vinyl and the microgroove disc processes improved reproduction for the end user/ listener. Accordingly, studio equipment technology would continue to improve in an attempt to provide the most realistic reproduction of sound. Well recorded electronic direct- to-disc performances of the 19 30's and 1940's still sound good with none or minimal restoration assuming the masters have not been subjected to various attempts to " improve" the original material sonically. This project shows that the W/E system got an amazing amount right on the first time. In the show, they touch on the restoration of the amplifier stage of the equipment, but do not go into great detail as far if any compromises were made in the circuit restoration to work around obsolete components. Only the most die hard purist would want to record using this equipment and the rooms used. The project gives a glimpse into the pre tape and pre digital time when every take was a fully realized performance when the light came on.

[@davidroyer5049]

Don't forget that Western Electric didn't disappear from the scene. . . they were busy "pushing the envelope" with sound recording technology for decades after that system was built in the twenties-- The 1942 recording of "why don't you do right" by Peggy Lee and the Benny Goodman orchestra, made by Columbia Records, was made with a later Western Electric moving coil cutter head, and, I suspect, a Western Electric 640a condenser microphone; CD transfers from the master of that recording are certainly more "high fidelity" than the recordings made with the first generation Western Electric gear. Later, WESTREX (the successor company to Western Electric) was the only game in town for at least a couple of years when it came to STEREO record cutter heads and their magnetic film recorders were at least on a par with the AMPEX tape recorders in terms of sound quality. The Mercury Living Presence stereo recordings from the early to mid sixties that were recorded on WESTREX magnetic film recorders are still pretty astonishing after almost sixty years; so there we are.

[@mavjimbo]

Sounds great to me

[@ChoctawNawtic4]

Right on, sounds amazing.

[@AbdulhakemAmri]

if B.B. King and Etta James had a daughter it would be Brittany Howard for sure !

[@mikedwyer3485]

Time travels....thank you!

[@geoffhewko]

Sooooo Cooooool.

[@suesmith2289]

OH! WOW!!!!

[@mavjimbo]

And then some

[@dubnessIII]

What a great sound.

[@michaelscott4963]

Lovin that sound

[@animalrights55]

Thank you for the ......... of my heart.

[@EnZetta822]

absolutely! BRAVO

[@arthurtrust]

nosso amigo jack é fóda fazer uma gravina com essa aparelhagem antiga e conseguir fazer com que tudo funcione como naquela época é surreal ! perfeito sem contar com essa banda a Alabama shakes que fazem essa sonzera simplesmente best pure feeling !

[@fredericvernus149]

Incredible! Fantastic!

[@maxcowell4260]

Does anybody know what tuning her guitar is in?

[@The02861]

This is Awesome !!

[@ArtyWildmaker]

Damn! They have got it.

[@MariUSukulele]

very CoooL!!! love it.

[@kenross4256]

love this.

[@TimeTravelingBunnis]

So good.

[@BigZ7337]

That was so freaking good.

[@welligtonr.s6514]

AWESOME!!!

[@JuanViladoms]

Como quiero a toda esta gente

[@miguelvazquez-ep3qj]

lovely!!!

[@0sirius]

So cool.

[@ggforeigner]

very nice!

[@rollingtroll]

If you don't mind losing frequencies above 8k, this actually sounds pretty damn epic. Weird how a voice is so hard to grasp by any equipment, but even more so by this old stuff.

[@mavjimbo]

It was purposely recorded on this equipment to capture that exact sound

[@alexandermayer4597]

Welt - sehr gut !

[@cmg5583]

more please

[@Sabinillaful]

WOW!!

[@lastpirateslife]

that's the strong women we need around here... not demanding, but commanding

[@MrBlueVert]

SUPERRRRRR!!!!!!

[@zsantschi]

Wow.

[@i.shadrin]

So damn cool

[@RobinRialsWilliams]

In love

[@puistolanilmaherruus]

boogie!

[@sally-3830]

Bad Ass to the Core

[@cato451]

Neato

[@jukejointjack]

What kind of guitar is she playing? I want one

[@ebeep]

Kay

[@doctordox6278]

She is as real as it gets. I fucking love Brittany

[@bassmanjla]

wow

[@moaski]

Fuckin' nailed it!!!

[@dangarcia9284]

Great shit😈😈😈😈😈😈😈

[@wlllo3496]

am I in a timewarp? signing that ass of like '20s music!!

[@shorttallslimfat1775]

Holyfuck that was amazing

[@Paloma-rm3st]

Ufff...

[@JosephBrown-b5f]

I love you Brittany.

[@maxcowell4260]

Can anyone tell me what tuning this is in?

[@banjochris]

She's in open G tuning, capoed up 5 frets to C. Memphis Minnie played in this style a LOT.

[@overdriver9173]

Supernatural

[@Bobbylite64]

Wish i knew how to play an instrument

[@CrispyClouds]

Never too late to learn.

[@dubey666manu]

damn

[@harizfadhilah6149]

the gaddamn reincarnation of sister rosetta tharpe

[@ebeep]

Sorry, but she's the evolution of Rosetta...Brittany is a much better guitar player, singer, and songwriter IMHO.

[@PeterHyatt]

without the subtitles, I would not have known this was English.

[@OscarWolf84]

They have the old record cutter, the microphone, but there's no way they can really replicate the 20's 30's sound because there's no shellac anymore.

[@andrewbarrett1537]

GWL That's funny, player piano and reed organ restorers today still use shellac (amber or orange shellac) to seal wooden parts, channels, etc (and hot hide glue, various weights of leather, and are currently scrambling to find an affordable supplier of quality, long lasting rubber-cloth, the diminishing supply of which is a real problem). Is that a different kind of shellac than used in the composition of records?

[@EricBrownBey]

GWL shellac is still around and it can still be made today the only thing is that there are no manufacturers that make these kinds of Records anymore but if someone was to do it it would be easy if you know what you're doing

[@rosiemcdade8000]

tooth sd 💀

[@markschultz8492]

I hope they're simultaneously recording with newer gear, otherwise ...

[@agunsux]

Old skul

[@mattsohn6759]

She's too close to the mic.. Still good tho..

[@ChunkyLover69420]

I dunno, a room full of professionals seemed to think she was in a pretty good spot

[@roodsound]

It was the only way back then

[@ebeep]

Agreed. Clipping abounds, but no less flavorful as a result.

[@guyomj]

This sucks