TRACK LIST
BIOGRAPHY
“Recording at Muscle Shoals makes you up your game. When you’re singing, you look up and see albums on the wall by Etta
James, Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter, Bobbie Gentry… But the most arrogant thing anyone could do would be to try to
imitate those artists. Aretha and Otis were the sum of everything going on around them politically, from growing up singing in the
church. I grew up in a very different place in a very different way. But that music has always made me think it’s home.” Lynne
Jackaman
Welcome to another great album made at Muscle Shoals. You’ll know the history of Muscle Shoals and you may well recognise
the incredible cast of musicians Lynne Jackaman has assembled for her debut solo album, One Shot: Spooner Oldham, whose
organ playing helped bring When A Man Loves A Woman and Mustang Sally to life; Marvin and Aretha’s keyboardist Clayton
Ivey; Ray Charles’ bassist Bob Wray; Bonnie Raitt’s guitarist Will McFarlane; The Shoals Sisters, backing vocalists for everyone
from Etta James to Alicia Keys.
But One Shot is no dusty tribute album in thrall to its heritage. Yes, Jackaman has a mighty voice that soul aficionados will
appraise with the studio’s finest. Of course, songs with the defiance of I’ll Allow You and One Shot’s title track or the regret of
Red House will be familiar to anyone who’s experienced the righteousness of Etta and Aretha. Yet Lynne Jackaman’s own life
experience and wisdom are shot through her music, telling her deeply personal story of a relationship gone wrong in One Shot’s
11 swinging, wild and ultimately redemptive songs. It’s a record in tune with peers like Brittany Howard, Michael Kiwanuka and
Yola as much as Jackaman’s spiritual predecessors.
In the decade since Jackaman last released an album, she’s been through experiences that would have seen less determined
singers flee music for a regular life. But, as you can tell from the opening brass-led roar of Supernasty to the closing strains of
On My Own Stage’s hushed beauty, Lynne Jackaman needs to make music as much as the world needs to hear it. Even
Muscle Shoals has rarely borne fruit to an album this powerful.
The album began in sadness, when Jackaman’s former band Saint Jude ended following the death of guitarist Adam Green
from cancer in 2012. Best friends Green and Jackaman had founded the Southern Rockers, who found acclaim for their
swaggering 2010 album Diary Of A Soul Fiend. They headlined London’s Scala, played Royal Albert Hall and opened the main
stage at High Voltage festival, while a residency at The 100 Club saw Jimmy Page become a fan and Ronnie Wood guest on
stage. But, after Green’s passing, trying to continue with Saint Jude “was like living in the same house after a divorce.”
Green is the inspiration for Beautiful Loss, the moment of tender stillness at the centre of One Shot. Spooner Oldham had been
to a close friend’s funeral on the day of recording, with producer Jamie Evans lighting a candle for the session. “On the last
note, the candle puffed out just as we finished,” Jackaman recalls. “There was no breeze, no windows open: this was a closed,
soundproofed studio. It felt like Adam was gone, and I can’t think of a better place for him to have left us.”
In essence, Jackaman had been the soul of Saint Jude, with Green providing the rock dynamics. Once the band ended,
Jackaman knew she wanted to make a soul record rather than try to force herself to sound like her old band. She was
introduced to Jamie Evans via a mutual friend in the industry. On the day they met, they spent six hours discussing music,
including Evans suggesting a new guitar arrangement for On Your Own Now. “Jamie was the first person I’d met since Adam
where I felt an irreplaceable connection,” enthuses Jackaman. “Jamie producing this album has helped to make sure One Shot
isn’t a retro album – you’ve got these two relatively young, relatively inexperienced Brits in Muscle Shoals. We knew we wanted
the album to have a nice balance between the contemporary and the classic. The classic sound is a tip of the hat.”
Although Jackaman’s debut album has been a long time coming, the songs on One Shot came pouring out, written amidst the
singer’s long-term relationship falling apart. Despite her fears about leaving her relationship and the aftermath once she had,
Jackaman didn’t want her music to sound full of anguish. “I started writing by thinking ‘To hell with the consequences,’”
Jackaman explains. “Once the songs started to form themselves, I thought ‘Could I say this better?’ I wanted to write in a way
that still hits, but with an upside too. I didn’t want to just moan, to say instead ‘Yeah, that’s shit, but you can still get out of it.’
Music was something I had to help me get through what was happening, rather than pursuing it as something to release. I
pulled back from that while music became a blanket.”
One Shot is lyrically rich and varied in dissecting love turning sour. “Supernasty is when you’re stubborn and you’re stuck and
you’re really scared – you can’t say sorry and you can’t say goodbye,” Jackaman explains. “Nobody’s Fault is the stage where
you’re just pointing the finger, and On Your Own Now is the ending song, about building up the bravery to finish my relationship.
I’ll Allow You is the different sides we all have. ‘Stand up to me like I’m your enemy, hold on to me like I’m all you need’ – it’s the
juxtaposition between being vulnerable and strong, leading and being led. There’s a constant flow in relationships, where you
need to tell the other person how you feel, while at the same time working out how you feel. These feelings are so deep, and
you have to get it into a verse and a chorus, whittling your life into four lines.”
Having moved from North London, Jackaman is now happily living in West Yorkshire in a new relationship. She hopes One Shot
will help others going through the hard times she experienced while writing the album, saying: “I’m not frustrated anymore, I’ve
moved on. I’m singing these songs now from the other side of the fence, and I just want to be proud when I sing them now. If
anyone gets those feelings from these songs, that’s amazing.”
Jamie Evans lived in Antwerp and mainly produced local Belgian musicians. Jackaman could have made One Shot there, but
Evans had worked at Muscle Shoals the year before and suggested it might just be a possibility. John Gifford, Muscle Shoals’
veteran in-house engineer and studio manager, championed Jackaman after hearing her demos. The woman who grew up in
Sidcup was suddenly in Alabama… “I’d seen the Muscle Shoals documentary, where it refers to the river’s healing properties,
and thought ‘Yeah, whatever, that’s made up for the cameras,’” Jackaman laughs. “Now, I think it’s absolutely true. The calibre
of the players, they could live and work anywhere, but they still hang out at the studio, even when they’re not working. With
music, you don’t just capture notes, you capture people. The beauty of Muscle Shoals is that you capture the experiences and
the incredible people these players have worked with.”
The mysterious Spooner Oldham is “like a bird who never quite lands – you have to be ready and capture Spooner when he’s
closest to the ground, then you’ll get exactly what your song needs.” Conversely, Clayton Ivey is “a machine” who can play the
same take again and again, ferocious every time. Will McFarlane is the kindly preacher with the booming voice “who, like
everyone there, never makes you feel like you’re just another person he’s working with.” On the strutting On Your Own Now,
Bob Wray “made his bass sound like a tank, it was just ridiculous.” Young Shoals drummer Justin Holder more than matched his
veteran colleagues. In short, Muscle Shoals was everything this soul singer had hoped: “You’d record with them for three
minutes, then listen to their stories for 40 minutes.”
Throughout, Evans and Jackaman were able to corral those incredible talents, as well as nurturing the force of Jackaman’s own
stunning voice – a singer who, like her idols, has a raw power that never descends into needless vocal gymnastics. “My vocals
were properly produced for the first time,” she acknowledges. “Jamie’s attitude was very much ‘We know you can sing the
phone book, but do you need to do that on this song?’ He was challenging and there were times I didn’t know whether to hug
him or punch him, but it really focussed me on what was best for the song.”
There was one more major hurdle for Jackaman to overcome once she returned from Muscle Shoals. Funding for the album
had been paid for by fans, via Pledge Music, with her funding target achieved in just three weeks. Jackaman is remarkably stoic
about Pledge Music’s collapse last year, noting: “Nobody won. It was fascinating that a company set up to support artists ending
up screwing them, but they went into liquidation and I’m sure people their side were affected too. All I can do is change the
things I can, and think ‘How do I get to the next point?’ I’d been to Muscle Shoals – I couldn’t not finish that. I also owed it to the
fans, who’d been so supportive, funding music they hadn’t heard a note of and knowing it would be very different to my old
band.”
One Shot is finally ready. Jackaman is ecstatic for people to finally hear it and vows it won’t be another decade before her next
album, as she excitedly discusses tentative plans to go to New Orleans armed with just her laptop. That’s for the future. For
now, dive into an album well worth its long gestation, which deserves to one day be placed next to Aretha Franklin’s I Never
Loved A Man and Bobbie Gentry’s Fancy on the walls at Muscle Shoals while thrilling contemporary listeners. You’ll only need
one shot for Lynne Jackaman to take up residency in your heart for a lifetime.
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