Music

BE prepared: The Alabama 3 are on their way to Ilkley.

If you’ve never heard their music you’ve never seen The Sopranos. The hit American TV gangster series used the band’s driving Woke Up This Morning number on the opening soundtrack.

“That tune bought someone a swimming pool, but it sure wasn’t any of us,” the band say in a joint statement. By the way, they’re not from Alabama and there are nine of them not three.

Alabama 3 are from Brixton, South London, though you would never guess that from the mixture of funky rock, electronic blues, gospel and spoken word that characterises certainly their style in the 1990s. They started out calling themselves the First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine (UK).

In the band’s book the kind of music they deliver is redemptive. The references they draw upon for lyrics to songs such as Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlife, Too Sick to Pray and Mansion on the Hill are from religion, sex, drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll and politics.

They’ve moved from albums such as La Peste and Exile on Coldharbour Lane. There are more of them and they are asking different questions, such as the following:- “Can feminism find its place amongst funky dance floors again? Can music overcome all of these so called blurred lines? Can women in an increasingly technocratic age, protect themselves, as the age of video continues to fetishise their components?”

Rob Spragg, alias Larry Love, explained the band’s new album called Wimmin From W.o.m.b.l.e, which they’ll be playing from in Ilkley.

“After 12 studio albums, you have to find new ways to keep things fresh. Alabama 3 have been around for a long time, we naturally felt it was time to shake things up a bit.

“The W.o.m.b.l.e series has given us the artistic space to re-establish ourselves as a collective.

“Volume 1 saw us collaborating with the youth in our community. We’ve got a teenager who served us a kebab in a chip shop singing lead vocals on one of the most heart-wrenching tracks on Men From W.o.m.b.l.e Vol 1. The track is Following Rainbows.

“This time around on Wimmin From W.o.m.b.l.e Vol 2, we wanted to collaborate with the cool sisters, the mothers of our community to see what happened.”

“It’s been very nice, not nice [I sound like Alan Partridge] but stimulating [not in an erotic way] to work with women of a quality and integrity who would not in any way be compromised by the sexist attitudes and concepts that is inherent in the album’s concept.

“I’m fully aware of the contradictions inherent in Alabama 3 making any attempt at empathy with the female of the species, when everyone knows that they do exactly what is said on the tin; sex, drugs and rock n roll.

“Hopefully Wimmin From W.o.m.b.l.e will disturb and delight, in equal measure, those who have any interest in the future of our species. And to quote the old imperialist Rudyard Kipling, we shall declare: ‘Twas the women, not the warriors, turned those stark enthusiasts pale / For the female of the species is more deadly than the male’.”

The Alabama 3 live show is said to be something to see. The Alabama 3 play Ilkley’s King’s Hall on March 19. Tickets available from thelittleboxoffice.com/alabama3.