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(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE HUNTER'S "MESTRE TATA")ĭAVIES: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller.
It's now a book called "The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story." Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize for her essay in the project.
She created the New York Times' 1619 Project, marking the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans at the British colony of Virginia. On tomorrow's show, we speak with Nikole Hannah-Jones. Nevertheless, they sound positively elated to be so downbeat.ĭAVIES: Ken Tucker reviewed "Breaking Point," the new debut album from Jackson+Sellers. TUCKER: The operating paradox over the course of this album, "Breaking Point," is that Jackson and Sellers are new musical best friends who've bonded over a shared view that when it comes to romance, things are pretty bleak out there. Oh, you ain't nothin' but a used to be, a memory that's fading. JACKSON+SELLERS: (Singing) You ain't nothin' but a has-been, so old news, so last year. Take, for example, this song called "Has Been." Sullen and nervy with an air of weirdness, "Has Been" sounds like a song that would have been performed at the Roadhouse in an episode of David Lynch's "Twin Peaks." Some new way of looking at things, some new sound that neither of them had ever made individually was achieved. Clearly, though, something happened when they got together. Sellers' 2020 collection, "Far From Home," has some solid tunes worth checking out. And it never sounded as good as this.īetween them, Jackson and Sellers have released four solo albums. TUCKER: That's Jackson+Sellers' cover of "The Wild One," a hit for Suzi Quatro in 1974. I'm a touched-up freak on a winning streaking gonna own this town. JACKSON+SELLERS: (Singing) I'm a red-hot fox. And on an impulse, they booked time in a studio in East Nashville to work out songs like this. Jackson had written a song she wanted harmonies for and DM'd Sellers on Instagram after hearing her sing. Their voices came together in an almost random way. Jackson, raised in California and schooled by the music her country-loving parents played in the restaurant they ran, sings with a hard-boiled firmness. TUCKER: Aubrie Sellers is the daughter of the superb country singer Lee Ann Womack, and Sellers' voice has its own distinctive twang. Did I waste your time? Did I waste your time? Did I waste your time - like you wasted mine? Gem on my necklace. JACKSON+SELLERS: (Singing) I think I left my mind with you in the dark, your hand on mine. These two women sound all too familiar with the idea that the devil can arrive in the form of an angel as one of their own songs about wasting their time on a guy who thinks he's wasting his time proves. KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: The debut album by Jade Jackson and Aubrie Sellers begins with a song not written by either woman, but by a kindred spirit, Julie Miller, whose sinister spookiness in "The Devil Is An Angel" is right up the alley of this Jackson+Sellers collection. You seem so sweet coming down my street, but the devil is an angel too. JACKSON+SELLERS: (Singing) Well, you look just like an angel. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE DEVIL IS AN ANGEL") Jade Jackson and Aubrie Sellers are singer-songwriters who each had solo careers before getting together as Jackson+Sellers and releasing a new debut album called "Breaking Point." Rock critic Ken Tucker says nothing the two women did as solo acts prepared anyone for the passion and grit of their collaboration.