Grammy-nominated producer and multi-disciplinary storyteller, The Reverend Shawn Amos, recently released his revelatory song "Back to the Beginning" last Friday, Feb. 23, the second single off of his forthcoming album "Soul Brother No. 1."
The new track is a soulful and bluesy joint that slowly climbs to a "heavenly" hook that revels in the transcendent feeling of finding oneself, enhanced by the powerful vocals of the famed Nashville-based gospel group The Mcrary Sisters.
"Soul Brother No. 1" will be rolled out on May 3 through Immediate Family Records and is now available for pre-order and pre-save in this link.
Shawn Amos' Invitation to Look Within
Of his recent single, Amos wrote: "It's a song about looking yourself in the mirror and learning to love what you see."
"Like much of the album, it's also a reminder that our time here is limited," he continued. "We can use it hating or use it loving. I'm working hard to love."
Amos' upcoming album is a culmination of his twenty-year-plus career as an artist who dabbled in multiple disciplines, celebrating his eventual breakthrough in his longstanding and ongoing journey of introspection.
His current artistry is a unique, ever-changing blend of his background in Americana genres like roots and singer-songwriter pop, as mixed with his recent blues-infused stint as The Reverend Shawn Amos.
His latter persona is his gateway to the expansive African American culture, highlighting his people's struggles and the indomitable joy born from resisting said hardships.
"The whole reason I started playing the blues," he says, "was [because] it connected me to my race in a way that I hadn't fully understood. With Soul Brother No. 1, I'm taking that journey even deeper."
The Making of Shawn Amos' 'Soul No. 1'
Together with veteran producer James Saez, who has worked with punk rock band Social Distortion and blues-rock act The Road Kings, Amos conceptualized and realized the socially conscious soundscapes of Afrocentric 1970s soul and funk.
In an endeavor to capture music with the sole requirement of staying in the "pocket," Amos and Saez employed well-performed musicians, including Average White Band, Chaka Khan), bassist Jerry "Wyzard" Seay (Stevie Nicks, Keb' Mo', Mother's Finest), keyboardist-songwriter Dapo Torimiro (Lauryn Hill, Earth, Wind & Fire), and longtime Amos guitarist Chris "Doctor" Roberts.
The spiritual exploration that Amos will embark on in "Soul Brother No. 1" is not uncharted territory, as he has previously charted a course delving deep into the same set of themes in his first published book and NAACP Image Award-winning youth novel "Cookies & Milk."
The semi-autobiographical tale is centered on his younger years as a latchkey kid raised by cookie entrepreneur Wally "Famous" Amos and former nightclub chanteuse Shirley "Shirl-ee May" Ellis.
Amos poured his generational anguish into writing for the book's protagonist, Ellis Johnson, injecting his experiences and struggles of cementing his identity as a Black child of divorce who is mainly surrounded by white colleagues and friends during the hectic heyday of 1970s Hollywood.
Amos said that his undertaking of the forthcoming "Soul No. 1" record gave him a chance to revisit his old self and the feelings that had passed, saying, "I've spent so much of my life partially dimming my own light. No more."
With this album, I am uncovering every last fucking root, undoing my own programming," he continued. "I was brought up to think I was white, cut off from my own roots. No more."
"Now I know. Soul Brother No. 1 is who I am," said Amos.
