Brittany Howard, of Alabama Shakes, strikes out on her own

The mosquitoes are smaller in New Mexico. There are also fewer of them and less humidity, all of which has drawn Brittany Howard away from her native South, to the mountains and community of Taos.

Location isn’t the only thing that has changed for Howard — the voice behind Grammy-winning Alabama Shakes — over the last several years, however. In 2018, Howard married fellow musician Jesse Lafser, and this year, she struck out on her own.

“I needed different ingredients to make this recipe I’m cooking up,” Howard says about leaving behind (for now) the band that launched her career. “That’s it. We’re still family. I mean, it’s just an unbreakable bond really because our entire lives changed together.”

It was a creative move more than anything else, Howard says, a way to write more personal stories that didn’t make sense to share through the outlet of a band. So, she took a chance and “just went for it,” turning her life into a solo album.

Entitled Jamie, the album is named after Howard’s older sister, who died of a rare eye cancer at age 13 when Howard was only eight.

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