Birmingham, AL · soul · r&b · funk

St. Paul & The Broken Bones

1 upcoming festival

Birmingham soul revue fronted by Paul Janeway, a preacher's-kid howler in a sequined cape, with an eight-piece band that has drifted from Muscle Shoals revivalism into psych-funk.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones formed in Birmingham in 2012 around Paul Janeway, who grew up singing in church and had largely given up on music before meeting bassist Jesse Phillips. The two had actually played together years earlier in an alternative soul group called The Secret Dangers. Reconvening at Ol' Elegante Studios, they meant it as one last try before turning to other work, and instead recorded an EP, Greetings from St. Paul and The Broken Bones, before the band had ever played live.

The band's early records leaned hard on Southern soul: horn charts, slow-burning ballads and Janeway's voice cracking open at the top of its range. Their debut album, Half the City, was tracked at Nutthouse Recording Studios in Sheffield, Alabama, and at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, with Ben Tanner of the Alabama Shakes producing. Released in 2014 on the Alabama label Single Lock Records, it reached number 56 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Later albums pushed the arrangements outward, adding synthesizers, strings and a heavier psychedelic streak. The live show, though, still runs on Janeway's stage presence: he works the crowd in capes and jumpsuits, climbs whatever the venue lets him climb, and sings most of the set at full volume, the eight-piece band keeping pace behind him.

Across five albums and two EPs, St. Paul & The Broken Bones has toured internationally and appeared on national television including Late Night with Seth Meyers, Conan and Austin City Limits. In 2015 the band opened for the Rolling Stones on tour dates in Atlanta and Buffalo.

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