Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats: The Hot, The Wet & The Soul-Shaking
If there was one pounding, fist-shaking, good-time, party-inducing rock ‘n’ roll classic to be heard this summer, it would have to be “S.O.B.,” the gigantic, unexpected blast of euphoria provided by Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats.
It is a pounding, good-time track that merges the best of the Stax soul sound of the ‘60s, the bluesy newness of the classic Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and the most modern, hip-shaking rhythm and blues you’ve ever heard in your life. As someone somewhere surely would have said, somewhere and sometime ago, it gets down like crazy.
You can talk about your Song of the Summer, but for me, this is it. And it was it for those who might have caught Denver-based Rateliff and his inspired combo pounding it out in August, on Jimmy Fallon’s show, where they nearly brought the house down with sweat-stained inspiration. It was the talk of many towns, and most likely yours.
Rateliff himself? Not entirely a new guy. In his mid-‘30s, from Missouri, the man moved to Denver some years back, made a few records and acquired a name for himself there, but never truly connected on a national level. Until now. Somewhere in the interim, performing in Denver, his gritty, soulful style evolved into something that started resonating at unexpected levels. Inspiration from the Band, from Van Morrison’s earliest records on Bang, started seeping into the music—but never at the expense of Rateliff’s own originality and drive. In came the new deal with Concord Records, in came producer Richard Swift, and in came the songs that would comprise the startlingly inspirational debut album,
Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats.“I really wanted to go for a mix of Sam and Dave and the Band,” Rateliff told Yahoo Music last month, stopping by our Santa Monica studios.
“You never know how people are going to respond to the music, or to the record. I just tried to go in with a lot of material.
“I was really excited about it. But I’ve been really excited about records that I made before, and nobody cared about those, either.”
It was not lost of Rateliff or his band that Concord now distributes the esteemed Stax Records label and its classic R&B catalog—which for many represents the apex of the best funky, soulful and pure inspirational music to populate the airwaves during the ‘60s and ‘70s. And somehow, unbelievably, he’s got a touch of that stuff himself.
“I thought it lended itself to the story of what I wanted the record to be about, “ he noted of the Stax connection. “Which was growing up listening to Sam & Dave and Otis Redding and that kind of Southern Soul sound. I wanted this band to be, not like the new Neo-Soul movement or anything…I really wanted it to be sweaty.”
Mission accomplished, you will likely note, watching the soul-shaking performances put down for you here by Rateliff and crew—and watching one of this year’s most impressive new music makers in action. And there’ll be more to come.
