Photo by Josh Telles
Despite their seemingly opposite upbringings, Muddy Magnolias' Jessy Wilson and Kallie North were born to be in a band together. Raised in different corners of the country (Brooklyn and Southeast Texas, respectively), the singers grew up absorbing the elements of the music in their culturesfor Wilson, the sonic grittiness of classic hip-hop and R&B and, for North, the centuries-old praxis of country music. It wasn't until they both moved to Nashville in October 2013 that they combined these elements to create something entirely new. On October 14, Muddy Magnolias will release its debut full-length album Broken People on Third Generation Records.
'It's Southern soul and rock-and-roll,” North says, describing the product of her two years spent writing with Wilson. 'When we met, we knew it was a great opportunity for us to expand as creators, jump into each other's influences and still bring in to what we had already hooked up in adolescence.”
While North was spending her adolescence studying piano and singing lead parts in school theater productions, Wilson was following a regimen of performing arts classes at New York's LaGuardia 'Fame” High School and weekend shifts at the legendary venue Cafe Wha?, where she honed her skills as a backup singer, leading to work with Alicia Keys, Kanye West, and John Legend. Around the time Wilson's career was taking off, North met her future husband at a concert in Austin and, after they wed, she moved to his soybean farm in Mississippi, where she still lives today.
'When I moved there, the only thing I knew is that I wanted to be creative,” North says. 'I was picking up on this energy, and all I could think to do was to become a photographer.”
It was photography that led North to songwriting, and Wilson to North. One day while Wilson was sitting in then-BMI executive Clay Bradley's office she spotted a photo of an old juke joint that resonated with her. In early 2013, Bradley introduced her to his friend, Kallie North, who had snapped the photo and who was just getting into songwriting. The two immediately fascinated the other.
'When you're getting to know someone that is from somewhere different than you are, there's a genuine interest there,” Wilson says. 'You just start asking questions, and you start to talk about what built you, and there's an openness. That's how we established our bond, and it translates musically.”
Their first release together, 'American Woman” in August 2015, received acclaim from country and R&B fans alike, and it was featured in the recent Ghostbusters movie as a country-blues women empowerment anthem. Broken People strays away from the hootin' and hollerin' of the single and takes a more R&B-focused approach to music and vocals. The brazen honesty of their writing and their voices indicate they don't hold anything back when they're together.
'I feel soulfully connected to Muddy Magnolias,” Wilson says, 'because this is something I've been a part of since the conception. It's happened to me, so it's a deeper feeling than when I sing for other people, a deeper love.”