Muddy Magnolias combines soul and rock and is made up of two members – Jessy Wilson and Kallie North.
Kallie North is from East Texas. She started writing music only a few years ago, after her husband, a soybean farmer in the Mississippi Delta, gave her a guitar. Jessy Wilson grew up in Brooklyn, and started singing professionally at age seven. By her early twenties she had toured as a backup singer with John Legend and been part of the songwriting team behind two grammy-nominated albums.
Now you’re probably wondering how these two ladies from two different parts of the US came together… In 2014, Wilson was visiting Nashville with her mentor, R&B singer John Legend. While demoing some new songs at the BMI office, she saw a framed photo of a battle-scarred piano… North was the photographer. The two Nashville transplants were then introduced, they met up for drinks and hit it off.
“One day we sang together and we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, we sound like sisters,’” North said. “Jessy wanted to make a big difference in Nashville. She’s a black woman from New York, and there are not a lot of black female musicians on Music Row. Just the nature of us coming together, being a white girl from Mississippi and a black girl from New York, we felt like it was unique and powerful, different than anything we could do on our own.” (taken from the Clarion-Ledger interview)
And so their strong musical partnership began, fusing Southern country and blues with a more urban rock style. Their debut single, American Woman, was released in 2015. Listen below!
The following year, Muddy Magnolias released their debut album Broken People, here’s the lead single “Brother, What Happened.”
Check out their rehearsal jam session… starts off as an original song, then morphs into a cover of the Doobie Brothers’ “Jesus is Alright” at 4:08 – if you love the doobies, you’ll totally get goosebumps!
Of course we gotta check out the title track “Broken People” Watch and listen below!
This one has a mesmerizing beat and an infectious melody that will have you singing it all day in your car even after the song ends… “Devil’s Teeth” from Broken People. Enjoy!!
