Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Alexis Petridis

‘Wherever he sends us, we’re willing to go’: Annie and the Caldwells on God, gospel and a debut album 40 years in the making

Annie and the Caldwells
‘The lord’s not just in the church buildings, he’s going to highways and byways’ … Annie and the Caldwells. Photograph: Eric Welles Nystrom, courtesy of Luaka Bop

From West Point, Mississippi
Recommended if you like The Harlem Gospel Travelers, DJ Greg Belson’s Divine Disco compilations
Up next Single, Wrong, on 28 January. As-yet untitled debut album to follow

On Instagram, you can find a clip of Annie and the Caldwells’ recent appearance at Le Guess Who? festival in Utrecht: one of the band’s first performances outside America’s deep south. The Dutch festival is admirably eclectic and boundary-pushing – the bill this year ranged from Japanese noise-rockers Bo Ningen re-imagining the soundtrack of Jodorowsky’s 1973 surrealist classic The Holy Mountain to the self-styled “putrid, drug-filled gutter rock” of New York quintet Couch Slut – but even so, Annie and the Caldwells’ appearance looks extraordinary: a mother and her three middle-aged daughters, clad in matching multicoloured harlequin-print dresses, belting out raw, disco-tinged soul gospel in the midst of a delirious stage invasion by ecstatic, dancing punters.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.