BLACK KEYS’ AUERBACH REINVENTS HIMSELF
Dan Auerbach reinvents himself with solo record beyond the Black Keys.
When Dan Auerbach took the stage at ACL Live a couple of months ago to tape “Austin City Limits” with a band that included several legendary session players, you could almost hear the beaming smile on his face. To hear him tell the story, it’s been like that ever since he began writing and recording his 2017 solo record, “Waiting on a Song.”
Auerbach remembers the day the album’s title track emerged from a writing session with John Prine, Pat McLaughlin and Richard Swift. “As soon as we started playing it, we were all singing it together, and we all had smiles,” he recalls. “I would look across the room, and there’s Prine smiling and singing, and I’m smiling, and Pat McLaughlin is smiling and singing. It was kind of ridiculous how that one just rolled out of nowhere.”
The song’s immediate and infectious spirit serves as a perfect introduction to an album that’s helping to redefine Auerbach as an artist. The Nashville-via-Ohio guitarist reached the top of the charts with his garage-rock band the Black Keys, and in recent years he’s become an in-demand producer, winning a Grammy for his work with acts including Ray LaMontagne, Cage the Elephant and Dr. John.
But “Waiting on a Song,” which came out last June, may well be the best thing he’s ever done. Its 10 tracks unspool effortlessly like a long-lost hit parade from a bygone era of classic American roots music, in part because Auerbach recruited some of the players responsible for shaping that sound.
Foremost among them are