Muscle Shoals Meets the 70s rewind

Part 15: We’ll never break the chain

Friends: How great was it that we were gifted with Angela Hacker and James LeBlanc performing Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” both nights of Muscle Shoals Meets the 70s? For those of you who attended both nights, did you notice that night one was electric and night two was acoustic? Yep. Two nights and two different, but equally astounding performances, from this Shoals megastar powerhouse couple. Thank you.

I like to fondly call “The Chain” a clapback diss track for the ages. Think about it, “The Chain” was cobbled together by all Fleetwood Mac members as a sort of airing of their grievances against each other. It’s a conversation amongst themselves that’s getting nowhere – there’s dissing and there’s clapping back. This dirty laundry-style band therapy song was written almost 50 years ago, friends, and when done right, it hits even harder today than it did in 1977. Right? I know it’s true because Angela and James did it right from Florence’s historic Shoals Theatre stage a few weeks back and shook me to my core not once but twice. I’ll never fully recover.

The audience was super magnetic night one of MSM the 70s and I’m so glad the Friday night performance of "The Chain” was Angela and James with full-on Fiddleworms and Shoals Sisters support. It seemed as if the audience was low-hanging fruit by this second song of the second set of night one. We were in essence worked up into a frenzy and primed for the picking. We were all clapping and cheering even before Angela and James took the stage. Someone yelled out, “Kick those drums,” to Michael Dillon Currington and just like that, we lost our minds and slipped into a world of rumours.

Let's talk about the gifts Angela and James gave us during this recent double dose of “The Chain.” The warm, controlled, insistent energy of Angela and James' combined voices cut through to my soul both nights, y’all. The way they used their voices together — harmonized — to match the rising tension of this classic masterpiece was stunning. Angela and James are perhaps the most generously gracious duo I’ve seen live in quite some time. There's a fine line between giving your all as an individual and overpowering your partner, friends. There's an art to knowing how much is enough. There's an art to shining for the greater good, too. Lessons learned, Angela and James.

Just like Angela and James, the Shoals rises and shines for the greater good, friends. Love my hometown.

More to come … stay tuned.

Dig Worms, friends.

Photo credit (video still): Angel DeAnn Pilati