Recorded at Muscle Shoals’ Fame Studios, Mind, Man, Medicine is the fifth album by Alabama siblings The Secret Sisters–Laura Rogers and Lydia Slagle; described as an intimate exploration of human connection, self-reliance, and social issues. It features Alabama Shakes bassist Zac Cockrell, multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell, and co-producers John Paul White and Ben Tanner.
Intimately sung with pulsing bass and keyboard washes, Space is a cosmically dreamy number about connection and support (“There will always be a line/Running from your heart to mine… If you ever get too far/I’ll throw my bags into the car/Drive all night to where you are/To remind you/There’s a light that always burns”). Though musically more uptempo with twangy guitars, electric fiddle and a jog-along-rhythm, Paperweight also follows a similar thematic track, here about the contentment the sisters have found in recent years and the calm of being committed and having someone to anchor you (“I blow with the wind/I swim with the tide/I go with the grain/I’m along for the ride /But when it comes to you/I can’t float away… I could go anywhere/But I want to stay /I’m a love letter/You’re my paperweight”).
Extending that from the personal to a more universal level, featuring Parker McAnnally on dulcimer and White on rubber bridge guitar, the ethereally dreamy If The World Was A House imagines a metaphorical unified society that, rather than being one where “Everyone’s trying to speak/Everyone’s got an opinion/Everyone has a belief/There’s an elephant in every room/No one’s taking out the trash” with “secrets in the basement/Closets full of rage “, is one where, if it was on fire, “We wouldn’t be strangers/We wouldn’t be enemies/We’d run into danger/I’d save you, you’d save me”.
Ray LaMontagne joins them on vocals for All The Ways, which, given the recording location, fittingly channels the classic soul music of Muscle Shoals. Indeed, you imagine it being written by Spooner Oldham and Mel and Tim or Aretha singing the refrain, “Well, if you need, need, need/Someone to love/Oh, let me love, love, love you/All the ways.”
A solo writing credit by Lydia with just sparse guitar, drums, piano and vibraphone, Planted again speaks of the security and sacredness of a steadfast love (“you are planted right beside me/Intertwined beneath the ground/And the wind is just a breeze/Whenever you’re around/Come what may, nightfall or daylight/Still I will be planted by you”).
Moving from togetherness to separation, Tanner on piano, vibraphone and glockenspiel with resonator guitar and dampened drums, Never Walk Away is about, for whatever reasons, parting ways with people you once held close, but how sometimes separation, however hard, can be a liberation (“I would never walk away from you/Never even got it in my head to/No matter what kind of awful thing you do…But I am not your friend anymore/Trying to see it as an open door…You gave a parting gift in your departure…You went quiet and it was just in time/Cause I could not breathe… The leaving part was always up to you/But I am free and it is thanks to you/I can walk away”).
A co-write ballad with pianist KS Rhoads and featuring strings by the Fame studio orchestra, I Needed You, about finding new love after a break-up (“He held my heart in the palm of his hand/Pulled back his arm as I sank in the sand/Washed him away like a stain on his shirt/A smudge on a window left by a bird …you found my heart buried deep in the wood/Dusted it off, and you kept it for good”) has more of a drifting folksy feel with a show tune undercurrent and is another album standout.
Returning to rootsy country colours with brushed snares and 12-string, Bear With Me is about ‘loss of identity often experienced in the early stages of motherhood’ (“I’m a stranger in my skin”) and looking to hold on to ambitions, interests and relationships (“I find that I still like you/When the quiet settles in/I remember how I loved you /When you and I were just friends/Will you hold on for a little longer?”) along with a sense of self (“bear with me/Til I know myself again”).
Another Southern soulful number with a slow walking rhythm and twangsome guitar, Same Water, from whence the album title comes, is their post-pandemic number about re-entering the world and finding ways of healing (“So how is everybody doing out there?/Are you spinning round, lost and found/Do you feel it too?/Is there anybody even out there?/We’re all drowning in the same water as you”).
Returning to motherhood, the simple, gentle lilting I Can Never Be Without You Anymore marks the change from feeling your body has been taken over by some alien to one of maternal connection (“I remember when I felt the change/The way the wind had shifted, the moment that you came/But there you were/And there I was/Nothing but surrender/I let love do what it does …I didn’t know there was an empty space/That you fit into/I can’t go back to who I was before /And I can never be without you anymore”).
It closes with just Lydia on acoustic guitar for the harmony vocal and crooning folksy I’ve Got Your Back, another maternal love number succinctly summed up in the title and its message: “Bring me your buckets of rain/I’ll pour in sunshine/Bring me your mountains of pain/And I will make them mine…I can’t heal everything/But I can try … And when you’re old enough to know/The secrets that the world can hold/And when the innocence is gone/Be who you wanna be/I’ve got your back and I always will”.
Over the 23 years since The Secret Sisters released their debut, they have been feted, dropped by their label, faced bankruptcy, and considered giving up music. But they have fought back and persisted, going on to become stronger and gaining a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album. Finding them at the peak of their powers, Mind, Man, Medicine fully deserves to earn them another.
Mind, Man, Medicine is released via New West on 29th March 2024