St. Paul & The Broken Bones

Emerging from Birmingham, Alabama, St. Paul & the Broken Bones assembled as a compact unit defined by gospel-infused retro-soul textures, brass accents, and Paul Janeway’s commanding lead vocals. Their early live performances generated immediate enthusiasm, though the group would later test that support by steering into more introspective, conceptually layered territory. Their first recording arrived in 2014 with Half the City, an album that recalled the Stax and Muscle Shoals releases of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Subsequent work broadened their palette through socially aware and autobiographical themes supported by refined production values on 2018’s Young Sick Camellia, while 2022’s The Alien Coast and 2023’s Angels in Science Fiction pursued an increasingly cerebral, psychedelic course.

The band originated in Birmingham during August 2012 with an initial lineup of Janeway, Browan Lollar on guitar and vocals, Jesse Phillips on bass, Andrew Lee on drums and percussion, Allen Branstetter on trumpet, and Ben Griner on trombone and tuba. This sextet issued the self-released EP Greetings from St. Paul and the Broken Bones in 2012, which secured a contract with Single Lock Records. The label released their debut full-length, Half the City, in early 2014; the set reached number 56 on the Billboard 200 and registered on Dutch charts.

Captured in Birmingham during 2013, the EP Live and in Person!!! surfaced the following year, succeeded in 2015 by Live from the Alabama Theatre. For their second studio album the Broken Bones adopted a more socially conscious stance, incorporating a string quartet and choir while expanding to an octet that welcomed Al Gamble on keys, Jason Mingledorff on woodwinds, and Chad Fisher replacing Griner on trombone. Issued in 2016 on the newly established Records imprint of veteran executive Barry Weiss and Songs Music Publishing, Sea of Noise climbed to number 44 on the U.S. album chart.

Their third studio effort, Young Sick Camellia, featured updated arrangements and production by Jack Splash, whose credits include Kendrick Lamar and Solange, situating the band within neo-soul while retaining echoes of the 1960s and 1970s. With Amari Ansari now handling woodwinds, the album appeared in 2018 on Records and peaked at number 56 on the U.S. chart. The 2022 release The Alien Coast advanced the timeline further by blending soul, funk, psychedelia, synthesizers, and samples; drummer Kevin Leon joined in place of Lee. The same configuration reconvened for the more polished and contemplative Angels in Science Fiction in 2023, framed as a sequence of letters Janeway addressed to his then-unborn daughter. Tracking took place under producer Matt Ross-Spang at Sam Phillips Recording Studio in Memphis.