She practiced with her rock band, Alabama Shakes, whenever she could. Critics scrambled to praise the record; it briefly seemed as if Howard, whose voice is both burly and tender, a mixture of Robert Plant and Marvin Gaye, might be able to single-handedly resuscitate American rock and roll. At the time, a good portion of the rock music played on the radio— Imagine Dragons , Linkin Park—was so densely and fastidiously produced, so airless and unrelenting, that listening to it felt like getting whopped in the face with a snowball. The album eventually sold more than a million copies in the United States. Howard spent several years on tour with the band, an experience that she described as joyful and disorienting. I remember seeing the desert for the first time, the West Coast, the ocean. I was so excited about everything.

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