When we heard that Angela Tini – Rhythm and Blues Queen, Viva Las Vegas headliner and international Roots music superstar – was finally releasing her second album, we rejoiced. We haven’t heard her magnificent voice on this side of the Atlantic since her last European tour or via her 2023 debut ‘Have You Met Me Yet’, so we couldn’t wait to catch up with her and get the scoop on her next release. 

While we have to wait a little longer for ‘Here Comes Trouble’, we got the first single just last week. ‘Can’t Stop Me’ is a powerful three minutes of timeless, foot tapping joy, packed full of everything we dig about her sound. For Tini, it’s also a song with an incredibly important message. “When I was writing some of the songs for this, a lot of things in the world were changing rapidly,” she explains. “Call me crazy, but I care about people other than myself, so I was really, really angry –  and that is the correct word –  I was very angry about how many different groups of people were being othered right now. I can’t speak to being LGBTQIA+ (I’m not a member of that community, though I’m an ally), I’m not Hispanic and facing possible deportation simply because of the colour of my skin. There are many things I can’t speak to, but I was upset about all of those things and the only one that I can speak to is women’s rights and misogyny and the way women are basically told ‘you’re too much! Pipe down! We don’t want to hear that from you!’ To be fair, girls are taught that growing up, and it’s unfortunate, but as an adult: fuck that noise! No, I’m not going to have somebody who knows less than me, who is less educated than me, who is less thoughtful than me, who is less caring than me, who doesn’t know me tell me how to be me. I’ve heard many times: ‘oh, you’re so brave, you’re so courageous’, and I’m like…not really. I am who I am. One of the best compliments I’ve received throughout my entire life is ‘Angela doesn’t wear masks: she is who she is. Every time you meet her, she is who she is but you are going to get the version of her that you deserve’. Maybe it’s en vogue to be like that now but I’ve always been like that.

The song has some pretty obvious messaging: ‘mama taught me well /  I know my right from wrong’ – meaning I’m grown I don’t need your input, thank you darling, mind your business. Further on in there, I referenced some historical events: ‘I’ll put on my red lipstick’ is specifically about Hitler saying that he did not like women who wore red lipstick, so the women of America said ‘oh yeah, we’re wearing red lipstick’. That’s specifically why I wrote that. If you look at [vintage beauty brand] Besame! They actually make a 1941 Victory Red lipstick. It’s specifically created for that. [I included the line] ’dress just how I please’ because how many times do we hear ‘oh you’re showing too much skin, oh you’re too big to be wearing that’… how about you worry about your own damn clothes? Literally, the song is about whatever happened to the concept of live and let live and mind your damn business. If it’s not hurting you, you don’t need to say anything. Your opinion is not required, plain as day: it just isn’t. 

There’s actually a line that says ‘I don’t aspire to be humble / I lack that expertise’ because I think people don’t understand that while humbleness and humility are related, they are not the same word: that’s why there are two of them! Humbleness means that you put yourself lower on the totem pole – it can mean the state of being or feeling low in rank, whereas humility refers only to the quality of being modest. I’m not going to be humble but I have humility, and that I’m grateful and aware that I’m not the only one who makes things happen and that there’s a big difference between the two. I don’t think people realise that. It actually was inspired by this extremely MAGA woman who is in government named Sarah Huckabee Sanders. When Kamala Harris was talking about her family, [Huckabee Sanders] said she’s not humble enough as a mother and woman and Kamala was like, ‘not all of us aspire to be humble’. She didn’t say she lacked humility, there’s a big difference between the two words. Being a word nerd and having a degree in a language and linguistics, of course that matters to me. They don’t necessarily matter to other people, but they do to me. My thing is words so that song is kind of a rallying cry, in a nice way without being overbearing about it. The message is to be yourself despite what anybody else says to you. In my opinion, as long as you’re not hurting anybody else, and that includes yourself, then you’re fine.”

Recording her second album was also a chance for Tini to spread her musical wings even further.

“I had two goals with the album: the first of which is, I don’t do just one style. I’m not a one-trick pony. I don’t think any musician wants to feel like they’re pigeonholed. But, as a singer, I think it happens a little more often. I’m capable of singing all the things under the ‘roots’ umbrella. 

It’s not just rhythm and blues. I can sing country: I started out singing Patsy Cline, that’s how I started singing. I taught myself to sing to the Patsy Cline box set and the Ella Fitzgerald box set. Well, that’s country and jazz, but they’re still related. Now I do rhythm and blues, but I can also do jazz. I can also do country. I can also do soul. All of it. And I love all of it, as we should. There’s a big umbrella. I love doo-wop: I love all of it! There’s some of every element of all kinds of songs that I like on the record, including two duets. I did a cover of an Etta James song with the Dynaflos doing the doo-wop background. People don’t know our lore because me and the guys in the Dynaflos used to be part of the house band at Viva, and we got to back up all the legends. Behind the scenes, we’ve been pals for a long time from that. 

Not only is it like doing all these different styles that I love and not pigeonholing myself and being able to do all these different things, but I know very well that I didn’t get here by myself. Maybe my name up there, it may say ‘Angela Tini’ on everything, and maybe I’m the centre of the puzzle. But if I don’t have all those other people, it doesn’t go. It doesn’t work. I need Carl [Sonny Leyland] to help me when I’m writing a song. I need Carl to help pull it out of me.  I need Tommy [Harkenrider] to…if I describe something as ‘I want it to sound kind of like this’ and then he can translate it. It’s not just me and it can’t just rely on just me.  What’s great about that is that’s also, to me, the best part about making music is your community. I feel like I’m putting my money where my mouth is because I’ve said for a very long time that my very favourite part is working with people I love respect and admire. I’ve crafted my musical life like that. What could be freaking cooler to do something that you enjoy doing so much with people who you think are so talented! are better than you are?! Why am I here? You’re amazing, this is so cool! I think it’s important to remember you’re not an island. It feels like the world is increasingly making us want to feel like we are. Community is what makes us go: let’s be real, that’s the truth. That is what makes us go and it’s not just as musicians, it’s as human beings, period. I’m speaking to my experience in music and it’s super important that I have loyalty to the people that I play with. That may not be the norm anymore but it is for me. That’s who I am: you can do what you want to do, but I’m gonna do what I want to do you know. For me, that’s staying loyal to the people who stuck with me and who I really love respect and admire. It doesn’t mean there’s no room for new people, it’s just when I meet you, we’ll talk about it!”

The band Tini formed to back her on ‘Here Comes Trouble’ reads like a who’s who of the best in roots music. Along with longtime collaborators Carl Sonny Leyland and Tommy Harkenrider, ‘Can’t Stop Me’ features Zander Griffith, Josh Collazo, Sean O’Kelley and Deke Dickerson, and that’s not to mention the other guests who lend their talents to her album. “[‘Here Comes Trouble’] has something like a 70 / 30 split of original songs versus covers, but these are covers I’ve wanted to do for a long time and they’re all different. There’s Patsy Cline on there, but it’s the stuff that’s not as well known. I’m not doing ‘Walking after Midnight’, I’m not doing ‘Back In Baby’s Arms’… I’m going a little deeper. Like I said, I taught myself to sing listening to the songbook so I have favourites that are not necessarily favourites of everybody else, but they’re mine. my favourites. I did a duet with Dave Stuckey from Dave and Deke Combo… Stuckey plays everywhere, he’s amazing and I just love Stuckey’s voice because he’s got his own vocal style. His interpretations of the songs are always different; his phrasing is so unique. It’s fun to sing with somebody who does something slightly differently than you and how do you fit around it?  I didn’t know how recording was gonna go with the Dynaflos, but it went great. Deke [Dickerson] actually did the really low end on it like because we needed a little more low end so Deke got to go in and add vocals at the end too. 

My friend Max [Genouel] who I’m lucky enough to play with when I go to France – he plays bass but he’s a multi-instrumentalist. When you play at Caveau in Paris, it’s three and a half hours of music so you get tired. You get half-hour breaks in between the sets, but it’s a lot, right? The stage is roughly the size of a postage stamp. It’s so small and the place gets so packed, there’s bodies crushed up against the stage, so when I needed a break literally the only place for me to go was kind of to perch on the edge. There was nowhere to go. I had to stay on the stage but like take a minute, drink some water, whatever, so they do an instrumental here and there to give me a little break. One time, Tommy goes, ‘hey Max why don’t you sing one?’ The minute he opened his mouth I was like, ‘excuse me?! what?!’ because I had no idea he was that good, it was ridiculous. I was like, ‘I need to sing with him at some point’ so we came up with a song that we could do together for this record. He recorded his part in France and added harmonica to it and sent it to Deke and we put it together. That’s really cool too because that’s a unique way to record which I hadn’t done before.  Brian Hurd who plays harmonica and sings and plays guitar with Daddy Long Legs did a harmonica part on another song in New York and sent it. It’s just it’s wild the way you can record now! It’s really cool: even if you have friends in other countries, you can still record together. People have said, ‘when are you gonna sing in French?’ because I’m such a Francophile and they know it. I was like, ‘when my French is good enough’ because I don’t want to hurt somebody’s language. I don’t want to be rude or thoughtless, so I try to show respect.  I recorded myself singing the song a capella and sent it to some Parisian friends who would be most harsh on my French. They were like, ‘we know it’s not your first language but it’s really cute’ so I have a song in French on the record. My mind still boggles at that, I can’t believe I did that!

My friend Jody Byrd who plays with Southwest Biscuit Company is also a really good songwriter. He was like, ‘I wrote these lyrics for you, I’ve got this idea for the song for you’. As I heard it, I knew exactly how it should sound.  I took it to Carl and he crafted the music around it, and it just all came together in the studio. It’s wild because they’re just all so good. I don’t think it was a hardship for any of them you know what I mean?  I can’t tell you how many times Deke said to me, ‘man, this band you put together!’ I think one of the most flattering things ever to me is to have the people that you’ve admired for so long see something in you: that’s enough. Some people want stadiums, some people just want fame and fortune but all success is good success. Working with Carl, for instance, is like the dream of my life.  I was a huge fan before we ever met.  I think when I first met him he played in Seattle at the Rockabilly Ball with Big Sandy and I was just like ‘I just love you and you’re my friend now’. He didn’t have much say in the matter! He takes my raw thoughts and puts them all together and everything just ends up sounding exactly how I want it because he understands me, and that doesn’t just happen all the time.”

As if this all-star lineup wasn’t enough to get you excited for Tini’s second release, she will be back in Europe this autumn to unleash her latest songs. “October. I already have four dates in October so far. I can look forward to seeing everybody in Europe because that’s a huge thing. I don’t understand it but I’m so grateful – holy crap, this is my life! I’ll be at Viva Las Vegas and that’s technically the album release. I’ll have the physical copies there but on April 3rd the pre-sales start on Bandcamp.” We’re already digging out our dancing shoes and counting down the days to hear the full album in all its glory!

Kate Allvey

Buy ‘Can’t Stop Me’ via Bandcamp