As far back as he can remember, Capricorn Studios was calling Eddie 9V. As a kid scanning the sleeves of his favorite vinyl records, this fabled facility in Macon, Georgia, was always the secret ingredient, adding a little grit and honey to every song born on its floor. Capricorn and the bands who blew through it urged the Atlanta guitarist to ditch school at 15, play his fingers bloody throughout the south, and turn apathy into acclaim for early albums Left My Soul in Memphis (2019) and Little Black Flies (2021).
Eddie spent his first quarter-century admiring Capricorn from afar. But in December 2021, the 26-year-old finally put his thumbprint on the studio’s mythology, corralling an eleven-strong group of the American South’s best roots musicians to track his third album. The aptly titled Capricorn is due out on January 27 via Ruf Records.
You don’t come to Capricorn Studios for polish. Frozen in time since its opening day in 1969, the mojo from sessions by giants like the Allman Brothers and Otis Redding still hangs in the air, while the recording philosophy remains gloriously raw. That suited Eddie, whose output has been celebrated for its warts-and-all snapshot of what went down. “In a world where everyone is trying to sound the best, I’m trying to sound like me,” he reasons. “I always want the listener to feel like they’re in the room with us. So I’d leave it in if a drum pedal squeaked or someone laughed during a take on the Capricorn album. It’s our way of putting a stamp on the song.”
Never meet your heroes, they say, and many young artists have been overwhelmed by walking the holy ground of their dream studios. At Capricorn, Eddie 9V breathed in the history – but the album he spat out is worthy of sharing the name, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the studio’s greatest hits and taking music back to the golden age. “We made this record,” he considers, “the way they would have done in 1969…”
Today Glide is excited to premiere the tune “Beg, Borrow and Steal” along with a video captured in the studio. Fans of The Teskey Brothers, Otis Redding and Nathaniel Ratliff will find plenty to dig in Eddie 9V’s smooth and soulful vocal delivery. Led by his acoustic guitar, the band takes a more restrained approach with the simple tap of a tambourine, easygoing saxophone solos and the light touch of a piano to make for a tune that feels like a casual and heartfelt throwback soul romp.
“Every great soul record I’ve heard starts out with drums” says 9V. Beg Borrow And Steal is a pleading soul jaunt, ever drenched in a Memphis horn arrangement, Wurlitzer and blistering organ tones shows the soulful spearhead of Eddie 9V. “One take, we started in and heard the engineer yell “wait, not ready!” In our headphones , But we didn’t stop and the compressors were smacking, and faders were all array, but that’s how we make records.”
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