To paraphrase what old Ben Kenobi once said about the name “Obi Wan”: Sugarland… Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time.
Today’s track is a short callback to the title cut on the band’s 2010 album Incredible Machine. It is sung by Kristian Bush, while the longer version (like most of the band’s songs) is sung by Jennifer Nettles.
Not long after the release of this album Sugarland played the Indiana State Fair, where high winds caused a platform to collapse, killing seven people and injuring dozens more. I don’t know if that incident explains the ensuing lengthy hiatus, but the band didn’t record again until 2018.
That album, titled Bigger, turned out to be anything but, netting a small fraction of the sales of the band’s previous efforts.
Nettles, meanwhile, has dipped her toe into acting, taking a few small roles over the past five years and her biggest one yet in 2019, when she played the matriarch of the family that owned Harriet Tubman in Kasi Lemmons’ Harriet.
An incredible Machine
Made of blood and love and hope and lust and steam
Calling, Calling, Calling, Calling, Calling, Calling, Calling
Mmmmmmm..
I didn’t realize that was Nettles in “Harriett.”