Brittany Howard is riding high this week. On the heels of the 63rd Grammy Awards, at which Howard took home Best Rock Song (for “Stay High”), the soulful powerhouse appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on March 16. Guitar in tow, the Alabama Shakes singer/songwriter performed her stirring ballad called “Short and Sweet.”
Live from Nashville’s The Sanctuary, Howard unleashed a moving, subdued performance. There are miles between us / Time between us / There is something between us, she sings over one lone guitar. I may be a fool to dream of you / But, God, it feels so good to dream at all.
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“Short and Sweet” is ripped from Howard’s solo debut, Jaime, released in 2019, which also earned a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. On the record’s rich exploration in duality, she told us in 2019: “I’ve been poor; I’ve been rich. I’ve been in straight relationships; I’ve been in same-sex relationships. I’m half-white, and I’m half-black. I’ve lived in the South, and I’ve lived outside the South. So I have a duality of perspective on the world. When you’re like that, it can be hard to describe your identity to other people, because they don’t want to accept that you can be everything.
“Some folks like to live in a box where a lot of people are, because there’s safety in numbers. It’s a place where a lot of people will say you’re doing it right, because you’re doing it like everyone else,” she continued. “Some people, all they want is the car, the house, the $900 hoodie. But I wasn’t like that, and sometimes that felt lonesome. But I found there are other folks who don’t want to live in those boxes, and we tend to gravitate to one another.”
Howard also earned several other Grammy Award nominations this year, including Best R&B Performance (“Goat Head”), Best Rock Performance (“Stay High”), and Best American Roots Performance (“Short and Sweet”).
Check out her latest performance below.