Times three

ALABAMA 3 like to throw a curve ball.

They may come from the South but it is South London not the Deep South of America; their name may suggest there are three of them, but the line-up is invariably anything but three in number.

They adopt gloriously daft stage names; Rob Spragg, the son of a Welsh Mormon preacher man, prefers to rev up as Larry Love; Jake Black, the MC, answers to the far less snappy The Very Reverend Dr D Wayne Love.

Alabama 3 are best known for Woke Up This Morning, the theme tune to Mafioso series The Sopranos that suggested they just had to be blues musicians from the Mississippi swamps. This year they have re-recorded that 1997 track - and ten more besides - for the acoustic collection The Last Train To Mashville Vol 2.

Volume 2, you note. Well spotted, says vocalist Larry Love, freshly awoken from his slumbers after a late-night recording session.

"Yes, you may have noticed we've called it Volume 2, when Volume 1 isn't even out yet! So people will go 'Why is it Volume 2?' but it's just having a laugh, isn't it," says Larry, who will be playing a long sold-out gig at Fibbers in York tonight.

"Volume 1 is kind of a mythical record for us to have fun with journalists. A bit like that name, Alabama 3.Though there have been some gigs with three, sometimes it's two, sometimes it's three, sometimes it's 23. That way it confuses the taxman, as well.

"We'll turn up at a gig and there'll be the 23 of us, and the venue manager will be going 'But it says Alabama Three'."

For this tour, however, it will indeed be the Alabama 3, or rather, there will be three versions of Alabama 3 in one gig.

"You're going to see the whole darn lot over three hours," says Larry. "We'll be starting off with the Memphis 9; that's the laptop electro version of Alabama 3.

"Then we'll go into the Larry Love Showband doing acoustic versions of the Alabama 3 blues and finally we'll morph into the full Alabama 3 experience.

"Three hours of it. We're going to be knackered. We'll need doppel-gangers, but no one will notice!"

Alabama 3 began rehearsals for their tour last weekend. "Can't wait," says Larry. "We haven't all been in a room together for six months. We have worked, just not in the same room together, because the studio just isn't big enough for 23 big ugly men all at once."

Assorted members led by Larry and the Reverend have been working on Alabama 3's next album, a project for the Memphis Nine branch of the collective. "The record company came along to this A Little Acid House On The Prairie gig we did, and liked it, and so we're doing this album," says Larry."

The title? "We're thinking we might call it Outlaw, 'cos there are three outlaw songs on there, after we were asked to do a piece for the Big Issue on outlaw songs," he says.

Memphis Nine is not a radical departure for a band rooted in a mischievous melange of Hank Williams, gospel and acid house. "It's something we've always done. Alabama 3's component parts have always been blues, country and techno," says Larry. "Memphis Nine is the techno end, the Larry Love Showband is the country end; put them together and you have the Alabama 3."

The chameleon Alabama 3 can tune into any surroundings. "We've played at Ronnie Scott's jazz club, the 100 Club famous for its punk past and the Clerkenwell Literary Festrival," says Larry. "Any modern musician worth his salt should be able to adapt, stripping down songs to blues or country, or doing it techno with the Memphis 9, remixing our stuff live on stage on laptops.

"If you can't deconstruct, you're stuffed - and if you look at the blues and jazz tradition, they constantly reinvent, so why can't we? Musicians are whores basically; they will play with anyone, but it suits record companies to keep them in just one band as it's easier for them that way."

Easy? Alabama 3 will never settle for easy, wherever they woke up this morning.

Alabama 3, Fibbers, York, December 5th , sold out.

Updated: 16:09 Thursday, December 04, 2003