On the day of the release of their superb and serious-minded 11th album, “How I Got Over,” the long-standing
Later on, the members will crowd into their tiny rehearsal space with
the rarely played “Hidden Shadows.” They’ll play those with Hancock for
warm-ups and commercial breaks during the show that night.
And they’ll find time for a second musical guest —
Eminem. Slim Shady came to 30 Rock to push his own album, “Recovery,”
and to be backed up on his single “Won’t Back Down” by the Roots, whose
reputation as the band that can play anything (and play it well) has
only grown in the 15 months they’ve had a nightly platform on TV. That
joint performance will be sprung on a deliriously surprised audience,
and taped to be aired later in the week.
Right now, though, the Roots are busy working up a regular routine with
The shtick is this: The Roots lay down a Quiet Storm
boudoir groove. Williams reads the headlines straight, in this case
about the Gulf oil spill. Fallon puts a sexualized,
spin on them, then Roots rapper Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter
faux-earnestly sings lines such as, “The oil is leaking out of control
/ Obama said stop drilling in those holes.”
The routine is coming together nicely after two run-throughs. But
— a workaholic who can usually be found deejaying somewhere on rare
weekends off when the Roots aren’t squeezing in a couple of gigs (“He
needs to learn to stay home,” his personal assistant says) — suggests
they do it one more time.
“Practice makes perfect,” says the gentle-giant bandleader and producer behind the drum kit.
“It’s OK,” Williams replies drily. “It’s not like I have another job.”
On the Fallon show, “How I Got Over,” originally
planned for release a year ago, is hardly treated as an afterthought.
It was highlighted in a weeklong countdown that culminated with the
band’s performance of the soul-searching “Dear God 2.0” with
celestial-voiced guest
The album, whose title track borrows its name from a
gospel standard, is a touch brighter in outlook than the band’s last
two, the hard-hitting “Game Theory” (2006) and the combative “Rising
Down” (2008).
sipping a second triple-cappuccino as his bandmates hash out “Won’t
Back Down” with Eminem. Trotter is recovering from a “How I Got Over”
celebration jam at the
Still, the rapper says, this long-awaited release day essentially feels “like another day in the office.”
Roots manager
the Fallon gig has been “life-stabilizing, not life-changing.” Rather
than play 150 shows a year, the band — whose roots go back to the ’80s,
when
Those include the annual Roots Picnic at the
which this month was headlined by Vampire Weekend. The Roots will also
play at the July Fourth Welcome America show, preceding pop act the Goo
Goo Dolls.
That pecking order has peeved many
“The real headline position is the person that goes
on right before the headliner,” he says, getting his Afro blown out
before going onstage. “We insist on never headlining our own festival.”
Guitarist
The Fallon show gives the Roots a high-profile home
when the music industry is in flux, if not outright collapse. And their
comedy bits “show people another side of the group they don’t normally
see,” says Trotter.
Working on a TV show has also changed the band’s
music. “We get a lot of rehearsal time in,” Trotter says. The Roots can
switch from
Soul singer John Legend appears on two songs on “How
I Got Over” and joins the Roots for an album of covers called “Wake
Up!” due in September. That teaming probably would have happened
anyway, Trotter says, but other guest stars, such as harpist
“There’s no other job where I would be able to work
with this many artists of this caliber,” says Trotter. “From Chick
Corea and
The Fallon gig has also given the Roots something to prove.
“We had to prove it wasn’t a bad decision for us to
take this job,” says Trotter, whose growing resume as an actor includes
the forthcoming drama “Night Catches Us,” starring
For
the title “How I Got Over” represents “this invisible mountain we all
have to climb over,” and fits in nicely with “Dear God 2.0,” which
“asks hard questions in a meek way.”
That “How I Got Over” is the title to a gospel song
“speaks to the spirituality of the group,” says Trotter. “But it also
speaks to two decades of endurance. It could just as easily been called
‘Why We’re Still Here.’ Or ‘Why the Roots Matter.’ …
“It’s hard to keep consistently putting out music
and have the quality keep being on an incline, for you to feel like
you’re growing every time you put a record out. To be able to make a
mark, and not become obsolete — that’s what it’s an affirmation of.”
———
(c) 2010, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Visit Philadelphia Online, the Inquirer’s World Wide Web site, at http://www.philly.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
