Tune in to a mini-concert with Billy Allen + The Pollies

Today's mini-concert offers a fine story about connection and collaboration. Billy Allen and Jay Burgess were session musicians at the legendary Fame Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala., and both of them had their own musical projects. Billy Allen was a solo artist, and Burgess had founded the band The Pollies.

Even though they'd met before, a collaboration at Fame for Little Richard's "Greenwood, Mississippi" led to the musicians teaming up and becoming Billy Allen + The Pollies.

Their retro blues rock sound has made fans of Brittany Howard, from Alabama Shakes, and Jason Isbell, who invited the band to open for him for several shows. Their debut album, coming later this year, is called Black Noise, and the band performed some of those new songs for a live audience at 2024's NON-COMMvention in Philadelphia.

This episode of World Cafe was produced by Will Loftus. The web build was created by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson.