BIO

Way back in 2008—before the Grammy nominations, the steady stream of sold-out tours and critically acclaimed records, the co-signs from rock royalty like the Rolling Stones, Robert Plant, Bonnie Raitt, Iggy Pop, and many more—Grace Potter holed up in an L.A. studio with the legendary T Bone Burnett and cut an album unlike any other in her wildly expansive body of work. Made with a crew of musical luminaries, the Burnett-produced LP captured Potter at a moment of profound metamorphosis, then wound up shelved. After joining forces with her former label Hollywood Records to unearth those recordings from deep in the vaults, Potter at long last presents the official release of Medicine: a powerhouse album that’s equal parts archival gem and thrilling new addition to her extraordinary catalog.

“I remember being in the studio with T Bone and feeling like this was everything I’d been waiting for, and I couldn’t go wrong—it never occurred to me that the album might not get released,” says Potter. “But even though I felt a great urgency to put the record out back then, I’m at peace with the fact that it’s taken this long. I’m at a point where I have a much stronger understanding of what I have to offer the world, and this offering feels like it’s right on time.” 

Arriving on the heels of her fifth solo album Mother Road—a 2023 LP that marked her most fiercely visionary work to date—Medicine came to life soon after the release of This Is Somewhere, the 2007 sophomore effort from her former band Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. After stumbling upon a video of Potter delivering an a cappella rendition of the title track from the band’s 2005 debut Nothing but the Water, Burnett didn’t hesitate when approached about working with Potter. They arranged a meeting at the Hotel Bel-Air—an occasion so consequential she recalls every moment in ultra-vivid detail. (“I remember wearing a Missoni dress I’d bought vintage, which was unraveling at the seams,” says Potter. “I arrived way too early,  so I listened to Linda Ronstadt’s ‘Blue Bayou’ on repeat in the car. Then, I finally sat down with T-Bone and Bob Cavallo, head of Hollywood Records at the time. I ordered corned-beef hash and sat dead-still trying to keep my dress from falling apart as we talked about the project and everything we could create together.”) Fresh off his widely celebrated turn as producer on Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’ Raising Sand—a 2007 album whose five Grammy wins added to a legacy that also included producing O Brother, Where Art Thou?—Burnett approached the project with a definitive plan for what would become Medicine. “T Bone’s idea was that my voice and the rhythm would carry the record,” she says. “He told me my voice was a force of nature, that it needed to be compelled forward by something with a superhuman momentum—which was not at all what I’d expected, and so much more enticing and exciting as a new access point for my musicality.”

Recorded at The Village Studios, Medicine strays far from the high-spirited roots-rock of Potter’s earliest work, bringing a shadowy intensity to her soul-baring songs of lust and longing and self-salvation. To carve out the sonic landscape envisioned for the album, Burnett enlisted his longtime collaborators Jim Keltner, bassist Dennis Crouch, guitarist Marc Ribot, and keyboardist Keefus Ciancia. “It was like being in a masterclass every day,” says Potter. “I was so game for whatever T Bone wanted to try, whether it was making space for my voice to really ring out or letting the music swallow me whole so I could drown a little bit and then come back to the surface.” For Potter, that process unlocked aspects of her vocal artistry previously unknown to her. “At the time I was in a rock band where screaming over the loudest guitar onstage was my main job,” she says. “But this album often required real restraint and nuance, and it taught me so much about how to play with those moments of tension and release.”

Opening with “Before The Sky Falls,” Medicine immediately reveals the strangely timeless quality of its songwriting and sound. With its strutting grooves, rumbling drums, and frenetic guitar tones, the quietly seductive track channels the supreme pleasure of surrendering to love in times of chaos. One of the first songs recorded for Medicine, “Before The Sky Falls,” also set the tone for near-telepathic improvisation that fueled much of the album. “At the start of that session T Bone told us, ‘I want Keefus to begin the journey with a single color, and I want you all to let him wander for a while—it’ll be like a Quaker ceremony where you don’t speak until you feel called,’” she says. “There was no real discussion about the arrangement; he just wanted us to enter into a state of working together by letting each musician slowly build around what the others were bringing in.”

Over the course of its 12 songs, Medicine achieves a hypnotic power thanks to the charmed interplay between Potter’s shapeshifting voice and the sonic exploration of her collaborators. On “Low Road,” for instance, her vocals slip into a moody smolder as she recounts a surreal night in Austin when she roamed the city alone and encountered a man dressed as a priest. “I was in a dreamlike state and talked with him for a long time about his regrets and love affairs gone wrong, and it made me realize how we as humans are so desperate to connect with people who’ve experienced the same pain we have.” Meanwhile, on “If I Was from Paris,” Potter shares the first song ever written on her iconic Gibson Flying V: a gloriously brash come-on propelled by primal drumbeats, slinky guitar riffs, and coquettish harmonies. “T Bone understood exactly where I was coming from and told me, ‘Let’s make this song as subversive as it can possibly be.’”  

With its tracklist encompassing everything from the sublimely languid psychedelia of “Colors” to the avant-blues majesty of “To Shore” to the paradigm-shifting “Oasis,” Medicine takes its title from an epic femme-fatale tale that Potter considers particularly formative in shaping her songwriting voice. “It was the first song I wrote when I got the official call that I was green-lit to make the record with T-Bone. I didn’t even wait to get out of the bathtub. I just wrote and wrote until I was a prune…and there she was.”  Spiked with a bit of feverish guitar work from Burnett, the groove-heavy and horn-soaked “Medicine” brilliantly shifts between desperation and ferocity as Potter delves into the darkest realms of her subconscious. “T Bone had given me some ideas about what to sing about for this record, and one of his questions was, ‘What shows up in your dreams?’” she says. “That led me to write about this haunting character who’s threatening me, but who also is me. It felt like an introduction to a character I’ve come to know very well, and who’s wandered into many of my songs since then.” One of several tracks later revisited for the Nocturnals’ next album—and featured here in their original, never-before-heard form—“Medicine” has since become a staple in Potter’s notoriously transcendent live show. “Over the years I’ve brought in more and more elements of dream states and magic into my live set, and so much of that was influenced by my work with T Bone,” she points out. 

Despite the undeniable success of Potter and Burnett’s collaboration, Hollywood Records decided to put Medicine on the backburner in favor of developing the demos she’d recently created with multi-Grammy-winning producer Mark Batson (Alicia Keys, Dr. Dre, Dave Matthews Band)—a prolific musical partnership that eventually led to Grace Potter and the Nocturnals’ 2010 self-titled album. “Batson and I clicked instantly. We had a great shorthand and we’d already been writing together throughout the winter and spring of 2008. The demos I made with him were fast and sexy, and had a lot of swagger—the label felt going in that direction was the best way to keep up the momentum my band had been building,” says Potter. “I remember playing in Central Park and my former manager telling me, ‘The label doesn’t want to put out Medicine. But good news: you’re on a plane to L.A. tonight, and we’re going straight to the studio to make the record with Batson.’ That album ended up being a big success, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it—but going back into the studio to record a lot of the same songs all over again felt like something out of Groundhog Day.” 

Since the making of Medicine, Potter has forged a formidable career that’s included sharing the stage with the likes of Robert Plant, Allman Brothers Band, the Rolling Stones, and Mavis Staples, in addition to earning three Grammy nominations (including Best Rock Album for her critically lauded 2019 album Daylight and another for a 2011 collaboration with country superstar Kenny Chesney). “Medicine brought me to a new understanding of the diversity of musicality I have within me—it showed me I had so much to share beyond the ’70s-throwback, rock-and-roll thing I had been known for up to that point,” says Potter. “Maybe it was just so far behind its time…or so ahead of its time…that I needed to step away from it for a while, keep exploring and keep moving away from anything derivative. This is an album that truly belongs in its own space, and I’m so happy to finally give it the platform I know it deserves.”