Editor’s Note: The Empty Pockets are a blues, Americana and rock-based band based out of Chicago. They’ve had a decade of success on multiple Billboard charts with two consecutive #1 Blues Albums. In addition to their own music they’ve served as the touring and backing band for legendary artists such as Al Stewart, Kenny Loggins, and Simon Kirke. On October 23, the band released their latest album Dear Billionaires. You can listen to it here. It was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, with the band saying in the press materials that it was a “magical London Studio 2 session with raw performances inspired by The Beatles.”
In the press materials for the album, the band says that “this is not a record about people we will never meet. It’s about us – the people working, loving, worrying, laughing, getting by and trying to build a life while the ground keeps moving underneath them. Across 10 songs, Dear Billionaires looks at money, work, relationships, survival and the question underneath all of it: Who can ordinary people rely on?”
“Dear Billionaires was captured with all four of us playing together in Abbey Road Studio 2,” they continue. “Instead of polishing away the mistakes, movement or electricity, the tracks are exactly as we played them live – no overdubs. Vintage instruments, tight harmonies, and the natural sound of the room give these songs their warmth, scale and urgency. It sounds like a band because it is one.”
The album features the band’s emotional cover of Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr’s classic “God Bless the Child”. Singer, songwriter and keyboardist Erika Brett leads the group’s interpretation of the song with her powerful voice. You can watch the Jeremy Eichenbaum-directed video, which includes footage of the Abbey Road Studio Two take heard on Dear Billionaires, below:
Below, Brett wrote an exclusive Artist Essay for SWT about interpreting the song and putting her own spin for the band’s performance.
This song still surprises me.
When my then-boyfriend and bandmate, Josh, suggested I perform “God Bless the Child” for my choir teacher’s retirement concert, it was an important yes.
Over the years, it became a staple of our live performances. And like when Billie sang it, sometimes the song is melancholy, sometimes it’s hopeful. Once in a while, it’s even triumphant. The groove changes, which means the cadence changes, and suddenly the same words mean something entirely different.
Written in 1941 by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr., “God Bless the Child” speaks to wealth, inequality, and the precariousness of depending on someone else’s generosity. Its roots are deeply personal, shaped by Billie’s experience as a Black American woman in a society where opportunity and financial security were never distributed equally. Sound familiar? How much has changed?
Last year, we decided to include our version on our new album, Dear Billionaires. We recorded the entire record in just two days at Abbey Road’s Studio Two in London, The Beatles’ room. With limited time, we used unadulterated, full-band performances rather than build songs piece by piece. We wanted to capture the magic of playing together in that holy space.
For “God Bless the Child,” the guys recorded a clean, spirited take that was a little faster than I was used to. The rhythm section got soulful and a little funky. We loved the raw energy and wanted to keep it. But I hadn’t quite found the vocal yet.
So we brought the track back to our humble Chicago studio to finish it.
For most of my life, I’d performed this song standing up, projecting to a room full of people. I knew where to breathe, where to push, where to pull back. But this time, standing felt wrong. Singing these words was growing heavier.
I wanted to feel my tired feet fully on the floor. I wanted to settle into the song rather than stand over it.
So I found a chair, turned down the lights, adjusted the microphone, and sat.
I wanted to try it quietly, passionately, and everything in between. To feel the words and the melody without deciding in advance what the performance should sound like.
There’s a strange vulnerability in singing a song you know so well without relying on all the ways you’ve learned to perform it. In that chair, there was no audience to reach. Just the song, the microphone, and the question of what I actually wanted to say.
I wanted to leave room for tenderness, frustration, resignation, and defiance. The track beneath me was pushing forward just outside my comfort zone, and instead of fighting it, I found new ways into a familiar melody.
After 20 years, I still don’t think I’ve sung “God Bless the Child” the same way twice. And I hope I never do.
The world keeps changing. So do I. And somehow, this 85-year-old song keeps finding new things to tell us all.
Like others telling incredible stories in their own words? Check out more Artist Essays here. Or choose your own adventure by restarting your journey on SWT here.
You can connect with Erika and The Empty Pockets via the links in her author box below
Erika Brett
Contributor
Erika Brett is a Chicago-based singer, songwriter, and keyboardist for The Empty Pockets, an independent, Billboard-charting blues rock band.
