Sugar & the Hi Lows

Sugar & The Hi Lows know that popular music isn’t a mirror, that melodies and lyrics aren’t tethered to the cultural landscapes of their day. Breathing a new sound into music with an old soul, this rootsy, vintage duo reminds us why we dance, especially in the midst of hard times.

Music has always had the power to buoy spirits and wash communal hardships into the background. When Judy Garland clicked her sparkling heels together and sang of a place “Over the Rainbow,” for example, the rest of the nation was still reeling from the Great Depression. And though decades have come and gone, music has never lost that power.

Ringing in their new sound, Sugar & The Hi Lows are bringing back the era of feel good music, the days when one take was enough and an auto-tune was a thing you did to your ’55 Chevy. Brought to life by experienced songwriter/performers Trent Dabbs and Amy Stroup, Sugar & The Hi Lows is a bit of a nostalgic love offering.

Growing up in Mississippi under the sway of Memphis blues, Dabbs was raised to the soundtrack of Motown, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and The Temptations. “My father used to make blanket statements like, ‘It’s not good if you can’t dance to it,'” he remembers. And though he wasn’t into his father’s sonic selection at the time, he says that style of music has come to evoke a feeling he can’t get anywhere else.
“The older I got, I realized how that was kind of seeping into what I loved musically, and it just brings this joy, it brings this happiness,” Dabbs says. “With the climate of everything right now – with the economy – you could write the most depressing songs ever, but I really feel like the world needs light; the world needs lighthearted.”

Dabbs and Stroup are certainly no strangers to pop culture. Both mainstays in Nashville’s singer-songwriter scene, the two have heard dozens of their songs spinning behind hit shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Parenthood, Private Practice, So You Think You Can Dance, Pretty Little Liars and more.

Dabbs’ music has been touted by Taylor Swift, and Stroup was named one of the Top 20 Songwriters Under 30 by A Prairie Home Companion. Though fully at home in their niche, the two still chose to step away from their self-described “heavy mellow” sound to pursue something with a bit more swing in its step.

The happy-go-lucky numbers that evolved into Sugar & The Hi Lows first began to take shape when Dabbs purchased a vintage box amp and sat down in his basement for a regular co-write with Stroup.
“We got to talking about his dad and throwback music from the ’50s and ’60s and just like, ‘Why isn’t there that type of music now?'” Stroup recalls. That day, their song “This Can’t Be the Last Time” came in less than two hours. A newfound creative freedom had been tapped, and the next seven tracks for the project fell quickly into place.

“We weren’t really trying to treat it like a band,” Stroup explains. “We just wrote this series of songs, but they didn’t feel like an Amy Stroup song or an Amy and Trent duet.”

Sugar & The Hi Lows’ self-titled debut is an eight-track project with the heart of a younger Robert Plant and Alison Krauss collaboration. Crackling with throwback phrases – “I’ve been buzzin’ round your honey/ And babe I want it all for me” – the record is laced with gospel, soul, rock and an edge that will convince you you’re listening to new music through an AM radio.

From the James Morrison-like groove of “Show and Tell” to the peppy 1950s beat of “Two Day High,” Sugar & The Hi Lows let the music speak for itself and simply invite their fans to join in whatever ensues.

-By Brittany Joy Cooper