Ten years after its release, William Bell’s This Is Where I Live returns in an expanded digital edition. Arriving November 20 via Stax Records and Craft Recordings, the anniversary release adds two tracks to the GRAMMY®-winning 2016 album: the previously unreleased “Check Out My Karma” and “I Forgot to Be Your Lover,” featuring Snoop Dogg and the Stax Music Academy.
“Check Out My Karma” is available to stream September 30, offering the first preview of the expanded release.
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BACK HOME AT STAX
William Bell’s relationship with Stax stretches back to the label’s formative years. As its first male signing, he released “You Don’t Miss Your Water” in 1961 and went on to record enduring songs including “Everybody Loves a Winner” and “I Forgot to Be Your Lover.”
His influence extended well beyond his own records. Bell and Booker T. Jones co-wrote Albert King’s “Born Under a Bad Sign,” while Bell penned the holiday favorite “Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday.” His songs would eventually be recorded by artists ranging from Cream, Carole King, and The Byrds to Billy Idol and King Curtis.
After leaving Stax in 1969, Bell continued writing, recording, and producing, scoring another major hit with 1977’s “Tryin’ to Love Two.” This Is Where I Live brought him back to Stax more than four decades later.
WRITING FROM EXPERIENCE
For This Is Where I Live, Bell teamed with GRAMMY®-winning producer John Leventhal, who performed much of the album’s instrumental work and co-wrote extensively with Bell. Marc Cohn, Rosanne Cash, Cory Chisel, and Scott Bomar also contributed to the writing.
The songs draw directly on Bell’s perspective after decades spent making music. “The Three of Me,” “All Your Stories,” “All the Things You Can’t Remember,” and the autobiographical title track tackle memory, love, perseverance, and the complicated business of looking backward.
Bell also returned to “Born Under a Bad Sign,” revisiting the blues standard he and Booker T. Jones had written decades earlier for Albert King. Alongside the darker “Poison in the Well,” it helped connect the album’s contemporary sound with the blues, gospel, country, and Southern soul traditions that shaped Bell’s earliest work.
This Is Where I Live earned the 2017 GRAMMY® Award for Best Americana Album.
LISTENING NOTES
“The Three of Me”
Bell takes stock of who he was, who he is, and the space between the two. It’s a song that benefits from having a few decades behind it.
“Poison in the Well”
Go here for the darker side of the record. Bell doesn’t oversell a line, which only makes the tension underneath it hit harder.
“Born Under a Bad Sign”
Bell helped write the song for Albert King. Hearing the songwriter step inside it himself nearly 50 years later gives this blues staple a different weight.
“This Is Where I Live”
The album’s autobiographical centerpiece finds Bell looking back at the road that brought him here without getting lost in nostalgia.
“I Forgot to Be Your Lover” featuring Snoop Dogg and the Stax Music Academy
A Bell classic meets two very different generations, pairing one of Stax’s foundational artists with Snoop Dogg and young musicians from the Stax Music Academy.
ANOTHER CHAPTER
The two additions to This Is Where I Live extend the album’s story in different directions. “Check Out My Karma” brings a previously unheard recording into Bell’s catalog, while “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” reaches back to one of his signature songs and puts it in conversation with a new generation.
A decade after its release, the expanded edition makes room for both, adding something new to an album built around a lifetime of songs and experience.
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