Eddie 9V brings his Southern roots into sharp focus on Down Here, joining forces with Dan Auerbach for an album that travels freely between blues, soul, country, and rock and roll. Recorded at Easy Eye Sound Studios, the twelve-song set gives the Atlanta-raised singer and guitarist room to stretch, with Auerbach handling production and Eddie concentrating on the performances.

After building his reputation through years of touring and albums including Little Black Flies, Capricorn, and Saratoga, Eddie approaches this record with a new willingness to let others into his creative process. He arrived in Nashville with thirty songs, then entered writing sessions with Auerbach, Marcus King, Pat McLaughlin, and Daniel Tashian. For an artist accustomed to overseeing his own recordings, the collaboration opens up possibilities while relieving him of the need to manage every detail.

That freedom carried into sessions completed in less than a week. With the writing largely settled before recording began, the musicians focused on getting a performance that feels alive. “Whole Lot Coming For You” sets the pace with a fast-moving collision of Southern rock and soul. Eddie’s unusual reference point for the song is a photograph of a vintage Dodge Daytona race car, an appropriate image for an opener built to move.

“Blowin’ Up” follows with slide guitar, an insistent groove, and a mischievous streak, while “Satisfy The Way I Do” and “Horses” bring his soul influences forward. The former begins as a slower, Al Green-inspired demo before Auerbach helps reshape it with a new chorus. “Horses,” written quickly on the road, draws inspiration from cult soul singer Darondo and gives Eddie’s more tender side some space.

His version of George McCrae’s “Rock Your Baby” offers another connection to the soul records he loves. Eddie gives the 1974 disco hit a Southern feel, adding slide guitar inspired by Duane Allman and imagining how the song might sound if McCrae had taken it to Muscle Shoals.

The title track brings the album closest to home. Its steady, Creedence-style rhythm supports memories of the hundred-acre farm in Monticello, Georgia, where Eddie lived with his grandparents after his parents’ divorce. Those recollections extend into a portrait of small-town life, acknowledging the hardship alongside the attachment that keeps people rooted there. The gospel-tinged closer, “Come And Get Me Lord,” turns toward loss and reflection.

Across Down Here, Eddie 9V makes room for both the exuberance of a band cutting loose and the experiences behind the songs. Dan Auerbach’s production encourages that range, capturing a musician whose guitar playing supplies plenty of fire, but whose Southern upbringing gives the album its heart.