After progressing through regional tryouts in Huntsville, Alabama, waiting in line in Greensboro, North Carolina to sing for Simon Cowell, Britney Spears, L.A. Reid, and Demi Lovato, North Carolina, and advancing through to the Miami bootcamp, Allen was just one step away from advancing to the all-important at-home stage of The X Factor.
But Allen wasn’t chosen as one of a few dozen standout singers who were invited to the reality TV show judges’ homes, so in the early 2012, he returned home to Alabama. He continued to ply his trade, night after night, singing other people’s songs with his cover band throughout his corner of the South.
Allen grew up on a farm in Town Creek, Alabama, just a 30-minute drive from Muscle Shoals, the legendary music town that straddles the murky Tennessee River as it cuts through rural northwest Alabama. Despite its proximity, Allen knew little of the Shoals’ history.
What he did know, however, was that he loved singing. Like many rural Southerners, much of his home life revolved around the First Missionary Baptist Church in Town Creek, where Allen’s mother occasionally preached. She required him to sit in the choir stand during services, rather than at the back of the church with all the other kids. There, as early as three-years-old, Allen was enthralled by the feeling of signing, one he describes as similar to flying.
“I would sing with my eyes closed,” he says. “And sometimes, when I’d open my eyes, I’d be turned around, facing the wall.”
At home, he was drawn to popular music like The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, D’Angelo, Tina Turner, and especially Rod Stewart. After a single year at Calhoun Community College in nearby Decatur, Allen left school to focus on singing. He joined a cover band, picking up shift work to fill his days and help pay his bills. Often, Allen would head straight to work after a gig and sleep a few fitful hours in his car before his boss woke him with a rap on his car window.
At the time, Allen was cutting cover songs at the Shoals’ legendary FAME Studios with owner Rodney Hall. It was Allen’s first exposure to what he describes as “the power of that area.”
He says, “It was a new world to me. … Just 20 minutes away.”
