How Hard Work Inspired Robert Finley’s New Dan Auerbach-Produced LP

To call Robert Finley’s life story the basis of a movie is both accurate and overly facile. The musician, now in his sixties, grew up the son of a sharecropper in small Winnsboro, Louisiana. He toted water, milked cows and sweated along with his parents and his seven siblings, barely earning a living and never earning a fair share. As a kid, Finley would go with his family to church (his father was very religious) and he’d sing in the choir while watching the hands of the band members on their guitars.

Finley got his first guitar around 10 years old and he played any chance he could. Later, he joined the military and found himself a bandleader in the barracks. But after leaving the ranks, his creative career never found the proper footing. Finley worked as a carpenter. He eventually lost his sight. He aged. But one day his life changed. Recently, he began working often with The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and the Louisiana native will release his second Auerbach-produced rock ‘n’ roll LP, Sharecropper’s Son, on May 21.