Finley’s most recent album, Black Bayou, is an 11-track tour de force that coalesces gospel, blues, soul, and rock into a raw, thundering tribute to Finley’s home state of Louisiana. Telling tales of the bayou from childhood to now, the now 70-year-old Finley takes listeners on a journey that showcases his growly vocals, sultry falsetto and cements him as a living legend.

Black Bayou has already been heaped with praise from SPIN, The FADER, American Songwriter, UNCUT, Paste, MOJO, Brooklyn Vegan and a slew of other outlets.

Finley recently announced he’ll be joining The Black Keys as support for many of their North American shows this coming October.

Finley recorded Black Bayou at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound Studio in Nashville. It’s the fourth time the duo have worked together, although for this record they did things a little differently. Rather than write songs beforehand—as they did on 2017’s Goin’ Platinum and 2021’s Sharecropper’s Son—they conceived everything in the studio, with Auerbach leading a band of some of the finest players around: drummers Patrick Carney (The Black Keys) and Jeffrey Clemens (G. Love & Special Sauce), bassist Eric Deaton, and legendary Hill Country blues guitarist Kenny Brown, along with vocalists Christy Johnson and LaQuindrelyn McMahon—who just happen to be Finley’s daughter and granddaughter. They worked quickly, devising their parts spontaneously and getting everything in one take.

“Black Bayou is definitive Robert Finley—a master musician and entertainer—taking all his bluesy swagger up a notch, a bigger sound with heavier grooves, full confirmation that Robert Finley only gets better with time.”
SPIN

“Black Bayou’s swampier blues and subtler arrangements offer a versatile range of material that reveals the wide expanse of his vocal prowess.”
No Depression

“An anthem of hope”
The FADER

“The 11-track album, a portrait of a life that comes together in strokes of gospel, blues, and rock and roll, is simple, relatable, and wise, but above all honest.”
American Songwriter

“Black Bayou is surely the album Finley was put on Earth to create, filled with stories only he could tell. 5 STAR REVIEW”
Mojo Magazine

“Approaching his eighth decade, then, and with no shortage of tall tales to impart, Robert Finley’s work here is clearly just getting started.”
Uncut

“In no short terms, Finley’s journey thus far has been nothing short of mythical.”
PASTE