Sweet Soul Music - Dan Penn, Donnie Fritts, Eddie Hinton, Muscle Shoals sound in general, etc - C or C?

http://lcoutofdoors.org/events/muscle-shoals-all-star-band

Awww man, this was streamed live last night and I missed it.

The Muscle Shoals All-Stars
with special guests Patterson Hood, Bettye LaVette, Sam Moore, and Dan Penn
Donnie Fritts and John Paul White

Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at 7:30 pm

Damrosch Park

A friend says it might still work:

http://lcoutofdoors.org/events/muscle-shoals-all-star-band http://lcoutofdoors.org/events/muscle-shoals-all-star-band

Sometimes LC streams come and go so it might be worth watching sooner rather than later -- plus you'll need this weekend to watch Porretta soul webcasts!

http://www.porrettasoul.it/pdf/2015/Porretta%20Soul%20programma%20generale.pdf

Soul fest in Italy this weekend

http://www.undeniablydonnie.com/

20 minute movie doc on Donnie Fritts online here

Cool thanks.

Yeah thanks, I really enjoyed that.

Here, NPR's Tom Moon claims that vintage journeyman Charles Bradley's new Changes moves past the Stax/Volt tropes of his first two, Daptones-backed albums, but, although the horns aren't as prominent, the reverb rhythm guitar and/or keys maybe move it from associations with '67 to dawn of the 70s, very cautiously. Which is fine when he occasionally creates an effective contrast with the relatively cool backing, or eases up just a bit himself--on the the final three tracks mainly---but most of the time he's singing too insistently, like "Notice Meeee, my time has finally come!", which is when I tend to notice that he's not a distinctive stylist, so get out of my face with the "drama," esp. when the songs aren't that distinguished either---the other albums aren't at hand, but seems like he did better when candidly or overtly writing from his own experience (getting past this is also supposed to be a refreshing step, claims Moon, lest the "well of experience runs dry" or something like that).
Mostly he wants to stay rough and wired, so maybe just speed it up more next time? Anyway, some of it's pretty okay, and more may grow on me: http://www.npr.org/2016/03/22/471312866/first-listen-charles-bradley-changes

Oh, and speaking of Fritts, here's my Rolling Country 2015 take:

Spent most of my lunch break w Oh My Goodness, by Donnie Fritts, mostly known as a songwriter and Kristofferson's long-time keyboard player (saw him with KK in Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid, so yeah goes back pretty far). Not a good place to soak up the good vocal influences, so maybe that's why it took me a few tracks to get into this. Not that he sounds like his boss, but at times just a bit like a sub-Levon, sub-Bobby Charles, even---he knows how to phrase, but thin pipes can make him a little bit too Mr. Pitiful. Still, musical smarts win out, and he gets aboard the studio bus, which never seems crowded, despite having members of the Swampers, Alabama Shakes, St. Paul And The Broken Bones, John Paul White, even John Prine at one point. It's actually an intimate, mostly late night, sometimes slightly surreal setting, with Spooner Oldham's (and maybe Fritts', and even Will Oldham's) elegant keys, especially, suggesting early Randy Newman (or, you know, vice versa; Spooner's been around a long time too). "Lay It Down" is even a Sir Doug-worthy, anguished call (to self and other) for no-bullshit face-to-face. "Choo Choo Train" could even be a Newman---or Loaded-era VU---track. I think. It is a down home geezer album, but rec to those who like any of the musical associations mentioned, without being dependent on them.

Tom Moon can get a bit over-enthusiastic about albums, in my view. I haven't heard the new Bradley yet though



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 30, 2017

COUNTRY SOUL PIONEER ARTHUR ALEXANDER’S SELF-TITLED ALBUM
RETURNS IN EXPANDED EDITION FROM OMNIVORE RECORDINGS
In Stores July 28

1972 release is reissued with six bonus tracks, plus liner notes
from Barry Hansen (Dr. Demento and former Warner Bros. staff writer)

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — When the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Humble Pie, Dusty Springfield, George Jones & Johnny Paycheck, Bob Dylan, the Bee Gees and countless other artists cover your songs, you must be on to something.

Arthur Alexander was a songwriter and song stylist whose first records in the early 1960s—such as “Anna (Go To Him)” and “You Better Move On”—were some of the earliest hits recorded at Rick Hall’s Fame Studios and to feature the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. After a short break at the end of the decade, Alexander released the second of only three albums that he made in his lifetime—a self-titled “comeback” album in 1972.

On July 28, 2017, Omnivore Recordings will reissue Arthur Alexander, expanded with six bonus tracks—two previously unissued.

With new liner notes by Barry Hansen (better known to most as Dr. Demento), the package also features the piece he wrote for the album’s original issue. Arthur Alexander’s 12 tracks were produced by Muscle Shoals bassist Tommy Gogbill, and include a version of “Burning Love”—covered by Elvis Presley shortly after the album’s release. Alexander’s two Warner Bros. follow-up singles are also here, as well as a pair of tracks from the original sessions, unearthed and unheard until now.

As Hansen wrote in the original notes, “Arthur is especially proud of the variety and versatility of his work on this album. All of it is strong medicine, and should be a fine antidote for a lot of bad scenes.”
He adds in the current notes, “[The Omnivore volume] honors the soulful wonderment that Arthur brought forth from his difficult time on earth. “
Arthur Alexander, inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, is a music legend. Arthur Alexander is a legendary recording.

Track Listing:
1. I’m Comin’ Home
2. It Hurts To Want It So Bad
3. Go On Home Girl
4. In The Middle Of It All
5. Burning Love
6. Rainbow Road
7. Love’s Where Life Begins
8. Down The Back Roads
9. Call Me Honey
10. Come Along With Me
11. Call Me In Tahiti
12. Thank God He Came 


Bonus Tracks:
13. Mr. John
14. You Got Me Knockin’
15. Lover Please
16. They’ll Do It Every Time
17. I Don’t Want Nobody
18. Simple Song Of Love 


Tracks 17 & 18 previously unissued 

# # #

Watch (and feel free to post) the Arthur Alexander trailer:
http://youtu.be/IpyqLmjVZ9w

Nice.

I'm gonna go do a tour of the Fame and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio tours. Hopefully will be entertaining and educational and all that.

Enjoyed the tours. Fame Studio just has tours at 9am and 4 pm in the afternoon, and is a functioning studio in between tours and after. At 9 am we were waiting as the place was locked up. Then 2 interns showed followed a few minutes later by a guy saying how tired and hungover he was from a late-night session. He was an engineer there and the tourguide and the only one with a key.

Thu. Sept 28 - Dan Penn - Vernon City Auditorium, Vernon, Alabama -

https://highway61music.blogspot.com/

Rick Hall, of Muscle Shoals/Fame Studios

https://www.rollingstone.com/country/news/rick-hall-father-of-muscle-shoals-music-dead-at-85-w514854

Charles Hughes writing in Country Soul re Rick Hall is a must read

I finally got around to talking to Donnie Fritts late last year: https://www.nashvillescene.com/music/nashville-cream/article/20985423/donnie-fritts-the-cream-interview

Cool. Look forward to reading.

Charles Hughes writing in Country Soul re Rick Hall is a must read

Cover Me: The Eddie Hinton Songbook is an ace Ace import, easily findable for a nice price, on at least one ecommerce behemoth: Dusty Springfield, Bobby Womack, Aretha Franklin, Box Tops, Candi Staton, Sweet Inspirations, Tony Joe White, Cher, Lulu (both of whom do well (a duet might be even better), and a bunch of people I never heard of: one guy just walked in to sell a song, and the studio cats were like omg you gotta cut something, and he did and it's good but he sailed on somewhere---others are still in the biz, but not as singers,, and then there's an early protege of Bacharach and David (he doesn't sound like Dionne Warwick, maybe a little smooth but r&b for sure, and I want to hear him on some B&D songs.

Hinton's offerings can seem a bit generic at times, but they're usually good vehicles for better singers, and though his own voice (heard here on demo of "It's All Wrong But It's Alright"), is thin and he tends to strain it, otherwise canny phrasing provides a handy template for stronger vox, as compiler Tony Rounce points out in typically astute liner notes. Don't quite hear Left Banke in the one he does, but do hear it (as a joke on sensitive Southern Gothic x LB-type sentiment?) in some of "Poor Mary Has Drowned," as lead sung by The Brick Wall's Eddie Marshall, future daddy of Chan.
(speaking Hinton demos, the well-produced series on UK's Zane label is also worth checking out).
I don't like all of these---Willy Deville has always seemed tiresome, Don Varner's track is a Northern Soul fave, so what---but overall, oh mah soul.
track list:
1. Breakfast in Bed - Dusty Springfield
2. Down in Texas - Oscar Toney JR
3. Cover Me - Jackie Moore
4. A Little Bit Salty - Bobby Womack
5. Sure As Sin - Candi Staton
6. 300 Pounds of Hongry - Tony Joe White
7. Masquerade - Don Varner
8. Always David - the Sweet Inspirations
9. Poor Mary Has Drowned - Brick Wall
10. It's All Wrong But It's Alright - Eddie Hinton
11. Help Me Make It (Power of a Woman's Love) - Mink Deville
12. Save the Children - Cher
13. Every Natural Thing - Aretha Franklin
14. If I Had Let You in - the Box Tops
15. Satisfaction Guaranteed - Judy White
16. Standing on the Mountain - Percy Sledge
17. I Got the Feeling - the Amazing Rhythm Aces
18. Home for the Summer - the Hour Glass Featuring Greg and Duane Allman
19. Lay It on Me - Gwen McCrae
20. People in Love - Lou Johnson
21. Where You Come from - Bonnie Bramlett
22. Seventeen Year Old Girl - Mickey Buckins & the New Breed
23. Love Waits for No Man - Al Johnson
24. Where's Eddie - Lulu

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-country/donnie-fritts-songwriter-dead-obit-877617/

Aww. I need to check out Fritts most recent effort, a tribute to Arthur Alexander I believe. RIP

hadn't heard of that one, will look it up, thanks. My take on his 2015 album is posted on this thread, along with Edd's link to his interview, and other Fritts links.From April of this year, here's a good two-part Alabama Arts Radio interview I should have already linked. (stream/download):
Pt. 1:
http://www.arts.state.al.us/news_detail.aspx?ID=13261
Pt. 2:
http://www.arts.state.al.us/news_detail.aspx?ID=13260

Spooner Oldham:
http://www.arts.alabama.gov/actc/1/listserverindividual/20151124oldham.aspx

Rick Hall:
http://www.arts.alabama.gov/news_detail.aspx?ID=9717

David Hood:
http://www.arts.alabama.gov/news_detail.aspx?ID=8670

Jimmy Johnson:
http://www.arts.alabama.gov/news_detail.aspx?ID=8565

Thanks for posting those links dow - working my way through them and enjoying them a lot.

Listening to Donnie Fritts album June: A Tribute to Arthur Alexander , from 2018. He's sounding like a more soulful Randy Newman on first couple of cuts

Totally forgot about Arthur Alexander being called “June.” /pvmic

Me too.

Some cuts sound a bit like The Band

@JasonIsbell
Donnie Fritts was a legend back home, and a guide for many of us when we started writing and making music. I met Prine while working on Donnie’s album, and when I met Kristofferson and Willie all I had to say was “I’m a friend of Donnie Fritts.” Very proud to be able to say that.
10:24 AM · Aug 28, 2019

Aww man, now Jimmy Johnson of the Stompers at 66

https://www.al.com/life/2019/09/swampers-guitarist-jimmy-johnson-has-died.html

Johnson recorded w/ Aretha; &
cuts by Etta James (“Tell Mama”), Wilson Pickett (“Mustang Sally,” “Land of a 1000 Dances”), Paul Simon ""Kodachrome," “Loves Me Like a Rock”), Staple Singers (“I’ll Take You There," ”Respect Yourself"), Jimmy Cliff (“The Harder They Come”); Arthur Conley “Sweet Soul Music “

Age 76 not 66

Quite an impressive list of songs he played on.

Incredible list

Patterson Hood pieces on Donnie Fritts and Jimmy Johnson

David Hood on Jimmy Johnson, as told to Matt Wake---looked a lot better in the News, but just keep scrolling past the ads---and at the very bottom, see links to Wake's in-depth overage of Roger Hawkins, also pieces about Fritts, Johnny Sandlin and maybe others:
https://www.al.com/life/2019/09/a-swamper-a-brother-david-hood-talks-jimmy-johnson.html

Bham Newsman Mike Oliver's memory of a late and not so great Hinton gig:
https://www.al.com/alabama/2018/11/this-alabama-man-was-the-best-soul-singer-few-have-heard-mvc-confirms.html

Good interview w Dan Penn:
https://www.al.com/life/2019/07/shoals-songwriting-icon-talks-aretha-royalty-checks.html

Johnson & Hood holding forth just a few months ago:
https://www.al.com/entertainment/2016/12/muscle_shoals_has_got_the_swam.html

First listen to Reggie Young's Guitar Session Man has my headphones spinning: so much to take in, so much goodness coming at me from all directions, and would be so even if there weren't 24 tracks on one CD. Most thread-relevant elements noticed so far:
The only Muscle Shoals-recorded track is Little Milton's '02 version of Vince Gill's '90s country hit "Whenever You Come Around," here with a questing soul orchestra, layered and strong as the ones released like hounds in '60s Memphis, on the Box Tops' cover of Hank Snow's "I'm Movin' On" and Elvis's run with Percy Mayfield's "Stranger In My Own Hometown."
Most of this is from Memphis, incl. duh Dusty Springfield's performance of Gerry Goffin & Carole King's "Don't Forget About Me," which was on a single w the Fritts-written "Breakfast in Bed."
Fritts' KK bandmate Billy Swan rolls out of Nashville with a fast version of his own "Lover Please," a big late-doo wop hit for Clyde McPhatter :this take is more like what Ringo was doing at his 70s solo peak.
We also get the prime of James Carr, Solomom Burke, Bobby Blue Bland, and many others---my absolute fave rave at the moment is Jackie DeShannon's departure with "I Wanna Roo You," here a fast crashy waltz, mostly (slowing down for the bridge, but it's a set-up, like the mellow verses on "I'm Movin' On), and she's often, though not always, wailing the chorus as "I want to ruin ruin ruin you. Ruin you tonight."

Wow

Yeah! And Ace Records annotator Bob Dunham mentions Young's hot solos on the Swan track as prob not the sort of thing released on Nashville product since Mac Gayden's previous work with Area Code 615, which reminds me that this selection is immediately followed by the Gayden-written "Morning Glory," vigorously presented by James & Bobby Purify---they and the Box Tops also did versions of "I'm Your Puppet," right?

Yes. They had the hit on that one.

thanks discogs:

Tracklist
1 –Eddie Bond & His Stompers* Slip, Slip, Slippin' In
2 –Bill Black's Combo Carol
3 –Bobby Bland A Touch Of The Blues
4 –Jerry & Reggie* Dream Baby
5 –The Box Tops* I'm Movin' On
6 –Willie Mitchell The Champion - Part 1
7 –Solomon Burke Meet Me In Church
8 –Joe Tex Chicken Crazy
9 –King Curtis & The King Pins* In The Pocket
10 –James Carr More Love
11 –Dusty Springfield Don't Forget About Me
12 –Elvis Presley Stranger In My Own Home Town
13 –Jackie DeShannon I Wanna Roo You
14 –Dobie Gray Drift Away
15 –Sonny Curtis Rock'N Roll (I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life)
16 –Delbert McClinton Victim Of Life's Circumstances
17 –Billy Swan Lover Please
18 –James & Bobby Purify Morning Glory
19 –J.J. Cale Cocaine
20 –Merle Haggard I Think I'll Just Stay Here And Drink
21 –Waylon Jennings / Willie Nelson / Johnny Cash / Kris Kristofferson Highwayman
22 –Natalie Merchant Griselda
23 –Little Milton Whenever You Come Around
24 –Waylon Jennings Where Do We Go From Here

The Joe Tex track is not up to several of his hits mentioned in the notes, where Dunham says they would have picked "Skinny Legs and All," but it's already on another Young-inclusive Ace comp,Memphis Boys. Damm it, whiiiine

Judy Hood, self-dubbed "Swampette" (she's Mrs. David Hood), is now performing weddings* at Muscle Shoals Sound, still located at 3614 Jackson Highway---in the Before Times, revenue was mostly from studio tours, "merch sessions," fundraisers, and. oh yeah, recording---now not so much; they've had to augment. Base price for wedding experience(studio rental/ceremony): $400. Looks like fun, and something to keep in mind: https://www.al.com/life/2021/01/weddings-rock-at-iconic-muscle-shoals-recording-studio.html
*Judy: "I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a bona fide religious leader." She doesn't have to be! All you need to get married in Alabama now is a notarized contract (so nobody has to perform a gay marriage).

I did the tour there a few years ago. Did Fame studios first and then Muscle Shoals Sound. A fun, interesting day that was part of a great vacation that also included Nashville, Memphis, Clarksdale, and more .

Oh yeah, you saw the permanent Nashville Skyline exhibit, right? Think there's something like that, since installed, related to the Outlaws and Armadillos: Country's Roaring 70s comp.

Um, I don't think so re Nashville Skyline

If I did see a Nashville Skyline exhibit, it would likely have been in Nashville or maybe Memphis . Although once saw a bunch of Jon Langford paintings of J Cash ( and Dylan too I think) at Other Music in NY. But not in Muscle Shoals.

Nashville Skyline exhibit, -- is that the Dylan exhibit at the Country Music HOF?

This is the one I meant, at the Country Music Hall of Fame: "Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats::
https://cmhof.imgix.net/content/uploads/2019/05/11071546/Dylan-Cash-long-exhibit-image.jpg

https://countrymusichalloffame.org/education/school-programs/teacher-resource-portal/dylan-cash-the-nashville-cats/

Much more here, though don't know how it went, with quarantine etc:
https://countrymusichalloffame.org/press-release/country-music-hall-of-fame-and-museum-announces-2020-exhibition-schedule/

Really appealing Memphis Commercial Appeal feature by Bob Mehr, re The Last Soul Company: The Story of Malaco Records, by Rob Bowman, ethnomusicologist and author of Soulsville U.S.A., a study of Stax. He also wrote the notes to a Malaco box in the 90s. That was for the label's 30th Anniversary--for the 50th, a Malaco co-founder pitched him the idea to write "a lavish coffee table book that would tell the company's complete history." (So it's authorized, I take it, but on this piece, Bowman doesn't always agree w co-founder's comments). "It's the longest-running independent record label in American musical history," RB mentions, and and Mehr specifies, "It's existed in various forms: first as a booking agency, then a recording studio, then home to a hot house band, and ultimately a record label that has flirted with and found success across a number of genres from soul-blues to gospel." Mississippi Fred McDowell, King Floyd, Jean Knight, Little Milton, Johnny Taylor, Denise LaSalle, and (I think) ZZ Hill, many more were on there, and the house band also recorded with the Pointer Sisters, Rufus Thomas, and Paul Simon as mentioned here.
https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/03/23/malaco-records-the-last-soul-company-rob-bowman-music-books/4735772001/

Oh, speaking of Nashville museums, the one of African-American Music is intriguing:
https://nmaam.org/

And speaking of hit house bands, May will see a legit release of the Alex Chilton x Hi Rhythm live album, from a Memphis benefit show, Fredstock---details in here:
Alex Chilton S&D