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

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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.

curmudgeon, Thursday, 27 July 2017 11:48 (six years ago) link

one month passes...

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.

curmudgeon, Monday, 28 August 2017 17:35 (six years ago) link

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

https://highway61music.blogspot.com/

curmudgeon, Wednesday, 30 August 2017 05:17 (six years ago) link

four months pass...

Rick Hall, of Muscle Shoals/Fame Studios

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

curmudgeon, Wednesday, 3 January 2018 03:37 (six years ago) link

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

curmudgeon, Thursday, 4 January 2018 04:01 (six years ago) link

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

eddhurt, Thursday, 4 January 2018 19:13 (six years ago) link

Cool. Look forward to reading.

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

Indeed. The story of “One Bad Apple” is the centerpiece of that book

one year passes...

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

dow, Friday, 1 February 2019 00:54 (five years ago) link

six months pass...

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

curmudgeon, Wednesday, 28 August 2019 18:59 (four years ago) link

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

dow, Thursday, 29 August 2019 18:01 (four years ago) link

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

Tim, Friday, 30 August 2019 12:43 (four years ago) link

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

curmudgeon, Monday, 2 September 2019 21:21 (four years ago) link

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

The Fearless Thread Killers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 2 September 2019 21:42 (four years ago) link

Me too.

Some cuts sound a bit like The Band

curmudgeon, Monday, 2 September 2019 22:50 (four years ago) link

@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

dow, Wednesday, 4 September 2019 01:09 (four years ago) link

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 “

curmudgeon, Tuesday, 10 September 2019 04:02 (four years ago) link

Age 76 not 66

curmudgeon, Tuesday, 10 September 2019 04:03 (four years ago) link

Quite an impressive list of songs he played on.

curmudgeon, Wednesday, 11 September 2019 03:26 (four years ago) link

Incredible list

curmudgeon, Wednesday, 11 September 2019 13:33 (four years ago) link

Patterson Hood pieces on Donnie Fritts and Jimmy Johnson

Brad C., Wednesday, 11 September 2019 14:04 (four years ago) link

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

dow, Saturday, 14 September 2019 15:12 (four years ago) link

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

dow, Saturday, 14 September 2019 15:21 (four years ago) link

one month passes...

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."

dow, Tuesday, 22 October 2019 00:06 (four years ago) link

Wow

Beware of Mr. Blecch, er...what? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 22 October 2019 00:07 (four years ago) link

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?

dow, Tuesday, 22 October 2019 00:16 (four years ago) link

Yes. They had the hit on that one.

Beware of Mr. Blecch, er...what? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 22 October 2019 00:18 (four years ago) link

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

dow, Tuesday, 22 October 2019 00:19 (four years ago) link

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

dow, Tuesday, 22 October 2019 00:23 (four years ago) link

one year passes...

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).

dow, Saturday, 23 January 2021 21:56 (three years ago) link

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 .

curmudgeon, Sunday, 24 January 2021 05:32 (three years ago) link

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.

dow, Sunday, 24 January 2021 18:35 (three years ago) link

Um, I don't think so re Nashville Skyline

curmudgeon, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 05:33 (three years ago) link

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.

curmudgeon, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 19:09 (three years ago) link

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

Washington Generals D-League affiliate (will), Tuesday, 26 January 2021 19:32 (three years ago) link

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/

dow, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 22:49 (three years ago) link

two months pass...

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/

dow, Monday, 29 March 2021 23:30 (three years ago) link

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

dow, Monday, 29 March 2021 23:34 (three years ago) link

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

dow, Monday, 29 March 2021 23:40 (three years ago) link

Just came scross ilxor Alfred Soto's most enticing review of latest Dusty re-collecion:

The Complete Atlantic Singles 1968-1971 collects most of the magisterial Dusty in Memphis (1969), its lesser follow-up A Brand New Me (1970), and a bevy of tracks orbiting the albums like lonely satellites. Yeah, it's all been scooped up before, but the way he describes so much of it, incl. what's highlit in "sparkling new mix," makes me want to get it: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/dusty-springfield-the-complete-atlantic-singles-1968-1971/
Also liked "Old Soul, revisiting the sounds of Dusty Springfield, " in Feb. 8 New Yorker, much more than I usually do the writing of Amanda Pretrusich.

dow, Tuesday, 30 March 2021 22:10 (three years ago) link

one month passes...

Judging by "Boogie Shoes" on YouTube, most of the appeal of the Alex Chilton/Hi Rhythm live album might be insrumental, which reminds me: here they are with Terry Manning, better known as a producer and engineer at Ardent etc. but his rough-and-ready vocal approach works better with HRS live than Chilton's (comparing just one track to another):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5lyZHzReSk

dow, Sunday, 2 May 2021 17:58 (two years ago) link

(Chilton seems a bit cautious by comparison---their set was a one-off, but so was Manning's w HRS---filling in at the last minute for a no-show, and just taking the plunge, what the hell---this is the only live track on his album, and really seemed like the only keeper---according to the press sheet, he did a Box Tops Chilton parody for kicks, and was ordered to create an album around it, which mostly seemed like filler, but I didn't listen much)

dow, Sunday, 2 May 2021 18:08 (two years ago) link

three weeks pass...

David Hood interviewed just after news of Roger Hawkins' death (keep scrolling past the ads, or blanked space for same, heh), says it was time, after long-ass illness:
https://www.al.com/news/2021/05/david-hood-remembers-fellow-muscle-shoals-music-legend-roger-hawkins.html

dow, Sunday, 23 May 2021 23:07 (two years ago) link

From January---another inviting presentation: Memphis Commercial *Appeal* indeed:

'From Elvis in Memphis': New book explores hometown sessions of the King at creative peak
Bob Mehr
Memphis Commercial Appeal

https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/01/06/elvis-presley-books-from-elvis-memphis-chips-moman-hometown-sessions/4128498001/

dow, Monday, 24 May 2021 01:50 (two years ago) link

Does sound appealing, but probably would be more so if Bob Mehr had written it.

Blue Yoda No. 9 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 24 May 2021 10:26 (two years ago) link

V.tempted by the Elvis American Sound 1969box Mehr mentions---here's an interview w Roger Hawkins in 2019:
https://www.al.com/life/2019/08/swampers-drum-legends-hot-beats-and-cold-winter.html

(Also see the upthread link to him and Hood talking about then-recently deceased Jimmy Johnson)

This has some links, and an intriguing quote, “I was a better listener than I was a player and I think the other guys were too,” Hawkins said in 2019. “Because they loved music and they had catalogs of music in their brains, just like I had a catalog of stuff where I could pull out certain things and make it work with newer stuff.”
https://www.al.com/news/2021/05/swampers-drummer-muscle-shoals-sound-studio-cofounder-roger-hawkins-has-died.html

dow, Monday, 24 May 2021 16:15 (two years ago) link

Maybe my favorite part of his, which I was miscrediting for years, is “Rock Steady.”

Blue Yoda No. 9 (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 24 May 2021 16:22 (two years ago) link

one month passes...

xxxxpst So Chilton does okay after all, though yeah of course Hi Rhythm Gang is the main interest, esp. horns and bass, though everybody steps up--most songs go on a little over four minutes and a half minutes; the studio originals were at least a minute shorter, but but we get more solo turns and full Section flexing, comfortably. Fave is the penultimate performance, "Hello Josephine," where a Hi man starts the vocal, Chilton coming in later: a very robust 7:12 work-out, calm as ever. Also: Motown gets the Memphis treatment on "Where Did Our Love Go," with Chilton as okay stand-in for Diana Ross, though this is one of he shorter ones, as it probably should be).Does not sing as high, loud and fast there as on "Lucille" or "Maybelline." Sounds like Pat Boone looking to go rong on "Kansas City." Any of yall heard this one? xgau sez:
On the Loose [Hi, 1976]
In which Al Green's sidemen, perhaps disgruntled at Al's unwillingness to record their material, get together and cut it. Some stickler for detail is sure to point out that the singing on side two is completely out of tune, but that's OK--so is most of the singing on side one, which I prefer to Full of Fire. One of the more carefully thought out tracks features a mildly malicious lyric about Green himself, but it's the eccentricity of the music, which sounds as if it includes a banjo, that does him in. Loose indeed. A-

Anyway, very good music for a holiday weekend, has me looking to go for b-b-q chicken.

dow, Thursday, 1 July 2021 21:33 (two years ago) link

two months pass...

In the wake of Summer of Soul and Respect, Fresh Air is excerpting a lot of archived interviews, starting today w Aretha, bookending Wexler and and Penn; going through Labor Day, we'll also get Gladys Knight, ?uestlove, several others.
Did not know Aretha did an autobiography!

dow, Wednesday, 1 September 2021 00:11 (two years ago) link

Dan Penn?

Gwar ina Babyon (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 00:12 (two years ago) link


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