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

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

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.

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

(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)

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

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/

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

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

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

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.

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!

Dan Penn?

Or

Penn Jillette?

Yeah, in the middle, with Aretha interviews as strong start & finish.

That interview series concludes today w Mavis Staples and Gladys Knight.
From a group email discussion, my two cents on Respect:

1. As you've prob read by now, Respect is a helluva biopic, if you have any tolerance for the usual biopic arc---which, as reviewer Justin Chang pointed out is def. the/an arc of some artists' lives . quite plausibly Aretha's. within this '52-'72 segment: her father, as portrayed by Forest Whittaker in all evidence I know of (incl. hos own records, with sermons built around for inst "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," heard on black Sunday radio in early 70s B'ham) could be an overwhelming presence, an inescapable influence, for good and bad (deserving his own biopic and biobook), Also, in his own strenuous way, part of the collaborative experience of her music-making, along w John Hammond Sr (reaching his limit, self-admittedly), Jerry Wexler, the initially fraught Muscle Shoals sessions, and with her sisters, whose fills make the title song even more ir-re-re-re-sistable than Otis's original (otehrwise, his and Aretha's versions might be a draw) Another kind of collaboration comes from unexpectedly table-tossing Dinah Washington (Mary J Blige), deliveringl home truths. I've never seen nor heard Jennifer Hudson before, but her singing and acting are otm, in scenes that take as much time as they need. Would like to see the whole mini-series too.

Two hours of v. enjoyable streams, frequently sporting singles I didn't remember as sounding this good, also several I hadn't heard at all, interspersed with (not too many)good comments, backstories:

SWEET INSPIRATION: DAN PENN & TRUDY LYNN
Singer Songwriter Dan Penn is the master behind so many well loved R&B songs, from James and Bobby Purify’s “I’m Your Puppet” to Aretha Franklin’s “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” and Alex Chilton and the Box Tops “Cry Like a Baby,” and many more. We’ll talk with him about his prolific catalog of songs, plus stories behind the scenes at Fame Records in Muscle Shoals and American Recordings in Memphis, and scoring his very first with a rockabilly Conway Twitty. Then, from Houston’s Fifth Ward, it’s Blues singer Trudy Lynn, who got her start as a high schooler singing with Albert Collins and Archie Bell and the Drells before going on to her own career in blues and R&B.
Playlists and links:
http://americanroutes.wwno.org/archives

Despite having lived in Muscle Shoals for six years, I'm woefully undereducated on the history outside of the big names that came through.

Used to eat in a diner right next door to FAME all the time, though. It was called Biscuit Village and it was fun to take a n00b there and just order one biscuit.

"Is one biscuit going to be enough?"
"You'll see."

And then they'd bring out a HUGE biscuit that was, no exaggeration, the size of the plate it was sitting on. I don't think I ever finished one.

They tore it down a few years ago and now a CVS is sitting there. A goddamn C V S!!!!

can confirm the CVS is still there. in March 2020 its shelves were, overnight, depleted of their toilet paper, because Covid fears were spreading but nobody really knew what to do.

About a block down from FAME there's a meat-and-three place where you can get a four sides plate that'll make you believe in God, though

Inside Fame Studios 1970 pic.twitter.com/q5AfhhlRRY

— Record Lovers (@recordlovers) March 18, 2022

Inside Fame Studios 1970 pic.twitter.com/OLweU73aql

— Record Lovers (@recordlovers) March 18, 2022

that's what I'm talking about

Living Blues magazine contributor, professor, radio dj, Mississippi resident Scott Barretta recently noted in a public FB post that in late July he saw Dan Penn do a gig

Great show last night with Dan Penn, now 80, at his former high school in Vernon, Alabama. He played two sets on the stage of the auditorium where he used to perform as a teen. His two sets included his first hit, Is a Bluebird Blue, recorded by Conway Twitty when Dan was just 16, the same year he and his wife Linda started dating.

setlist: I met her in church
I’m your puppet
Sweet Inspiration
Cry like a baby
Do right woman
You left the water runnin’
Dark end of the street
Out of left field
Nobody’s Fool
Woman Left Lonely
I’m Living Good
Old Folks
Is a Bluebird Blue?
Nine Pound Steel
Memphis Women and Fried Chicken
I Do
Junkyard Junkie
In the Garden
Old Shep - (used to play on this stage in HS)
I Hate You
Zero Willpower

Dan Penn has upcoming gigs in Columbus, Ga and Memphis, TN

Speaking of gigs---knew Hendrix played with Little Richard, the Isleys, many more, but didn't know about this:

Wilson Pickett, backed by a 23-year-old Jimi Hendrix on guitar, 1966. pic.twitter.com/f6LeGulmfn

— Sheet Music Library (PDF) (@LibrarySheet) September 3, 2022

Nice

Seconded.

Has anyone read that recent WIlson Pickett bio?

Hadn't heard of that, thanks! He and I are from the same town, which now hosts the annual Wilson Pickett Festival, but have heard that his family urged him to migrate back when he was more outspoken than was safe for a young Black man in the Alabama boonies (still not a sure thing, but somewhat better).
Speaking of his work w soon-to-be-famous Rock-identified guitarists, I 'ppreciate the contribution as accompanist that Duane Allman brought to their cover of "Hey Jude," and the fact that he talked Pickett and Wexler into doing it at all, but the solos are a bit predictable, and prefer the crispness of this (the original of which featured more organ than guitar, I think):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbphIqZTMQw

But yeah okay got to give it up, still good on the radio etc.

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

oops, meant to do this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPki6mUDzOw

ANTI- RECORDS TO RELEASE 20th ANNIVERSARY RE-ISSUE OF SOUL LEGEND SOLOMON BURKE’S 2002 ALBUM
‘DON’T GIVE UP ON ME’

OUT NOVEMBER 18

Solomon Burke, the King of Rock & Soul, the Bishop, was a big man with an even bigger talent and a revered vocalist whose mastery is unmatched by any other proponent of the style he largely originated. Burke embodied deep soul with a fifty-plus year career that produced a series of records consistently profound in emotional, artistic and spiritual gravity. Today ANTI- Records is announcing a 20th anniversary re-issue of his 2002 album ’Don’t Give Up On Me’ which features an all-star roster of song contributors including Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Tom Waits and Joe Henry. The re-issued vinyl will be available on November 18 in black and a limited edition opaque red and a clear version in Europe.

Pre-order it here: https://solomonburke.ffm.to/dontgiveuponme

In 2002 music critic Peter Guralnick noted, ”Burke has served far too long as "The King In Exile"; despite a towering reputation among peers and fans alike, and his 2001 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the singer remains somewhat of a mystifyingly under-appreciated figure. With the release of ’Don't Give Up On Me’ the widely acknowledged King of Rock & Soul is liable to ascend to a height equal to his glorious 1960s reign at Atlantic Records.”

In addition to the contributors listed above, legendary veteran writers like Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil all contributed commercially unreleased original compositions, either specifically custom tailored to, or innately suited for the interpretive genius of this unrivaled singer. Never before has such a cross-section of revered pop talent enthusiastically converged on one album, but there are precious few vocalists on the aerie artistic level of Solomon Burke.

‘Don't Give Up On Me’ was recorded live in the studio over a four-day period, with an ensemble anchored by Burke's church organist Brother Rudy Copeland. Produced by Joe Henry, the record also features contributions from Daniel Lanois and revered gospel outfit The Blind Boys of Alabama.

On working with Burke producing this record, Joe Henry wrote: “I was simply a facilitator. And I say this not to diminish my contributions to the man’s story, nor his ultimate appreciation of them; but I can see as well that though many of the songs written for him and offered up to the project ––and by historically significant songwriters–– hung and clung, at first blush, like ill-fitting clothes...he was like Matisse: the subject ––be that a vase of flowers, a bowl of fruit; a reclining nude I Need A Holiday –– was of little consequence; for he would use them regardless to speak exactly as he meant to, transfiguring their familiar forms beyond architecture and into something with far more ethereal and spiritual implications.”

Burke's vocals, power undiminished and tempered by decades of performing and recording experience, is nothing less than a force of nature. With a healthy dose of honky-tonk weeper psychology and the clinical reality of his training as a mortician (a business he was still active in at the time), Burke has unique philosophical and physiological insights into the human condition, that infuse the delivery of his songs.

"The entire album was very exciting, and it was heartrending to think all these writers, the Bob Dylans, Elvis Costello's, would even think of me,” Burke said. “I would characterize these as art, pieces of art, songs that were designed in some way with me in mind, in each one of these writers’ minds--all of them are beautiful. I wanted each piece of that art to hang in my own palace. To me, they all belong in a special place. It was remarkable."

1. Don’t Give Up On Me
2. Fast Train
3. Diamond In Your Mind
4. Flesh And Blood
5. Soul Searchin’
6. Only A Dream
7. The Judgement
8. Stepchild
9. The Other Side Of The Coin
10. None Of Us Are Free
11. Sit This One Out

For More Info on Solomon Burke, Contact:
Kelly Kettering | ANTI- Records Publicity |kelly at epitaph dot com

I really wanted to like this album, and I gave it another try after discovering his two Rounder albums from the '80s, Soul Alive! and A Change Is Gonna Come (both recommended), but it hasn't connected. I feel like his singing lost too much command, and unfortunately the record's built around his voice. There are singers like Billie Holiday who made something great from their disintegrating voices, but Burke's phrasing was never that inventive - with him, it was much more about presence, and he sounds too diminished here compared to his earlier recordings.

Too bad because there are some interesting song choices here like Dylan's "Stepchild" (an otherwise unreleased song from his short but bizarre Vegas-style tour) and two underrated Van Morrison gems ("Only a Dream," "Fast Train") from his 2002 album Down the Road.

Is it this one? Good track from a good alb, there's also a suitable live version by JLL somewhere, but not seeing it today:

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

I haven't heard the Burke, just passing along the news.