Guralnick - Sweet Soul Music

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Copyright 1986, 1999 by Peter Guralnick

Cover design by Susan Marsh; cover photo by Dick Waterman. Cover copyright 2012 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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ISBN 978-0-316-20675-4

For Joe McEwen, Mr. C., without whom I wouldnt have been able even to think about writing this book

And for Solomon Burke, the undisputed King of Rock n Soul, without whom I wouldnt have wanted to.

I N WRITING A BOOK OVER SO LONG A PERIOD, one incurs debts one can never repay. Literally hundreds of individuals have helped me with my research and my interviews, and I thank them all. The following are just some of the people who gave me a hand over the weeks, months, and years:

Dick Alen, J. W. Alexander, Hoss Allen, Estelle Axton, Homer Banks, Barry Beckett, Alexander Graham Nero Bell, William Bell, Bettye Berger, Scott Billington, Bill Blackburn, Julian Bond, Stanley Booth, Eddie Braddock, John Brooks, William Brown, Anne Bryant, Elek Burke, Sunday Burke, Diane Butler, James Carr, Clarence Carter, Ray Charles, Gene Chrisman, Trevor Churchill, Dave Clark, Quinton Claunch, Tommy Cogbill, Al Cooley, Tommy Couch, Don Covay, Steve Cropper, R. O. Curtis, Jim and Mary Lindsay Dickinson, Harris Dienstfrey, Don Dumont, Duck Dunn, Mickey Eichner, Bobby Emmons, David Evans, Jimmy Evans, Barry Feldman, Rob Finnis, Ted Fox, the Freeman Sisters, Joyce Frommer, Ray Funk, Gregg Geller, David Gessner, Charlie Gillett, Bill Glore, John Grahm, Al Green, Pete Grendysa, Rick and Linda Hall, Jeff Hannusch, Rowena Harris, Roger Hawkins, Isaac Hayes, Beliliah Hazziez, Terri Hinte, Eddie Hinton, David Hood, Sue Horton and Bob Smith, Sylvester Huckaby, Jimmy Hughes, Quin Ivy, George Jackson, Wayne Jackson, Johnny Jenkins, Frank Johnson, Walter Johnson, Booker T. Jones, Iris Keitel, Stan Kesler, Rich Kienzle, Buddy Killen, Allen Klein, Frederick Knight, Anne Kostick, Buddy Lee, Alan Leeds, Cynthia Leu, Eddie Lewis, Fred Lewis, Bill Lowery, Fred Mendelsohn, Willie Mitchell, Chips Moman, George Moonoogian, Melvin Moore, Michael Ochs, Spooner Oldham, Don Paulsen, Dan Penn, Knox Phillips, Doc Pomus, David Porter, Diana Price, Zelma Redding, Steve Richards, John Richbourg, Zelda Samuels, Zenas Sears, Joe Shamwell, Val Shiveley, Dick Shurman, Speedo Simms, Percy Sledge, Bobby Smith, Rick Stafford, Chuck Stewart, Jim Stewart, Hamp Swain, Tommy Tate, Queen Mother Taylor, Joe Tex, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Steve Tomashefsky, Ray Topping, Cindy Underwood, Billy Vera, Tom Vickers, Phil and Alan Walden, Cliff White, Skippy White, Val Wilmer, and Peter Wolf.

On their own initiative, and strictly in order to help me complete my musical education, my friends Joe McEwen and Bill Millar made me tape after tape of obscure soul selections that I would never otherwise have been able to track down. Bill Millar in addition read almost all of the manuscript for accuracy and supplied innumerable clippings, documents, and photographs to reinforceor in many cases to altermy understanding of a good many points. Kit Rachlis provided helpful editorial advice and suggestions throughout, while Alexandra Guralnick read, transcribed, and digested vast tracts of material. Susan Marsh once again proved the perfect partner in design. Cary Ryan copyedited the manuscript with a loving but unsparing eye, while my editor, Rick Kot, offered devotion (and patience) above and beyond the call of duty.

In Memphis, Michael Bane provided me with numerous telephone calls of introduction, one of which led to David Less, who freely offered up the fruits of his own extensive research as well as taking me out to Al Greens Church of the Full Gospel Tabernacle for the first time. Through a number of equally fortuitous associations I met Rose Clayton, Pat Rainer, Stanley Booth, and Jim Dickinson, each of whom took me where I needed to go in addition to supplying invaluable help, encouragement, insights, and further introductions. Roosevelt Jamison, too, took me around to meet his various friends and associates and offered help at every juncture.

In Macon, Mark Pucci introduced me to Phil and Alan Walden and Rodgers Redding, and Rodgers made it his business to see that I met key figures from all aspects of his brothers life.

Donnie Fritts was my unflagging guide and coconspirator in Muscle Shoals and, when my own knowledge or imagination failed, turned out to be an able and enthusiastic interviewer himself. It was Donnie who set up the tripartite reunion with Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham at his Nashville home from which much of the lively, thorny, and contradictory history of Muscle Shoals has been drawn. Through Donnie, too, I met Jimmy Johnson, whose memories of the era are somewhat more precise (but no less colorful), and Jimmy graciously got me to everyone in the Quad Cities area that Donnie might have missed.

Cliff White provided unstinting assistance, insight, and written documentation for my continuing investigation into the life and times of James Brown, while Jerry Wexler never ceased to encourage the project from beginning to end with his lively opinions, reminiscences, and sharing of memories and music. Solomon Burke, almost needless to say, provided laughs, love, and inspiration throughout.

Thanks to all, and to all those not named, from whom I drew encouragement, sustenance, and a continual broadening of my perspective. Its been fun!

T HIS IS A STORY FIRST AND FOREMOST. IT IS THE story of a particular kind of music, but I hope it is more than that. I started out more than four years ago with the idea of writing a book on Southern soul music in the 60s, a companion volume to my two earlier books, Feel Like Going Home and Lost Highway, and the last installment in a trilogy covering my three great musical lovesblues, rockabilly/country, and soul. I wanted to write a different kind of book this time, though, tending more toward narrative than toward profile, and while I recognized the impossibility of telling the whole story (Who can ever do thatwho would ever want to do that? As Mark Twain once wrote, a real biography is impossible because every day would make a whole book365 books a year.), I wanted to present as convincing a portrait of a musical movement and a social milieu as could be deduced in retrospect. In the course of researching the book I interviewed well over a hundred people and traveled from Los Angeles to Mississippi, from Georgia to New York, Alabama, Philadelphia, and Tennessee. The weight of the subtext, I hope, reinforces the narrative, because however comprehensive this book may seem, however tangled its chronology and extended its text, it represents only a minuscule portion of the time that I spent with label owners, producers, booking agents, record store operators, disc jockeys, and managers, as well as the artists themselves. And I hope it reflects my disinclination to understand things too quickly, because there is no question in my mind of the education that I got, an education in an aspect of Americana and a facet of American business that, despite my longtime exposure to the music industry, I had never really scrutinized before. I met some of the greatest characters and made some of the closest friends (often one and the same thing) that I have ever known. And I had most of the preconceptions with which I came to the writing of this book turned almost totally upside down.