Podcasts about Hi Records

Remenem els arxius del segell Fania, un far de la m

Show #1080 Beardo's Birthday Bash 2024 01. Jean Plum - Today I Sing The Blues [1965] (4:32) (Troubles Heartaches And Sadness, Hi Records, 2002) 02. Albert Collins - Caldonia (3:51) (Frozen Alive!, Alligator Records, 1981) 03. Bees Make Honey - Caldonia (3:07) (Music Every Night, EMI Records, 1973) 04. Al Smith - Night Time is the Right Time (4:19) (Hear My Blues, Prestige/Bluesville Records, 1960) 05. Hook Herrera - Blue Ndn (4:48) (No Matter What I Do, Blue Ndn Records, 2011) 06. Hook Herrera - Dollar Blues (7:23) (Puro Mestizo, Mitik Records, 2003) 07. Pinetop Perkins - Trouble In Mind (4:28) (Ladies Man, MC Records, 2004) 08. Big Bill Broonzy - The Sun Gonna Shine In My Door Someday [1935] (3:04) (Big Bill Broonzy Story Of The Blues, Membran Music Ltd, 2004) 09. Bernie Marsden - Merry Go Round (4:21) (Green And Blues, Essential! Records, 1995) 10. Van Morrison - Worried Man Blues (4:37) (Moving On Skiffle, Virgin/Exile Productions, 2023) 11. Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones (3:02) (Swordfishtrombones, Island Records, 1983) 12. Chris Smither - Link Of Chain (4:50) (Live As I'll Ever Be, High Tone Records, 2000) 13. Harry Manx - Makes You Wanna Die Laughing (4:22) (Wise and Otherwise, Dog My Cat Records, 2002) 14. Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram - Believe These Blues (4:24) (Kingfish, Alligator Records, 2019) 15. Barrelhouse Annie - If It Don't Fit (Don't Force It) [1936] (2:51) (He Got Out His Big Ten Inch, Indigo Records, 2004) 16. Frank Zappa & the Mothers - I'm The Slime (3:34) (Over-Nite Sensation, DiscReet Records, 1973) 17. Toshiki Soejima - Life (3:18) (True, self-release, 2023) 18. Eric Burdon - Forty Four (4:30) (Soul Of A Man, SPV Records, 2006) 19. John Lee Hooker (ft. Carlos Santana) - The Healer (5:40) (The Healer, Chameleon Records, 1989) 20. John Lee Hooker - Stripped Me Naked (4:57) (Mr Lucky, Virgin/Silvertone Records, 1991) 21. The Lee Sankey Group (ft. David Migden) - Shout It On Out (5:00) (My Day Is Just Beginning, A Ten Year Noose, 2002) 22. Jef Lee Johnson & The Wordy Mimes - This Is Where I Came In (2:21) (Hellion, Dreambox Media, 2003) 23. Willie Nelson - Last Leaf On The Tree (3:15) (Last Leaf On The Tree, Columbia Records, 2024) 24. Mariano Massolo (ft. Carlos del Junco) - Blues del Junco (4:29) (Mariano Massolo Quinteto, EPSA Music, 2008) 25. Jason Ricci & New Blood - Enlightenment (4:44) (Done With The Devil, Electo Groove Records, 2009) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Label: Hi 2018Year: 1959Condition: M-Price: $25.00Of course, it was Part 2 that became a huge hit for Bill Black and his Combo in late 1959. If you own only one Bill Black single, this is the one. As many of you know, Black (who was white) was the bass player who recorded with Elvis Presley on most (if not all) of his early Sun singles, along with Scott Moore on guitar and D.J. Fontana on drums. "Smokie" was his first solo single (or at least the first to chart), and the A side is quite a bit different--more upbeat--than the hit B side. Note: This beautiful copy comes in a vintage Hi Records factory sleeve. The audio is very close to Mint.

The runoff election for the District Three Public Service Commissioner will take place tomorrow, where voters will choose between 18-year incumbent Lambert Boissiere III and environmental activist Davante Lewis. The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate's editorial director and columnist Stephanie Grace and WRKF's Paul Braun tell voters what they need to know before they hit the polls. The quarterfinals of the 2022 FIFA World Cup starts today, and New Orleanians are packing sports bars to watch. But there's one bar whose soccer culture is outmatched, attracting fans from around the world. Louisiana Considered's Managing Producer Alana Schreiber brings us this story from Finn McCool's Irish Pub in Midcity. Each week, American Routes brings you Shortcuts, a sneak peek at our upcoming show. This week, Nick Spitzer speaks with Don Bryant, who started out with Willie Mitchell at Hi Records in Memphis and transformed into an old school singer and prolific songwriter.  Today's episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Patrick Madden. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber and our digital editor is Katelyn Umholtz. Our engineers are Garrett Pittman and Aubry Procell. You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at 12:00 and 7:30 pm. It's available on Spotify, Google Play, and wherever you get your podcasts.  Louisiana Considered wants to hear from you! Please fill out our pitch line to let us know what kinds of story ideas you have for our show. And while you're at it, fill out our listener survey! We want to keep bringing you the kinds of conversations you'd like to listen to. Louisiana Considered is made possible with support from our listeners. Thank you!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Show #967 The Originals 01.  Bob Dylan - Everything Is Broken (3:15) (Oh Mercy, Columbia Records, 1989) 02.  Ray Charles - Hard Times (No One Knows Better Than I) [1955] (2:55) (The Genius Sings The Blues, Atlantic Records, 1961) 03a. Ray Charles - Mess Around (2:39) (45 RPM Single, Atlantic Records, 1953) 03b. Charles 'Cow Cow' Davenport - Cow Cow Blues (3:09) (78 RPM Shellac, Vocalion Records, 1928) 04.  Fabulous Thunderbirds - Full Time Lover (4:43) (Girls Go Wild, Takoma Records, 1979) 05.  Al Green - Love And Happiness (5:07) (I'm Still In Love With You, Hi Records, 1972) 06.  Dire Straits - Money For Nothing (8:26) (Brothers In Arms, Vertigo Records, 1985) 07a. Screamin' Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On You (3:31) (45 RPM Single, Okeh Records, 1956) 07b. Screamin' Jay Hawkins - I Put A Spell On You (2:52) (Unreleased, Grand Records, 1955) 08.  Sonny Boy Williamson II - Don't Start Me Talking (2:35) (45 RPM Single, Checker Records, 1955) 09.  Atlanta Rhythm Section - So In To You (4:16) (A Rock And Roll Alternative, Polydor Records, 1976) 10.  ZZ Top - Tush (2:14) (Fandango!, London Records, 1975) 11.  Mothers Of Invention - Trouble Comin' Every Day (5:47) (Freak Out!, Verve Records, 1966) 12.  Son House - Grinnin' In Your Face (2:07) (Father Of Folk Blues, Columbia Records, 1965) 13.  Lynyrd Skynyrd - Gimme Three Steps (4:24) (Lynyrd Skynyrd, MCA Records, 1973) 14.  Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel (2:09) (45 RPM Single, RCA Victor, 1956) 15.  Neville Brothers - Yellow Moon (3:58) (Yellow Moon, A&M Records, 1989) 16.  Little Feat - Spanish Moon (4:50) (Waiting For Columbus, Warner Bros Records, 1978) 17a. Peggy Lee & Benny Goodman Orchestra - Why Don't You Do Right (3:14) (78 RPM Shellac, Columbia Records, 1942) 17b. Harlem Hamfats - Weed Smoker's Dream (3:17) (78 RPM Shellac, Decca Records, 1936) 17c. Lil Green - Why Don't You Do Right (3:00) (78 RPM Shellac, Bluebird Records, 1941) 18.  Prince & the Revolution - Kiss (3:38) (Parade, Paisley Park/Warner Bros Records, 1986) 19.  Fenton Robinson - Somebody (Loan Me A Dime) (2:23) (45 RPM Single, Palos Records, 1967) 20.  Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (5:12) (Electric Ladyland, Polydor Records, 1968) 21.  Tampa Red - It Hurts Me Too (2:28) (78 RPM Shellac, Bluebird Records, 1940) 22a. Leonard Cohen - First We Take Manhattan (5:58) (I'm Your Man, Columbia Records, 1988) 22b. Jennifer Warnes - First We Take Manhattan (3:47) (Famous Blue Raincoat, Cypress Records, 1986) 23.  Albert King - Oh Pretty Woman (2:47) (Born Under A Bad Sign, Stax Records, 1967) 24.  Fleetwood Mac - Black Magic Woman (2:49) (45 RPM Single, Blue Horizon Records, 1968) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

La perla del segell HI-Records i la consagraci

La perla del segell HI-Records i la consagraci

Trumpet ace Wayne Jackson is an icon of American Soul. From Stax to Atlantic to Hi Records, with his friend Andrew Love, Charlie Chalmers and Bowlegs Miller, the Memphis Horns played on over 300 hits for Wilson Pickett', Sam & Dave, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Al Green, Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond, James Taylor, Steve Winwood, U2, Peter Gabriel, Rod Stewart, the Doobie Brothers, Stephen Stills. B.B. King, Mark Knopfler, Buddy Guy and Alicia Keys. In 2003 I interviewed Wayne over the telephone for my BBC Radio 2 series “Richard Niles' History of Pop Arranging”. One of the greatest pleasures of my many years as an interviewer is the rapport that develops over a 30-minute interview. You will certainly see that here as Wayne and I share some jokes and stories. He was so much more than an icon – he was the kind of guy you could enjoy sitting next to in the studio for a lifetime. – Richard Niles WAYNE JACKSON Memphis HORNS Rare Interview: Aretha, Otis, U2 and more! Watch this episode in video HERE #waynejackson #thememphishorns #richardniles #radiorichard Please Like, Share, and Subscribe to our YouTube channel HERE Buy Richard's acclaimed books HERE Buy Richard's astounding music HERE  Check our channel's official online shop for great & exclusive memorabilia HERE Send me enough for a cup of coffee at The Ritz to keep our Radio Richard growing: Via PayPal Via Patreon “Radio Richard Theme” ©2022 Niles Smiles Music (BMI) by Richard Niles

Label: Hi 2075Year: 1964Condition: M-Last Price: $30.00. Not currently available for sale.This amazing instrumental doesn't get enough attention outside of the (relatively) small club of knowledgeable soul music fans around the world. Even within that group, a lot of folks probably think of Willie Mitchell primarily for his work with Al Green and other artists in the early 1970's at Hi in Memphis. Never knowing that he also produced a string of seminal instrumental soul records every bit as influential as those of better-known Memphis acts like the Bar-Kays or Booker T & the MG's. This is probably his very best of the best. And don't think all the goodness is on the A side, either... this one's bright 'n' lively B side is hugely popular with Northern Soul clubs. Note: This beautiful copy comes in a vintage Hi Records factory sleeve. It grades very close to Mint in appearance (Labels, Vinyl) and has powerful, pristine Mint sound.

Label: Hi 2219Year: 1972Condition: M-Price: $20.00Smokin' soul at its very best... uptempo on the A side, smooth & slow on the flip. Peebles never sounded better. Note: This beautiful copy comes in a vintage Hi Records factory sleeve. It has pristine Mint sound.

Al Green is often referred to as ‘The Last of the Great Soul Singers'. In the 1970s the masterpieces he released, like ‘Let's stay together' and ‘Tired of being alone', were in part due to record producer and vocal mentor Willie Mitchell, who signed him to his label Hi Records. Mitchell's influence stretches from the Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, Wu-Tang Clan, to Kanye West. Back then, Green enjoyed seven consecutive million-seller hits. But slap-bang in the middle of his success, he was ‘born again', brought on after his girlfriend, Mary Woodson White, poured a load of grits (boiled cornmeal) over him, causing severe burns before committing suicide. She was furious he wouldn't marry her despite the fact that she was already married. By '76, Green had become a Reverend, and in '78, when his commercial success faded, he started recording Gospel music for which he won eight Grammys over a period of a decade. In 1988, he returned to his soul roots and alongside Annie Lennox, recorded ‘Put a little love in your heart'. A year later he released ‘The message is Love' with Arthur Baker. By the time I met Reverend Al Green at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in '93 for an MTV News at Night special on Memphis, he had released the widely underrated album, ‘Don't Look Back', which featured the song ‘Love is a beautiful thing'. He played and sang for us. That particular song starts with the words ‘This is what I believe' and towards the end references his greatest hits. When I asked him about his own influences, he cited Elvis Presley. He told me that Elvis was the forerunner, not only for him but for all others of his era. Green had bought all Elvis's music and told me that he had met him in the urinal of a Beale Street club in Memphis, where they instantly bonded. Later, in an often repeated quote, he has said he would have shaken Elvis's hand but it just didn't seem appropriate at the time! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Syl Johnson, the Chicago soul and blues singer, died last month at 85. He was probably best known for his work on Hi Records, the home of Ann Peebles and, of course, Al Green. In fact, he turned down a record deal that ended up going to Green. The songs Johnson cut for Hi in Memphis were some of the best soul records of their time. Hip-hop producers have feasted on Johnson's records, making him one of the most frequently sampled recording artists in the history of the genre. But more than that, Johnson was a career artist. He lived in Chicago, where he raised his daughter Syleena, a great soul singer in her own right. He made soul and blues records throughout his life. We spoke to Syl back in 2012. He was in his 70s then and gigging relentlessly, and his albums had just been re-released by Numero Group. Johnson was whip-smart, funny... and maybe a little cantankerous. He'll be sorely missed.

Show #935 Blues Brothers Spinner pays tribute to the brothers Jimmy & Syl Johnson who both recently passed away only 6 days apart. 01. Jimmy Johnson - Every Day Of Your Life (4:39) (Every Day Of Your Life, Delmark Records, 2019) 02. Syl Johnson - Teardrops (2:39) (Single, Federal Records, 1959) 03. Jimmy Johnson - Slamming Doors (4:47) (Johnson's Whacks, Delmark Records, 1979) 04. Syl Johnson - (She's So Fine) I Just Gotta Make Her Mine (2:30) (Single, Federal Records, 1961) 05. Jimmy Johnson - Country Preacher (4:47) (North // South, Delmark Records, 1982) 06. Jimmy Johnson - You Don't know What Love Is (5:14) (Bar Room Preacher, Alligator Records, 1983) 07. Syl Johnson - Come On Sock It To Me (2:27) (Dresses Too Short, Twinight Records, 1968) 08. Syl Johnson - Different Strokes (2:22) (Dresses Too Short, Twinight Records, 1968) 09. Jimmy Johnson - Little By Little (4:25) (Bar Room Preacher, Alligator Records, 1983) 10. Syl Johnson - Is It Because I'm Black? (3:22) (Single, Twinight Records, 1969) 11. Syl & Jimmy Johnson - If I Wuz White (4:25) (Two Johnsons Are Better Than One, Evangeline Records, 2001) 12. Syl & Jimmy Johnson - Uncomplicated Life (5:23) (Two Johnsons Are Better Than One, Evangeline Records, 2001) 13. Syl Johnson - Take Me To The River (3:05) (Total Explosion, Hi Records, 1975) 14. Jimmy Johnson - My Baby By My Side (7:03) (Every Road Ends Somewhere, Ruf Records, 1999) 15. Syl Johnson - Dipped In The Water (4:32) (Back In The Game, Delmark Records, 1994) 16. Jimmy Johnson - Looking For My Baby (6:04) (Pepper's Hangout, Delmark Records, 2000) 17. Syl Johnson - Finger Lickin' Good (4:18) (Talkin' Bout Chicago, Delmark Records, 1999) 18. Dave Specter (with Jimmy Johnson) - Feels So Bad (6:46) (Six String Soul: 30 Years On Delmark, 2021) 19. Syl Johnson - Caribbean Beach (3:45) (Talkin' Bout Chicago, Delmark Records, 1999) 20. Jimmy Johnson - Take Five (4:00) (Johnson's Whacks, Delmark Records, 1979) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

1 A Hunk Of Funk Gene Dozier And The Brotherhood 03:01 The Soul Of Minit Records 2 Better Home Roy Tyler & New Directions 02:50 Three Way Calling 3 I Believe To My Soul Donny Hathaway 03:52 Everything Is Everything 4 Divorce Decree Doris Duke 02:30 Oxford American 10th Anniversary Music Sampler, [Disc 1]: "Future Masters" [Oxford American, 2008] 5 Prisoner of Love Flo and Eddie 03:54 Rocksteady with Flo and Eddie 6 The Well's Gone Dry (Goldwax 115) Dorothy Williams 02:30 Discography 1964-65 [4sides] 7 Look At Granny Run Run Howard Tate 02:12 Get It While You Can: The Legendary Sessions 8 Ain't Worrying About Jody (Part 1) (Luna 804) Geater Davis 03:31 Long Cold Winter (45s Collection 1970-83) 9 Mama Said Quiet Elegance 03:05 Soul Searchin': Finding Gold In Memphis 68-79 Hi Records 10 Action Speak Louder Than Words Reuben Bell 02:18 Shreveport Southern Soul - The Murco Story 11 I Take What I Want Sam & Dave 02:35 Sweat 'N' Soul: An Anthology [1965-1971] 12 Delete My Number Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators 05:28 Tortured Soul 13 Blue Monday People Curtis Mayfield 04:46 There's No Place Like America Today 14 1990 The Undisputed Truth 04:02 Black Art + Machine Gun Funk Vol. 3 15 People Say Cimarons 04:24 People Say - an Early History of the Cimarons 16 Sorry Rebecca Dry 03:42 Sings Soul 17 The Pride (Parts 1 & 2) The Isley Brothers 05:34 Go For Your Guns 18 Natural Mystic (feat. Herman Olivera) Rebel Tumbao 05:10 Rebel Tumbao 19 Utopia Keziah Jones 04:31 Captain Rugged 20 Buna Be Chow (feat. Jimetta Rose) Dexter Story 03:41 Bahir 21 All or Nothing Cymande 05:38 Cymande A Simple Act of Faith 22 Theory of Goat and Yam Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 07:31 Black Times 23 Black Skin Blue Eyed Boys The Specials 03:17 Encore (Deluxe) 24 D.N.S. Gonzalez 04:13 Our Only Weapon Is Our Music + 5 25 Ain't No Other Way Herman Hitson 02:38 Funk Fever Vol.2 26 Hot Pants Road J.B.'s 02:45 Pass The Peas: The Best Of The J.B.'s 27 Here Comes the Law Kenny Smith & the Fox Fire Band 03:14 Kenny Dope & the Undercover Brother Pres Dopebrother Studio A 28 The Way Up Kokolo 03:23 Love Internacional 29 Know What To Do When You Get It The Genies 02:49 All The Ladies Need Funk 30 Not Yet (12" Version) Fuzzy Haskins 08:00 I've Got My Thang Together: The Westbound Years 31 Tracks Of My Tears (Mono) Aretha Franklin 02:57 [2-69] (ATL)

Providing freaky music since 1999. For those who wonder: What is The Brain? Listen this! 1. Les Deschiens - La coke - Youtube - 2020 2. The Brain - Générique - Unreleased - 2016 3. Radio Hito - Sole - Midi Fish - 2020 4. Eau de source - Domotique - Unreleased - 2020 5. Stephan - Wir wollen tanzen gehen - CBS - 1982 6. A$AP Rocky - Praise the Lord (Da Shine) (feat. Skepta) - RCA - 2019 7. Coucou Chloé - GS - Nuxxe - 2017 8. Viktor Alles - Prenez place ! - Bandcamp - 2020 9. Bernard Grancher - Fuir - BG - 2020 10. Kate Bush - Them Heavy People - EMI - 1979 11. Magicien Windows - La vie coolos - LeSyndicat desScorpions - 2020 12. Allo Mantis - Low - Bandcamp - 2020 13. Richelle, Xzavier Stone & Sinjin Hawke - All Black - FractalFantasy - 2017 14. Christophe Petchanatz In Aeternam Vale - Le plafond - Bandcamp - 2020 15. Tuxedomoon - The Cage - Les Disques du Crépuscule - 1983 16. Sega Bodega - CC ft. Shygirl - Crazy legs - 2017 17. P-Model - Kameari Pop - Warner bros. Records - 1979 18. Ann Peebles - I can't stand the rain - Hi Records - 1974 19. Mitra Mitra - Telescopes - Polytechnic Youth - 2018 20. Lapti feat. Nocow - Sirenas (feat. Nocow) - Autoproduced - 2011 21. Frederik Schikowski - Générique The Brain - The Brain Records - 2014 # Über The Brain The Brain ist eine DJ-Show gemischt aus Electro Broadcasts, Dissonanz-Pop, Rock'n'Roll, epileptischen Gesängen und vorindustriellen Robotik, Raumfahrt-Pop, vorsintflutlichen Vintage-Raritäten in Form von kinematischen Mini-Dada. Jede Sendung bietet einen epischen, akustischen, frischen Sound mit dem kindliche Euphorie in vollem Umfang nachgekommen wird. Let's Spock! * http://www.thebrainradio.com/

Show #905 Floods In Europe Dedicated to the flood victims in Germany, Belgium & The Netherlands. 01. Low Society - Here Comes The Flood (4:24) (Sanctified, Rezonate Records, 2017) 02. Savoy Brown - Flood In Houston (3:54) (Getting To The Point, Decca Records, 1968) 03. Delta Moon - Down In The Flood (4:14) (Low Down, ?Jumping Jack Records, 2015) 04. Melvin Taylor - Floodin' In California (4:57) (Dirty Pool, Evidence Records, 1997) 05. Carl Weathersby - Floodin' In California (3:50) (Come To Papa, Evidence Records, 2000) 06. Ann Peebles - I Can't Stand The Rain (2:30) (I Can't Stand The Rain, Hi Records, 1974) 07. Kansas Joe McCoy & Memphis Minnie - When The Levee Breaks [1929] (3:08) (Queen of the Blues, Columbia Records, 1997) 08. John Campbell - When the Levee Breaks (6:13) (Howlin' Mercy, Elektra Records, 1993) 09. Bob Dylan - The Levee's Gonna Break (5:43) (Modern Times, Sony Music, 2006) 10. TopJaw - TopJaw - The Flood (3:39) (Single, self-release, 2019) 11. The Cash Box Kings - Flood (4:45) (Royal Mint, Alligator Records, 2017) 12. Stackhouse - Flood Water Rising (3:33) (Big Fish Boogie, self-release, 2013) 13. Eric Bibb - Flood Water (4:34) (Booker's Guitar, Telarc Records, 2010) 14. Joe Bonamassa - The Great Flood (7:38) (The Ballad of John Henry, J&R Adventures, 2009) 15. Phil Guy - Texas Flood (7:03) (The Paul Jones Rhythm & Blues Show, JSP Records, 1988) 16. Willie Nelson - Texas Flood (8:46) (Milk Cow Blues, Island Records, 2000) 17. Ronnie Earl - Through Floods And Storms (4:46) (Language Of The Soul, Bullseye Records, 1994) Bandana Blues is and will always be a labor of love. Please help Spinner deal with the costs of hosting & bandwidth. Visit www.bandanablues.com and hit the tipjar. Any amount is much appreciated, no matter how small. Thank you.

Chad Cromwell was born in Paducah, Kentucky, on June 14th, 1957. When he was three years old his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he grew up. He started playing drums at the age of eight, wearing headphones as he played along to records in an upstairs room of his parents' home. By the age of twelve he was playing in garage bands in the local neighborhood. Among Chad's early influences were drummer Al Jackson and the artists of Stax Records, and artists such as Al Green on Willie Mitchell's Memphis based label, Hi Records. Jim Stewart, founder of Stax Records, along with Bobby Manuel, started a production company called The Daily Planet after the sale of Stax. Chad "hung out" and subsequently worked for The Daily Planet and learned more about rhythm and recording than anywhere else thus far. In fact, Jim and Bobby were key influences on Chad's style of drumming. In 1975, upon graduating high school, Chad flew to London to join two Memphians who already had gigs. Dave Cochran was playing bass for Chris Spedding, and Robert Johnson (not the legendary) was playing with Jon Entwhistle in Ox. Robert had been offered a record deal with Elton John's label, Rocket Records, and called fellow Memphian, Chad, along with David Cochran to record as Lash LaRue. Chad also got an "education" with Larry Raspberry & The Highsteppers, a very high powered rhythm and blues band. This was his first extensive touring band (piled into the back of a van, pulling a trailer).   *******SUBSCRIBE/RATE/REVIEW!!! www.richredmond.com/listen The Rich Redmond Show is sponsored by: Big Dot Lighting - Commercial LED Lighting Specialists and Bruce Cline Home Loans & Mortgage Refinance | Movement Mortgage www.musiciansmortgage.com Through associations with a recording studio in Memphis, Chad caught an ear on the West Coast. He started playing with legendary guitarist Joe Walsh in 1986, a collaboration which produced two albums, Got Any Gum? and Ordinary Average Guy, and resulted in multiple US and worldwide tours. The following year, 1987, Chad got the call to record with one of the world's most prolific songwriters, Neil Young. These sessions became Neil Young & The Bluenotes. After touring to promote this record, and producing MTV's 'Video of the Year,' "This Note's For You," Neil's interest circled back to 3-piece Rock & Roll which led to the New York and San Francisco recording sessions that ultimately became the album Freedom. In 1990, Chad moved to Nashville, got married and started a family. Richard Bennett and Tony Brown were among the first producers to call in Chad for sessions in Nashville. Richard and Tony have been extremely helpful in helping Chad to create a very successful recording career. Formal recognition from his peers came in 1996 when Chad was nominated for the Nashville Music Awards as Chad's career has seen him in the studio and on stage/TV/touring with an impressive list of major recording artists. In addition to those already mentioned, Chad has worked with Willie Nelson, Jackson Browne, Boz Scaggs, Wynonna, Bonnie Raitt and Peter Frampton. Chad recorded and toured with Mark Knopfler for the ten years. His playing can be heard on each and every solo recording of Knopfler's including his most recent Shangri La. During the Summer of 2006, Chad toured with Crosby, Stills,Nash and Young. Chad performed on Neil Young's Heart of Gold Movie directed by Johnathan Demme. Chad spent 2006 recording and touring with Neil Young and CSNY's "Freedom of Speech Tour". Chad also recorded tracks featured on a new box set release These Days by acclaimed country music star Vince Gill. Some Things That Came Up:  -Playing live versus recording -Lightning in a bottle -Hearing the nuances of the players across multiple artists -Ed Sullivan show inspired Chad -Meeting his wife via Joe Walsh -Eddie Izzard, "Death or Cake” bit -Playing for Joe the very first time without a rehearsal -Nashville celebs are just regular people, except the ones who aren't -Chad's encounter with Sting -Getting into Film and TV composition  -Thick skin and persevering through the storms and fires of life  -Rollin Stone “Unknown Legends” piece  -A+R for Craviotto drums with Sam Bacco -Getting Little Richard's autograph  -The best martini in LA   Socials:  @chad.cromwell The Rich Redmond Show is about all things music, motivation and success. Candid conversations with musicians, actors, comedians, authors and thought leaders about their lives and the stories that shaped them. Rich Redmond is the longtime drummer with Jason Aldean and many other veteran musicians and artists. Rich is also an actor, speaker, author, producer and educator. Rich has been heard on thousands of songs, over 25 of which have been #1 hits!   Rich can also be seen in several films and TV shows and has also written an Amazon Best-Selling book, "CRASH! Course for Success: 5 Ways to Supercharge Your Personal and Professional Life" currently available at:   https://www.amazon.com/CRASH-Course-Success-Supercharge-Professional/dp/B07YTCG5DS/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=crash+redmond&qid=1576602865&sr=8-1   One Book: Three Ways to consume....Physical (delivered to your front door, Digital (download to your kindle, ipad or e-reader), or Audio (read to you by me on your device...on the go)!   Buy Rich's exact gear at www.lessonsquad.com/rich-redmond   Follow Rich: @richredmond www.richredmond.com   Jim McCarthy is the quintessential Blue Collar Voice Guy. Honing his craft since 1996 with radio stations in Illinois, South Carolina, Connecticut, New York, Las Vegas and Nashville, Jim has voiced well over 10,000 pieces since and garnered an ear for audio production which he now uses for various podcasts, commercials and promos. Jim is also an accomplished video producer, content creator, writer and overall entrepreneur.   Follow Jim:   @jimmccarthy www.jimmccarthyvoiceovers.com

Episode 105 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Green Onions", and how a company started by a Western Swing fiddle player ended up making the most important soul records of the sixties. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.   Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "He's So Fine" by the Chiffons. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ ----more---- Resources I used three main books when creating this episode. Two were histories of Stax -- Soulsville USA: The Story of Stax by Rob Bowman, and Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon.  Country Soul by Charles L Hughes is a more general overview of soul music made in Tennessee and Alabama in the sixties, but is useful as it's less likely to take statements about racial attitudes entirely at face value. This is a good cheap compilation of Booker T and the MGs' music. If the Erwin Records tracks here interest you, they're all available on this compilation. The Complete Stax-Volt Singles vol. 1: 1959-1968 is a nine-CD box set containing much of the rest of the music in this episode. It's out of print physically, but the MP3 edition, while pricey, is worth it. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript   And now we come to the end of the backfilling portion of the story. Since "Telstar" we've been looking at records from 1962 that came out just before "Love Me Do" -- we've essentially been in an extended flashback. This is the last of those flashback episodes, and from next week on we're moving forward into 1963. Today we're going to look at a record by a group of musicians who would be as important to the development of music in the 1960s as any, and at the early years of Stax Records, a label that would become as important as Chess, Motown, or Sun. Today, we're looking at "Green Onions" by Booker T. and the MGs, and how a white country fiddle player accidentally kickstarted the most important label in soul music: [Excerpt: Booker T. and the MGs, "Green Onions"] Our story starts in Memphis, with Jim Stewart, a part-time fiddle player. Stewart was in a Western Swing band, and was hugely influenced by Bob Wills, but he wasn't making any real money from music. Instead, he was working a day job at a bank. But he was still interested in music, and wanted to be involved in the industry. One of the gigs he'd had was in the house band at a venue where Elvis sometimes played in his early years, and he'd seen how Elvis had gone from an obscure local boy all the way to the biggest star in the world. He knew he couldn't do that himself, but he was irresistibly attracted to any field where that was *possible*. He found his way into the industry, and into music history as a result of a tip from his barber. The barber in question, Erwin Ellis, was another country fiddle player, but he owned his own record label, Erwin Records. Erwin Records was a tiny label -- it was so tiny that its first release, by Ellis himself, seems not to exist anywhere. Even on compilations of Erwin Records material, it's not present, which is a shame, as it would be interesting from a historical perspective to hear Ellis' own playing. But while Ellis was unsuccessful both as a fiddle player and as a record company owner, he did manage to release a handful of rockabilly classics on Erwin Records, like Hoyt Jackson's "Enie Meanie Minie Moe": [Excerpt: Hoyt Jackson, "Enie Meanie Minie Moe"] and "Boppin' Wig Wam Willie" by Ray Scott, who had written "Flyin' Saucers Rock & Roll" for Billy Lee Riley, and who was backed by Riley's Little Green Men on this single: [Excerpt: Ray Scott, "Boppin' Wig Wam WIllie"] Ellis' label wasn't hugely successful, but he made some decent money from it, and he explained the realities of the music industry to Stewart as Stewart was sat in his barber's chair. He told Stewart that you didn't make money from the records themselves -- small labels didn't sell much -- but that he was making some good money from the songs. The formula for success in the music business, Ellis explained, was that when you got a new artist through the door, you told them they could only record originals, not cover versions -- and then you made sure they signed the publishing over to you. If you sold a record, you were just selling a bit of plastic, and you'd already paid to make the bit of plastic. There was no real money in that. But if you owned the song, every time that record was played on the radio, you got a bit of money with no extra outlay -- and if you owned enough songs, then some of them might get covered by a big star, and then you'd get some real money. Hoyt Jackson, Ellis' biggest act, hadn't had any hits himself, but he'd written "It's A Little More Like Heaven (Where You Are)": [Excerpt: Hoyt Jackson, "It's A Little More Like Heaven (Where You Are)"] Hank Locklin had recorded a cover version of it, which had gone to number three on the country charts: [Excerpt: Hank Locklin "It's a Little More Like Heaven"] And Johnny Cash had rewritten it a bit, as "You're the Nearest Thing to Heaven", and had also had a top five country hit with it: [Excerpt: Johnny Cash, "You're the Nearest Thing to Heaven"] Ellis explained to Stewart that he was still getting cheques every few months because he owned the publishing for this song that someone else had written and brought to him. If you owned the publishing for a song that became a hit, then you had a steady source of income without having to lift a finger. And people would just give you the publishing on their songs if you agreed to put a record of them out. For someone like Stewart, who worked in a bank and knew a little bit about finance, that sounded just about perfect. He pulled together a singing DJ, a piano player, and a rhythm guitarist he knew, and they pooled their savings and raised a thousand dollars to put out a record. Stewart wrote a song -- the only song he'd ever write -- Fred Byler, the DJ, sang it, and they hired Ellis and his tape recorder to record it in Jim's wife's uncle's garage. They came up with the name Satellite Records for their label -- nobody liked it, but they couldn't think of anything better, and satellites were in the news with the recent launch of Sputnik. "Blue Roses" by Fred Byler, came out to pretty much no sales or airplay: [Excerpt: Fred Byler, "Blue Roses"] The next record was more interesting -- "Boppin' High School Baby" by Don Willis is a prime slice of Memphis rockabilly, though one with so much slapback echo that even Joe Meek might have said "hang on, isn't that a bit much?": [Excerpt: Don Willis, "Boppin' High School Baby"] That also didn't sell -- Stewart and his partners knew nothing about the music business. They didn't know how to get the records distributed to shops, and they had no money left. And then Erwin Ellis moved away and took his tape recorder with him, and Stewart's wife's uncle wanted to use his garage again and so wouldn't let them record there any more. It looked like that would be the end of Satellite Records. But then three things changed everything for Jim Stewart, and for music history. The first of these was that Stewart's new barber was also interested in music -- he had a daughter who he thought could sing, and he had a large storage space he wasn't using, in Brunswick on the outskirts of the city. If they'd record his daughter, they could use the storage space as a studio. The second was Chips Moman. Chips was a teenage guitarist who had been playing a friend's guitar at a drugstore in Memphis, just hanging around after work, when Warren Smith walked in. Smith was a Sun Records rockabilly artist, who'd had a minor hit with "Rock and Roll Ruby": [Excerpt: Warren Smith, "Rock and Roll Ruby"] Smith liked Moman's playing, and offered him a job -- Moman's initial response was "doing what?" Moman had joined Smith's band on guitar, then played with Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. He went with the Burnettes to California, where he was a session player for a time -- though I've never been able to find a list of any of the records he played on, just people saying he played at Gold Star Studios. He'd then joined Gene Vincent's Blue Caps, before being in an accident which had led him to come back to Memphis. He'd played guitar on the Don Willis session, and he'd essentially produced it, applying some of the techniques he'd learned in Californian studios. He was young, he was eager to make records, and he knew what he was doing. And the third event was that Stewart managed to persuade his sister, Estelle Axton, to buy out his business partners. Estelle was a naturally business-minded person who also had a yearning to do something involving music, and had been doing things in little ways. For example, the people where she worked all liked music but found they were too busy to go to the record shop -- so Estelle would make a list of records they liked, go to one of the wholesalers that distributed music to record shops, buy records there for seventy-six cents, and sell them to her colleagues for a dollar. Estelle persuaded her husband, against his better judgement, to remortgage their house, and she used the money to buy recording equipment. Moman helped them set it up in the barber's storage space, and Satellite Records started up again, restarting their numbering as if from scratch with what they were now considering their first real release -- a song that Moman had co-written, sung by a black vocal group, the Vel-Tones: [Excerpt: The Vel-Tones, "Fool in Love"] The record was pretty much in the style of the white pop semi-doo-wop that was charting at the time, but the singers were black, and so it had to be promoted as R&B, and Jim Stewart made visits to Black DJs like Al Bell and Rufus Thomas, and managed to get the record some airplay. It was popular enough that the record got picked up for distribution by Mercury, and actually brought Satellite a small profit. But the label still wasn't doing well, and they were finding it difficult to persuade musicians to trek all the way out to Brunswick. And the studio space was bad in other ways -- it was right near a train track, and the noise of the trains would disrupt the sessions. And while it was free, at some point they would actually have to make a record featuring Stewart's barber's daughter, which nobody actually fancied doing.  So they decided to move studios again, and in doing so they were inspired by another Memphis record label. Hi Records had started around the same time as Satellite, and it had had a few big hits, most notably "Smokie (Part 2)" by the Bill Black Combo, the group that Elvis' former bass player had formed when Elvis had joined the army: [Excerpt: Bill Black Combo: "Smokie (Part 2)"] For their studio, Hi used an old cinema -- a lot of cinemas were closing down in the late fifties, due to the combination of television and the drive-in making indoor cinemas less appealing, and because white flight to the suburbs meant that people with money no longer lived in walking distance of cinemas the way they used to. The Satellite team found an old cinema on East McLemore Avenue, much closer to the centre of Memphis and easier for musicians to get to. That cinema had stopped showing films a year or two earlier, and there'd been a brief period where it had been used for country music performances, but the area was becoming increasingly Black, as white people moved away, and while plenty of Black people liked country music, they weren't exactly welcomed to the performances in segregated 1950s Memphis, and so the building was abandoned, and available cheap. Meanwhile, Estelle's son Charles was trying to get into the music business, too. Before I go any further in talking about him, I should say that I've had to depart from my normal policy when talking about him. Normally, I refer to people by the name they chose to go by, but in his case he was known by a nickname which was harmless in that time and place, but later became an extremely offensive racist slur in the UK, used against people of Pakistani descent. The word didn't have those connotations in the US at the time, and he died before its use as a slur became widely known over there, but I'm just going to call him Charles. And speaking of words which might be considered racial slurs, the band that Charles joined -- an all-white group who loved to play R&B -- was called the Royal Spades. This was supposedly because of their love of playing cards, but there's more than a suspicion that the racial connotations of the term were used deliberately, and that these white teenage boys were giggling at their naughty racial transgressiveness. The group had originally just been a guitar/bass/drum band, but Charles Axton had approached them and suggested they should get a horn section, offering his services as a tenor player. They'd laughed when he told them he'd only been playing a couple of weeks, but once he explained that his mother and uncle owned a record label, he was in the group, and they'd expanded to have a full horn section. The group was led by guitarist Steve Cropper and also included his friend, the bass player Duck Dunn, and Cropper and Charles Axton helped with the refurbishing of the cinema into a recording studio. The cinema had another advantage, too -- as well as the auditorium, which became the studio, it had a lobby and concession stand. Estelle Axton turned that into a record shop, which she ran herself -- with Cropper often helping out behind the counter. She instituted a policy that, unlike other record shops, people could hang around all day listening to music, without necessarily buying anything. She also brought in a loyalty card scheme -- buy nine records and get a tenth record for free -- which allowed her to track what individual customers were buying. She soon became so knowledgeable about what was selling to the Black teenagers of the area that she boasted that if you came into the shop with twenty dollars, she'd have sold you nineteen dollars' worth of records before you left -- she'd leave you with a dollar so you could pay for your transport home, to make sure you could come back with more money. By having a record shop in the record studio itself, they knew what was selling and could make more music that sounded like that. By having a crowd around all day listening to music, they could put the new recordings on and gauge the response before pressing a single copy. Satellite Records suddenly had a market research department. And they soon had an ally in getting them airplay. Rufus Thomas was the most important man in Black entertainment in Memphis. He was a popular DJ and comedian, he was the compere at almost every chitlin' circuit show in the area, and he was also a popular singer. He'd been the one to record the first hit on Sun Records, "Bear Cat", the answer record to "Hound Dog" we talked about way back in episode fifteen: [Excerpt: Rufus Thomas, "Bear Cat"] Rufus Thomas knew Jim Stewart from when Stewart had been promoting the Vel-Tones single, and so he came into the newly opened studio and suggested he cut a few tracks. If you've got a record label, and a DJ wants to make a record with you, that's a godsend -- you're guaranteed airplay, not only for that record, but for a few of your others. And if that DJ also happens to be a genuine talent who'd made hit records before, you jump at the chance. Thomas also brought in his daughter, Carla, who happened to have an astonishing voice.  For the first session in the new studio, they recorded a song Rufus had written, "'Cause I Love You", with a few musicians that he knew, including a bass player called Wilbur Steinberg, and with Steve Cropper sitting in on guitar and Chips Moman producing. Also in the studio was David Porter, a teenager who sang in a band with Bob Tally, the trumpet player on the session -- Porter was skipping school so he could be in a real recording studio, even though he wasn't going to be singing on the session. When they started playing the song, Tally decided that it would sound good with a baritone sax on it. Nobody in the studio played saxophone, but then Porter remembered one of his classmates at Booker T Washington High School. This classmate was also called Booker T. -- Booker T. Jones -- and he could play everything. He played oboe, sax, trombone, double bass, guitar, and keyboards, and played them all to a professional standard. Porter popped over to the school, walked into the classroom Jones was in, told the teacher that another teacher wanted to see Jones, pulled him out of the class, and told him he was going to make a record. They borrowed a baritone sax from the school's music room, went back to the studio, and Jones played on "'Cause I Love You" by Rufus and Carla Thomas: [Excerpt: Rufus and Carla Thomas, "'Cause I Love You"] "'Cause I Love You" became a local hit, and soon Jim Stewart got a call from Jerry Wexler at Atlantic, offering to start distributing it, and any future records by Rufus and Carla Thomas. Stewart didn't really know anything about the business, but when Wexler explained to Stewart that he was the producer of "What'd I Say" by Ray Charles, Stewart knew that was someone he needed to work with -- he'd recently had a sort of Damascene conversion after hearing that record, and was now fully committed to his company's new R&B style. For a five thousand dollar advance, Atlantic ended up with the rights to press and distribute all future masters from Satellite. The next single from the label was a Carla Thomas solo record, "Gee Whizz, Look at His Eyes". For that session, they booked in some string players, and Bob Tally was meant to write an arrangement for them. However, he didn't turn up to the session, and when Stewart went round to his house to find him, he discovered that Tally hadn't written the arrangement, and had been up all night playing at a gig and was in no fit state to write one. Stewart had to make the string players play from a head arrangement -- something string players normally never do -- and ended up giving them directions like "just play donuts!", meaning semibreves or whole notes, which are drawn as ovals with a hole in the middle, like a donut. Despite this, "Gee Whizz" went to number five on the R&B charts and ten on the pop charts. Satellite Records had a real hit: [Excerpt: Carla Thomas, "Gee Whizz, Look at His Eyes"] Satellite were starting to build up a whole team of people they could call on. Steve Cropper was working in the record shop, so he was available whenever they needed a guitar part playing or a second keyboard adding. David Porter was working at Big Star, the grocery store across the road, and he turned out to be a talented songwriter and backing vocalist. And of course there was the band that Cropper and Charles Axton were in, which had now been renamed to the Mar-Keys, a pun on "marquis" as in the noble title, and "keys" as in keyboards, as Estelle Axton thought -- entirely correctly -- that their original name was inappropriate. They also had a pool of Black session players they could call on, mostly older people who'd been brought to them by Rufus Thomas, and there were always eager teenagers turning up wanting to do anything they could in order to make a record. It was the Mar-Keys who finally gave Satellite the distinctive sound they were looking for. Or, at least, it was under the Mar-Keys' name that the record was released. An instrumental, "Last Night", was recorded at several sessions run by Moman, often with different lineups of musicians. The Mar-Keys at this point consisted of Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, Charles Axton, Wayne Jackson, Terry Johnson, Smoochy Smith, and Don Nix, but the lineup on the finished recording had Smith on keyboards, Axton on sax and Jackson on trumpet, with some sources saying that Cropper provided the second keyboard part while others say he only played on outtakes, not on the final version. The other four musicians were Black session players -- Lewie Steinberg, Wilbur's brother, on bass, Gilbert Caples and Floyd Newman on saxes, and Curtis Green on drums. Floyd Newman also did the spoken "Ooh, last night!" that punctuated the record: [Excerpt: The Mar-Keys, "Last Night"] Jim Stewart and Chips Moman were both convinced that would be a flop, as was Jerry Wexler when he heard it. But Estelle Axton believed in its potential -- and also believed in her son, who Stewart had little time for. Jim Stewart didn't want his useless nephew's band on his label at all if he could help it, but Estelle Axton wanted her son to have a hit. She got a test pressing to a DJ, who started playing it, and people started coming into the shop asking for the record. Eventually, Stewart gave in to his sister's pressure, and agreed to release the record. There was only one problem -- when they pulled the tape out, they found that the first section of the track had somehow been erased. They had to hunt through the rubbish, looking through discarded bits of tape, until they found another take of the song that had a usable beginning they could splice in. They did a very good job -- I *think* I can hear the splice, but if it's where I think it is, it's about the cleanest editing job on analogue tape I've ever heard. If I'm right, the edit comes right in the middle of this passage: [Excerpt: The Mar-Keys, "Last Night"] Did you hear it? The song's authorship has been debated over the years, because the horn part and the keyboard part were written separately. Caples and Newman, the session sax players, had come up with the horn part, and so always said they should get solo composition credit. Smoochy Smith had separately written the keyboard part, which came from something he'd been working on on his own, so he got credit too. Chips Moman had suggested combining the keyboard and horn lines, and so he got songwriting credit as well. And Charles Axton didn't contribute anything to the song other than playing on the record, but because his family owned the record label, he got credit as well. The record became a big hit, and there are a couple of hypotheses as to why. Steve Cropper always argued that it was because you could dance the Twist to it, and so it rode the Twist craze, while others have pointed out that at one point in the record they leave a gap instead of saying "Ooh last night" as they do the rest of the way through. That gap allowed DJs to do the interjection themselves, which encouraged them to play it a lot. It made number three on the pop charts and number two on the R&B charts, and it led to Satellite Records coming to the attention of another label, also called Satellite, in California, who offered to sell the Memphis label the rights to use the name. Jim Stewart had never liked Satellite as a name anyway, and so they quickly reissued the record with a new label, named after the first letters of Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton's surnames. Stax Records was born. The Mar-Keys immediately hit the road to promote the single -- which brought resentment from the Black session players, some of whom claim that during the session it hadn't even been intended as a Mar-Keys record, and who were annoyed that even though the record was primarily their work they weren't getting the recognition and a bunch of white boys were.  Cropper soon got tired of the tour, quit the group and came back to Memphis -- he was annoyed partly because the other band members, being teenage boys, many of them away from home for the first time, acted like wild animals, and partly because Cropper and Charles Axton both believed themselves to be the band's leader and that the other should obey them. Cropper went back to working in the record shop, and playing on sessions at Stax. The second Mar-Keys single was recorded by the studio musicians while the group were out on tour -- the first they even knew about it was when they saw it in the shop: [Excerpt: The Mar-Keys, "The Morning After"] That was much less successful, but the label was still interested in making instrumentals. They started a subsidiary label, Volt -- if you put records out with two different label names, it was more likely that radio stations would play more of your records, because it wouldn't seem like they were playing one label too much -- and the first single on it was an instrumental that Chips Moman wrote, "Burnt Biscuits", by a group consisting of Moman, Rufus Thomas' son Mavell, Lewie Steinberg, and Howard Grimes: [Excerpt: The Triumphs, "Burnt Biscuits"] That wasn't a hit, though Moman thought it had the potential to become as big as "Last Night". It was released under the name "the Triumphs", after the sports car Moman drove. Shortly after that, Moman produced what would be the last classic record he'd make for Stax, when he produced "You Don't Miss Your Water" by a new singer, William Bell, who had previously been one of the backing vocalists on "Gee Whiz". That track had Mavell Thomas on piano, Lewie Steinberg on bass, Ron Capone on drums, and Booker T. Jones on organ -- by this point Booker T. was being called on a lot to play keyboards, as Floyd Newman recommended him as a reliable piano player in the hopes that if Jones was on keyboards, he wouldn't be playing baritone sax, so Newman would get more of those gigs: [Excerpt: William Bell, "You Don't Miss Your Water"] That was a great record, one of the defining records of the new country-soul genre along with Arthur Alexander's records, but it would be the last thing Moman would do at Stax. He'd not been getting on with Estelle Axton, and he also claims that he had been promised a third of the company, but Jim Stewart changed his mind and refused to cut him in. Everyone has a different story about what happened, but the upshot was that Moman left the company, went to Nashville for a while, and then founded his own studio, American, in another part of Memphis. Moman would become responsible for writing and producing a whole string of soul, country, and rock classics, and I'm sure we'll be hearing more from him in the next couple of years. After Moman left, the label floundered a little bit for a few months. Jim Stewart and Steve Cropper split the production duties that Moman had had between them. Stewart had already produced several records for Carla Thomas, and Cropper was a great musician who had been spending every second he could learning how to make records, so they could cope, but they released a mixture of really good soul records that failed to hit the charts, and truly dire novelty country songs like "The Three Dogwoods" by Nick Charles, a song from the perspective of the tree that became the cross on which Jesus was crucified: [Excerpt: Nick Charles, "The Three Dogwoods"] That was co-written by Cropper, which shows that even the man who co-wrote "In the Midnight Hour", "Dock of the Bay" and "Knock on Wood" had his off days. The record that would prove Stax to be capable of doing great things without Chips Moman came about by accident. Stax was still not exclusively a soul label, and it was cutting the odd country and rockabilly record, and one of the people who was going to use the studio was Billy Lee Riley. You might remember Riley from a year ago, when we looked at his "Flyin' Saucers Rock 'n' Roll": [Excerpt: Billy Lee Riley and the Little Green Men, "Flyin' Saucers Rock 'n' Roll"] Riley was running his own label at the time, and doing various bits of session work and singing for other people. No-one's quite sure what he was using the studio for in early 1962 -- some say he was cutting a jingle, some say he cut a few actual tracks but that they were awful, and others that he turned up too drunk to record. Either way, the session ended early, and the musicians were at a loose end. The musicians on this session were three of the regular Stax musicians -- Steve Cropper, who had just turned twenty, on guitar, Booker T. Jones, who was still a teenager, on organ, and Lewie Steinberg, a decade older than either, on bass. The fourth musician was Al Jackson, who like Steinberg was an older Black man who had cut his teeth playing jazz and R&B throughout the fifties. Booker had played with Jackson in Willie Mitchell's band, and had insisted to everyone at Stax that they needed to get this man in, as he was the best drummer Jones had ever heard. Jackson was making money from gigging, and didn't want to waste his time playing sessions, which he thought would not be as lucrative as his regular gigs with Willie Mitchell. Eventually, Stax agreed to take him on on a salary, rather than just paying him one-off session fees, and so he became the first musician employed by Stax as a full-time player -- Cropper was already on salary, but that was for his production work and his work at the record shop. As the session had ended rather disappointingly, the four were noodling on some blues as they had nothing better to do. Jim Stewart clicked on the talkback from the control room to tell them to go home, but then heard what they were playing, and told them to start it again so he could get it down on tape: [Excerpt: Booker T and the MGs, "Behave Yourself"] Stewart was happy with that track, but singles needed two sides, and so they needed to come up with something else. Cropper remembered a little musical lick he'd heard on the radio one day when he'd been driving with Booker -- they'd both been fascinated by that lick, but neither could remember anything else about the song (and to this day no-one's figured out what the song they'd heard was). They started noodling around with that lick, and shaped it into a twelve-bar instrumental: [Excerpt: Booker T. and the MGs, "Green Onions"] That was even better than the other track, and they needed a funky name to go with such a funky track. Lewie Steinberg thought that onions were the funkiest thing he could think of, and so the track became "Green Onions". As the last instrumental they'd released with food as a title, "Burnt Biscuits", had been by the Triumphs, they thought the group name should be another sports car name, and so it came out as by Booker T and the MGs. (They later said that MG stood either for Memphis Group or for Mixed Group, because they had both Black and white members, but the original idea was definitely the car – they just didn't want to have a trademark lawsuit on their hands). "Green Onions" went to number one on the R&B charts and number three on the pop charts, and became the biggest thing Stax had ever recorded. That core group became the Stax house band, playing on every session from that point on. If they recorded an instrumental on their own, it went out as by Booker T and the MGs. If they recorded an instrumental with horn players, it went out as by the Mar-Keys, and they also played backing all the singers who came through the door of Stax, and there would be a lot of them over the next few years. There were a couple of changes -- Booker T actually went off to university soon after recording "Green Onions", so for a couple of years he could only play on weekends and during holidays -- on weekdays, the studio used another keyboard player, again suggested by Floyd Newman, who had hired a young man for his bar band when the young man could only play piano with one hand, just because he seemed to have a feel for the music. Luckily, Isaac Hayes had soon learned to play with both hands, and he fit right in while Booker was away at university. The other change came a couple of years later, when after the MGs had had a few hits, Lewie Steinberg was replaced by Duck Dunn. Steinberg always claimed that the main reason he was dropped from the MGs was because he was Black and Steve Cropper wanted another white man. Cropper has always said it was because Duck Dunn had a harder-edged style that fit their music better than Steinberg's looser feel, but also that Dunn had been his best friend for years and he wanted to play more with him. The two Black members of the MGs have never commented publicly, as far as I can tell, on the change. But whether with Jones or Hayes, Steinberg or Dunn, the MGs would be the foundation of Stax's records for the rest of the sixties, as well as producing a string of instrumental hits. And it was those instrumental hits that led to the arrival of the person who would make Stax a legendary label. Joe Galkin, a record promoter to whom Jim Stewart owed a favour, was managing a local guitarist, Johnny Jenkins, and brought him into the studio to see if Stax could get him an instrumental hit, since they'd had a few of those. Jenkins did eventually release a single on Stax, but it wasn't particularly special, and didn't have any success: [Excerpt: Johnny Jenkins, "Spunky"] The day of Jenkins' first session was a flop, they'd not been able to get anything decent recorded, and the musicians started to pack up. But Galkin had made a deal with the singer in Jenkins' band -- if he'd drive Jenkins to the studio, since Jenkins couldn't drive, he'd try to get a record cut with him as well. Nobody was interested, but Galkin wore Jim Stewart down and he agreed to listen to this person who he just thought of as Johnny Jenkins' driver. After hearing him, Steve Cropper ran out to get Lewie Steinberg, who was packing his bass away, and tell him to bring it back into the studio. Cropper played piano, Jenkins stayed on guitar, and Booker, Al, and Lewie played their normal instruments. Jim Stewart wasn't particularly impressed with the results, but he owed Galkin a favour, so he released the record, a fun but unoriginal Little Richard soundalike: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "Hey Hey Baby"] But soon DJs flipped the record, and it was the B-side that became the hit: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, "These Arms of Mine"] Otis Redding would never again be thought of as just Johnny Jenkins' driver, and Stax Records was about to hit the big time.  

Episode 105 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Green Onions”, and how a company started by a Western Swing fiddle player ended up making the most important soul records of the sixties. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “He’s So Fine” by the Chiffons. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ (more…)

Episode 105 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Green Onions”, and how a company started by a Western Swing fiddle player ended up making the most important soul records of the sixties. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “He’s So Fine” by the Chiffons. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ (more…)

Episode 105 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Green Onions”, and how a company started by a Western Swing fiddle player ended up making the most important soul records of the sixties. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode.   Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “He’s So Fine” by the Chiffons. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ —-more—- Resources I used three main books when creating this episode. Two were histories of Stax — Soulsville USA: The Story of Stax by Rob Bowman, and Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon.  Country Soul by Charles L Hughes is a more general overview of soul music made in Tennessee and Alabama in the sixties, but is useful as it’s less likely to take statements about racial attitudes entirely at face value. This is a good cheap compilation of Booker T and the MGs’ music. If the Erwin Records tracks here interest you, they’re all available on this compilation. The Complete Stax-Volt Singles vol. 1: 1959-1968 is a nine-CD box set containing much of the rest of the music in this episode. It’s out of print physically, but the MP3 edition, while pricey, is worth it. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript   And now we come to the end of the backfilling portion of the story. Since “Telstar” we’ve been looking at records from 1962 that came out just before “Love Me Do” — we’ve essentially been in an extended flashback. This is the last of those flashback episodes, and from next week on we’re moving forward into 1963. Today we’re going to look at a record by a group of musicians who would be as important to the development of music in the 1960s as any, and at the early years of Stax Records, a label that would become as important as Chess, Motown, or Sun. Today, we’re looking at “Green Onions” by Booker T. and the MGs, and how a white country fiddle player accidentally kickstarted the most important label in soul music: [Excerpt: Booker T. and the MGs, “Green Onions”] Our story starts in Memphis, with Jim Stewart, a part-time fiddle player. Stewart was in a Western Swing band, and was hugely influenced by Bob Wills, but he wasn’t making any real money from music. Instead, he was working a day job at a bank. But he was still interested in music, and wanted to be involved in the industry. One of the gigs he’d had was in the house band at a venue where Elvis sometimes played in his early years, and he’d seen how Elvis had gone from an obscure local boy all the way to the biggest star in the world. He knew he couldn’t do that himself, but he was irresistibly attracted to any field where that was *possible*. He found his way into the industry, and into music history as a result of a tip from his barber. The barber in question, Erwin Ellis, was another country fiddle player, but he owned his own record label, Erwin Records. Erwin Records was a tiny label — it was so tiny that its first release, by Ellis himself, seems not to exist anywhere. Even on compilations of Erwin Records material, it’s not present, which is a shame, as it would be interesting from a historical perspective to hear Ellis’ own playing. But while Ellis was unsuccessful both as a fiddle player and as a record company owner, he did manage to release a handful of rockabilly classics on Erwin Records, like Hoyt Jackson’s “Enie Meanie Minie Moe”: [Excerpt: Hoyt Jackson, “Enie Meanie Minie Moe”] and “Boppin’ Wig Wam Willie” by Ray Scott, who had written “Flyin’ Saucers Rock & Roll” for Billy Lee Riley, and who was backed by Riley’s Little Green Men on this single: [Excerpt: Ray Scott, “Boppin’ Wig Wam WIllie”] Ellis’ label wasn’t hugely successful, but he made some decent money from it, and he explained the realities of the music industry to Stewart as Stewart was sat in his barber’s chair. He told Stewart that you didn’t make money from the records themselves — small labels didn’t sell much — but that he was making some good money from the songs. The formula for success in the music business, Ellis explained, was that when you got a new artist through the door, you told them they could only record originals, not cover versions — and then you made sure they signed the publishing over to you. If you sold a record, you were just selling a bit of plastic, and you’d already paid to make the bit of plastic. There was no real money in that. But if you owned the song, every time that record was played on the radio, you got a bit of money with no extra outlay — and if you owned enough songs, then some of them might get covered by a big star, and then you’d get some real money. Hoyt Jackson, Ellis’ biggest act, hadn’t had any hits himself, but he’d written “It’s A Little More Like Heaven (Where You Are)”: [Excerpt: Hoyt Jackson, “It’s A Little More Like Heaven (Where You Are)”] Hank Locklin had recorded a cover version of it, which had gone to number three on the country charts: [Excerpt: Hank Locklin “It’s a Little More Like Heaven”] And Johnny Cash had rewritten it a bit, as “You’re the Nearest Thing to Heaven”, and had also had a top five country hit with it: [Excerpt: Johnny Cash, “You’re the Nearest Thing to Heaven”] Ellis explained to Stewart that he was still getting cheques every few months because he owned the publishing for this song that someone else had written and brought to him. If you owned the publishing for a song that became a hit, then you had a steady source of income without having to lift a finger. And people would just give you the publishing on their songs if you agreed to put a record of them out. For someone like Stewart, who worked in a bank and knew a little bit about finance, that sounded just about perfect. He pulled together a singing DJ, a piano player, and a rhythm guitarist he knew, and they pooled their savings and raised a thousand dollars to put out a record. Stewart wrote a song — the only song he’d ever write — Fred Byler, the DJ, sang it, and they hired Ellis and his tape recorder to record it in Jim’s wife’s uncle’s garage. They came up with the name Satellite Records for their label — nobody liked it, but they couldn’t think of anything better, and satellites were in the news with the recent launch of Sputnik. “Blue Roses” by Fred Byler, came out to pretty much no sales or airplay: [Excerpt: Fred Byler, “Blue Roses”] The next record was more interesting — “Boppin’ High School Baby” by Don Willis is a prime slice of Memphis rockabilly, though one with so much slapback echo that even Joe Meek might have said “hang on, isn’t that a bit much?”: [Excerpt: Don Willis, “Boppin’ High School Baby”] That also didn’t sell — Stewart and his partners knew nothing about the music business. They didn’t know how to get the records distributed to shops, and they had no money left. And then Erwin Ellis moved away and took his tape recorder with him, and Stewart’s wife’s uncle wanted to use his garage again and so wouldn’t let them record there any more. It looked like that would be the end of Satellite Records. But then three things changed everything for Jim Stewart, and for music history. The first of these was that Stewart’s new barber was also interested in music — he had a daughter who he thought could sing, and he had a large storage space he wasn’t using, in Brunswick on the outskirts of the city. If they’d record his daughter, they could use the storage space as a studio. The second was Chips Moman. Chips was a teenage guitarist who had been playing a friend’s guitar at a drugstore in Memphis, just hanging around after work, when Warren Smith walked in. Smith was a Sun Records rockabilly artist, who’d had a minor hit with “Rock and Roll Ruby”: [Excerpt: Warren Smith, “Rock and Roll Ruby”] Smith liked Moman’s playing, and offered him a job — Moman’s initial response was “doing what?” Moman had joined Smith’s band on guitar, then played with Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. He went with the Burnettes to California, where he was a session player for a time — though I’ve never been able to find a list of any of the records he played on, just people saying he played at Gold Star Studios. He’d then joined Gene Vincent’s Blue Caps, before being in an accident which had led him to come back to Memphis. He’d played guitar on the Don Willis session, and he’d essentially produced it, applying some of the techniques he’d learned in Californian studios. He was young, he was eager to make records, and he knew what he was doing. And the third event was that Stewart managed to persuade his sister, Estelle Axton, to buy out his business partners. Estelle was a naturally business-minded person who also had a yearning to do something involving music, and had been doing things in little ways. For example, the people where she worked all liked music but found they were too busy to go to the record shop — so Estelle would make a list of records they liked, go to one of the wholesalers that distributed music to record shops, buy records there for seventy-six cents, and sell them to her colleagues for a dollar. Estelle persuaded her husband, against his better judgement, to remortgage their house, and she used the money to buy recording equipment. Moman helped them set it up in the barber’s storage space, and Satellite Records started up again, restarting their numbering as if from scratch with what they were now considering their first real release — a song that Moman had co-written, sung by a black vocal group, the Vel-Tones: [Excerpt: The Vel-Tones, “Fool in Love”] The record was pretty much in the style of the white pop semi-doo-wop that was charting at the time, but the singers were black, and so it had to be promoted as R&B, and Jim Stewart made visits to Black DJs like Al Bell and Rufus Thomas, and managed to get the record some airplay. It was popular enough that the record got picked up for distribution by Mercury, and actually brought Satellite a small profit. But the label still wasn’t doing well, and they were finding it difficult to persuade musicians to trek all the way out to Brunswick. And the studio space was bad in other ways — it was right near a train track, and the noise of the trains would disrupt the sessions. And while it was free, at some point they would actually have to make a record featuring Stewart’s barber’s daughter, which nobody actually fancied doing.  So they decided to move studios again, and in doing so they were inspired by another Memphis record label. Hi Records had started around the same time as Satellite, and it had had a few big hits, most notably “Smokie (Part 2)” by the Bill Black Combo, the group that Elvis’ former bass player had formed when Elvis had joined the army: [Excerpt: Bill Black Combo: “Smokie (Part 2)”] For their studio, Hi used an old cinema — a lot of cinemas were closing down in the late fifties, due to the combination of television and the drive-in making indoor cinemas less appealing, and because white flight to the suburbs meant that people with money no longer lived in walking distance of cinemas the way they used to. The Satellite team found an old cinema on East McLemore Avenue, much closer to the centre of Memphis and easier for musicians to get to. That cinema had stopped showing films a year or two earlier, and there’d been a brief period where it had been used for country music performances, but the area was becoming increasingly Black, as white people moved away, and while plenty of Black people liked country music, they weren’t exactly welcomed to the performances in segregated 1950s Memphis, and so the building was abandoned, and available cheap. Meanwhile, Estelle’s son Charles was trying to get into the music business, too. Before I go any further in talking about him, I should say that I’ve had to depart from my normal policy when talking about him. Normally, I refer to people by the name they chose to go by, but in his case he was known by a nickname which was harmless in that time and place, but later became an extremely offensive racist slur in the UK, used against people of Pakistani descent. The word didn’t have those connotations in the US at the time, and he died before its use as a slur became widely known over there, but I’m just going to call him Charles. And speaking of words which might be considered racial slurs, the band that Charles joined — an all-white group who loved to play R&B — was called the Royal Spades. This was supposedly because of their love of playing cards, but there’s more than a suspicion that the racial connotations of the term were used deliberately, and that these white teenage boys were giggling at their naughty racial transgressiveness. The group had originally just been a guitar/bass/drum band, but Charles Axton had approached them and suggested they should get a horn section, offering his services as a tenor player. They’d laughed when he told them he’d only been playing a couple of weeks, but once he explained that his mother and uncle owned a record label, he was in the group, and they’d expanded to have a full horn section. The group was led by guitarist Steve Cropper and also included his friend, the bass player Duck Dunn, and Cropper and Charles Axton helped with the refurbishing of the cinema into a recording studio. The cinema had another advantage, too — as well as the auditorium, which became the studio, it had a lobby and concession stand. Estelle Axton turned that into a record shop, which she ran herself — with Cropper often helping out behind the counter. She instituted a policy that, unlike other record shops, people could hang around all day listening to music, without necessarily buying anything. She also brought in a loyalty card scheme — buy nine records and get a tenth record for free — which allowed her to track what individual customers were buying. She soon became so knowledgeable about what was selling to the Black teenagers of the area that she boasted that if you came into the shop with twenty dollars, she’d have sold you nineteen dollars’ worth of records before you left — she’d leave you with a dollar so you could pay for your transport home, to make sure you could come back with more money. By having a record shop in the record studio itself, they knew what was selling and could make more music that sounded like that. By having a crowd around all day listening to music, they could put the new recordings on and gauge the response before pressing a single copy. Satellite Records suddenly had a market research department. And they soon had an ally in getting them airplay. Rufus Thomas was the most important man in Black entertainment in Memphis. He was a popular DJ and comedian, he was the compere at almost every chitlin’ circuit show in the area, and he was also a popular singer. He’d been the one to record the first hit on Sun Records, “Bear Cat”, the answer record to “Hound Dog” we talked about way back in episode fifteen: [Excerpt: Rufus Thomas, “Bear Cat”] Rufus Thomas knew Jim Stewart from when Stewart had been promoting the Vel-Tones single, and so he came into the newly opened studio and suggested he cut a few tracks. If you’ve got a record label, and a DJ wants to make a record with you, that’s a godsend — you’re guaranteed airplay, not only for that record, but for a few of your others. And if that DJ also happens to be a genuine talent who’d made hit records before, you jump at the chance. Thomas also brought in his daughter, Carla, who happened to have an astonishing voice.  For the first session in the new studio, they recorded a song Rufus had written, “‘Cause I Love You”, with a few musicians that he knew, including a bass player called Wilbur Steinberg, and with Steve Cropper sitting in on guitar and Chips Moman producing. Also in the studio was David Porter, a teenager who sang in a band with Bob Tally, the trumpet player on the session — Porter was skipping school so he could be in a real recording studio, even though he wasn’t going to be singing on the session. When they started playing the song, Tally decided that it would sound good with a baritone sax on it. Nobody in the studio played saxophone, but then Porter remembered one of his classmates at Booker T Washington High School. This classmate was also called Booker T. — Booker T. Jones — and he could play everything. He played oboe, sax, trombone, double bass, guitar, and keyboards, and played them all to a professional standard. Porter popped over to the school, walked into the classroom Jones was in, told the teacher that another teacher wanted to see Jones, pulled him out of the class, and told him he was going to make a record. They borrowed a baritone sax from the school’s music room, went back to the studio, and Jones played on “‘Cause I Love You” by Rufus and Carla Thomas: [Excerpt: Rufus and Carla Thomas, “‘Cause I Love You”] “‘Cause I Love You” became a local hit, and soon Jim Stewart got a call from Jerry Wexler at Atlantic, offering to start distributing it, and any future records by Rufus and Carla Thomas. Stewart didn’t really know anything about the business, but when Wexler explained to Stewart that he was the producer of “What’d I Say” by Ray Charles, Stewart knew that was someone he needed to work with — he’d recently had a sort of Damascene conversion after hearing that record, and was now fully committed to his company’s new R&B style. For a five thousand dollar advance, Atlantic ended up with the rights to press and distribute all future masters from Satellite. The next single from the label was a Carla Thomas solo record, “Gee Whizz, Look at His Eyes”. For that session, they booked in some string players, and Bob Tally was meant to write an arrangement for them. However, he didn’t turn up to the session, and when Stewart went round to his house to find him, he discovered that Tally hadn’t written the arrangement, and had been up all night playing at a gig and was in no fit state to write one. Stewart had to make the string players play from a head arrangement — something string players normally never do — and ended up giving them directions like “just play donuts!”, meaning semibreves or whole notes, which are drawn as ovals with a hole in the middle, like a donut. Despite this, “Gee Whizz” went to number five on the R&B charts and ten on the pop charts. Satellite Records had a real hit: [Excerpt: Carla Thomas, “Gee Whizz, Look at His Eyes”] Satellite were starting to build up a whole team of people they could call on. Steve Cropper was working in the record shop, so he was available whenever they needed a guitar part playing or a second keyboard adding. David Porter was working at Big Star, the grocery store across the road, and he turned out to be a talented songwriter and backing vocalist. And of course there was the band that Cropper and Charles Axton were in, which had now been renamed to the Mar-Keys, a pun on “marquis” as in the noble title, and “keys” as in keyboards, as Estelle Axton thought — entirely correctly — that their original name was inappropriate. They also had a pool of Black session players they could call on, mostly older people who’d been brought to them by Rufus Thomas, and there were always eager teenagers turning up wanting to do anything they could in order to make a record. It was the Mar-Keys who finally gave Satellite the distinctive sound they were looking for. Or, at least, it was under the Mar-Keys’ name that the record was released. An instrumental, “Last Night”, was recorded at several sessions run by Moman, often with different lineups of musicians. The Mar-Keys at this point consisted of Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, Charles Axton, Wayne Jackson, Terry Johnson, Smoochy Smith, and Don Nix, but the lineup on the finished recording had Smith on keyboards, Axton on sax and Jackson on trumpet, with some sources saying that Cropper provided the second keyboard part while others say he only played on outtakes, not on the final version. The other four musicians were Black session players — Lewie Steinberg, Wilbur’s brother, on bass, Gilbert Caples and Floyd Newman on saxes, and Curtis Green on drums. Floyd Newman also did the spoken “Ooh, last night!” that punctuated the record: [Excerpt: The Mar-Keys, “Last Night”] Jim Stewart and Chips Moman were both convinced that would be a flop, as was Jerry Wexler when he heard it. But Estelle Axton believed in its potential — and also believed in her son, who Stewart had little time for. Jim Stewart didn’t want his useless nephew’s band on his label at all if he could help it, but Estelle Axton wanted her son to have a hit. She got a test pressing to a DJ, who started playing it, and people started coming into the shop asking for the record. Eventually, Stewart gave in to his sister’s pressure, and agreed to release the record. There was only one problem — when they pulled the tape out, they found that the first section of the track had somehow been erased. They had to hunt through the rubbish, looking through discarded bits of tape, until they found another take of the song that had a usable beginning they could splice in. They did a very good job — I *think* I can hear the splice, but if it’s where I think it is, it’s about the cleanest editing job on analogue tape I’ve ever heard. If I’m right, the edit comes right in the middle of this passage: [Excerpt: The Mar-Keys, “Last Night”] Did you hear it? The song’s authorship has been debated over the years, because the horn part and the keyboard part were written separately. Caples and Newman, the session sax players, had come up with the horn part, and so always said they should get solo composition credit. Smoochy Smith had separately written the keyboard part, which came from something he’d been working on on his own, so he got credit too. Chips Moman had suggested combining the keyboard and horn lines, and so he got songwriting credit as well. And Charles Axton didn’t contribute anything to the song other than playing on the record, but because his family owned the record label, he got credit as well. The record became a big hit, and there are a couple of hypotheses as to why. Steve Cropper always argued that it was because you could dance the Twist to it, and so it rode the Twist craze, while others have pointed out that at one point in the record they leave a gap instead of saying “Ooh last night” as they do the rest of the way through. That gap allowed DJs to do the interjection themselves, which encouraged them to play it a lot. It made number three on the pop charts and number two on the R&B charts, and it led to Satellite Records coming to the attention of another label, also called Satellite, in California, who offered to sell the Memphis label the rights to use the name. Jim Stewart had never liked Satellite as a name anyway, and so they quickly reissued the record with a new label, named after the first letters of Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton’s surnames. Stax Records was born. The Mar-Keys immediately hit the road to promote the single — which brought resentment from the Black session players, some of whom claim that during the session it hadn’t even been intended as a Mar-Keys record, and who were annoyed that even though the record was primarily their work they weren’t getting the recognition and a bunch of white boys were.  Cropper soon got tired of the tour, quit the group and came back to Memphis — he was annoyed partly because the other band members, being teenage boys, many of them away from home for the first time, acted like wild animals, and partly because Cropper and Charles Axton both believed themselves to be the band’s leader and that the other should obey them. Cropper went back to working in the record shop, and playing on sessions at Stax. The second Mar-Keys single was recorded by the studio musicians while the group were out on tour — the first they even knew about it was when they saw it in the shop: [Excerpt: The Mar-Keys, “The Morning After”] That was much less successful, but the label was still interested in making instrumentals. They started a subsidiary label, Volt — if you put records out with two different label names, it was more likely that radio stations would play more of your records, because it wouldn’t seem like they were playing one label too much — and the first single on it was an instrumental that Chips Moman wrote, “Burnt Biscuits”, by a group consisting of Moman, Rufus Thomas’ son Mavell, Lewie Steinberg, and Howard Grimes: [Excerpt: The Triumphs, “Burnt Biscuits”] That wasn’t a hit, though Moman thought it had the potential to become as big as “Last Night”. It was released under the name “the Triumphs”, after the sports car Moman drove. Shortly after that, Moman produced what would be the last classic record he’d make for Stax, when he produced “You Don’t Miss Your Water” by a new singer, William Bell, who had previously been one of the backing vocalists on “Gee Whiz”. That track had Mavell Thomas on piano, Lewie Steinberg on bass, Ron Capone on drums, and Booker T. Jones on organ — by this point Booker T. was being called on a lot to play keyboards, as Floyd Newman recommended him as a reliable piano player in the hopes that if Jones was on keyboards, he wouldn’t be playing baritone sax, so Newman would get more of those gigs: [Excerpt: William Bell, “You Don’t Miss Your Water”] That was a great record, one of the defining records of the new country-soul genre along with Arthur Alexander’s records, but it would be the last thing Moman would do at Stax. He’d not been getting on with Estelle Axton, and he also claims that he had been promised a third of the company, but Jim Stewart changed his mind and refused to cut him in. Everyone has a different story about what happened, but the upshot was that Moman left the company, went to Nashville for a while, and then founded his own studio, American, in another part of Memphis. Moman would become responsible for writing and producing a whole string of soul, country, and rock classics, and I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from him in the next couple of years. After Moman left, the label floundered a little bit for a few months. Jim Stewart and Steve Cropper split the production duties that Moman had had between them. Stewart had already produced several records for Carla Thomas, and Cropper was a great musician who had been spending every second he could learning how to make records, so they could cope, but they released a mixture of really good soul records that failed to hit the charts, and truly dire novelty country songs like “The Three Dogwoods” by Nick Charles, a song from the perspective of the tree that became the cross on which Jesus was crucified: [Excerpt: Nick Charles, “The Three Dogwoods”] That was co-written by Cropper, which shows that even the man who co-wrote “In the Midnight Hour”, “Dock of the Bay” and “Knock on Wood” had his off days. The record that would prove Stax to be capable of doing great things without Chips Moman came about by accident. Stax was still not exclusively a soul label, and it was cutting the odd country and rockabilly record, and one of the people who was going to use the studio was Billy Lee Riley. You might remember Riley from a year ago, when we looked at his “Flyin’ Saucers Rock ‘n’ Roll”: [Excerpt: Billy Lee Riley and the Little Green Men, “Flyin’ Saucers Rock ‘n’ Roll”] Riley was running his own label at the time, and doing various bits of session work and singing for other people. No-one’s quite sure what he was using the studio for in early 1962 — some say he was cutting a jingle, some say he cut a few actual tracks but that they were awful, and others that he turned up too drunk to record. Either way, the session ended early, and the musicians were at a loose end. The musicians on this session were three of the regular Stax musicians — Steve Cropper, who had just turned twenty, on guitar, Booker T. Jones, who was still a teenager, on organ, and Lewie Steinberg, a decade older than either, on bass. The fourth musician was Al Jackson, who like Steinberg was an older Black man who had cut his teeth playing jazz and R&B throughout the fifties. Booker had played with Jackson in Willie Mitchell’s band, and had insisted to everyone at Stax that they needed to get this man in, as he was the best drummer Jones had ever heard. Jackson was making money from gigging, and didn’t want to waste his time playing sessions, which he thought would not be as lucrative as his regular gigs with Willie Mitchell. Eventually, Stax agreed to take him on on a salary, rather than just paying him one-off session fees, and so he became the first musician employed by Stax as a full-time player — Cropper was already on salary, but that was for his production work and his work at the record shop. As the session had ended rather disappointingly, the four were noodling on some blues as they had nothing better to do. Jim Stewart clicked on the talkback from the control room to tell them to go home, but then heard what they were playing, and told them to start it again so he could get it down on tape: [Excerpt: Booker T and the MGs, “Behave Yourself”] Stewart was happy with that track, but singles needed two sides, and so they needed to come up with something else. Cropper remembered a little musical lick he’d heard on the radio one day when he’d been driving with Booker — they’d both been fascinated by that lick, but neither could remember anything else about the song (and to this day no-one’s figured out what the song they’d heard was). They started noodling around with that lick, and shaped it into a twelve-bar instrumental: [Excerpt: Booker T. and the MGs, “Green Onions”] That was even better than the other track, and they needed a funky name to go with such a funky track. Lewie Steinberg thought that onions were the funkiest thing he could think of, and so the track became “Green Onions”. As the last instrumental they’d released with food as a title, “Burnt Biscuits”, had been by the Triumphs, they thought the group name should be another sports car name, and so it came out as by Booker T and the MGs. (They later said that MG stood either for Memphis Group or for Mixed Group, because they had both Black and white members, but the original idea was definitely the car – they just didn’t want to have a trademark lawsuit on their hands). “Green Onions” went to number one on the R&B charts and number three on the pop charts, and became the biggest thing Stax had ever recorded. That core group became the Stax house band, playing on every session from that point on. If they recorded an instrumental on their own, it went out as by Booker T and the MGs. If they recorded an instrumental with horn players, it went out as by the Mar-Keys, and they also played backing all the singers who came through the door of Stax, and there would be a lot of them over the next few years. There were a couple of changes — Booker T actually went off to university soon after recording “Green Onions”, so for a couple of years he could only play on weekends and during holidays — on weekdays, the studio used another keyboard player, again suggested by Floyd Newman, who had hired a young man for his bar band when the young man could only play piano with one hand, just because he seemed to have a feel for the music. Luckily, Isaac Hayes had soon learned to play with both hands, and he fit right in while Booker was away at university. The other change came a couple of years later, when after the MGs had had a few hits, Lewie Steinberg was replaced by Duck Dunn. Steinberg always claimed that the main reason he was dropped from the MGs was because he was Black and Steve Cropper wanted another white man. Cropper has always said it was because Duck Dunn had a harder-edged style that fit their music better than Steinberg’s looser feel, but also that Dunn had been his best friend for years and he wanted to play more with him. The two Black members of the MGs have never commented publicly, as far as I can tell, on the change. But whether with Jones or Hayes, Steinberg or Dunn, the MGs would be the foundation of Stax’s records for the rest of the sixties, as well as producing a string of instrumental hits. And it was those instrumental hits that led to the arrival of the person who would make Stax a legendary label. Joe Galkin, a record promoter to whom Jim Stewart owed a favour, was managing a local guitarist, Johnny Jenkins, and brought him into the studio to see if Stax could get him an instrumental hit, since they’d had a few of those. Jenkins did eventually release a single on Stax, but it wasn’t particularly special, and didn’t have any success: [Excerpt: Johnny Jenkins, “Spunky”] The day of Jenkins’ first session was a flop, they’d not been able to get anything decent recorded, and the musicians started to pack up. But Galkin had made a deal with the singer in Jenkins’ band — if he’d drive Jenkins to the studio, since Jenkins couldn’t drive, he’d try to get a record cut with him as well. Nobody was interested, but Galkin wore Jim Stewart down and he agreed to listen to this person who he just thought of as Johnny Jenkins’ driver. After hearing him, Steve Cropper ran out to get Lewie Steinberg, who was packing his bass away, and tell him to bring it back into the studio. Cropper played piano, Jenkins stayed on guitar, and Booker, Al, and Lewie played their normal instruments. Jim Stewart wasn’t particularly impressed with the results, but he owed Galkin a favour, so he released the record, a fun but unoriginal Little Richard soundalike: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, “Hey Hey Baby”] But soon DJs flipped the record, and it was the B-side that became the hit: [Excerpt: Otis Redding, “These Arms of Mine”] Otis Redding would never again be thought of as just Johnny Jenkins’ driver, and Stax Records was about to hit the big time.  

Ühe 70ndate unikaalsema soulimaja lugu, mis arenes kõrvalfirmast autonoomseks oma saundiga plaadifirmaks, stuudioks ja loovaks keskuseks Memphises, tootes ühe läbiaegade tugevama portsu R&B albumeid andekate artistidega.

Ühe 70ndate unikaalsema soulimaja lugu, mis arenes kõrvalfirmast autonoomseks oma saundiga plaadifirmaks, stuudioks ja loovaks keskuseks Memphises, tootes ühe läbiaegade tugevama portsu R&B albumeid andekate artistidega.

LA Musician Cliff Beach interviews legendary Hi Records singer/songwriter Don Bryant, famous for co-writing the classic R&B hit "I Can't Stand The Rain" with Ann Pebbles, on his new Fat Possum Records sophomore album "You Make Me Feel". --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/deepergrooves/message

Label: Hi 2194Year: 1971Condition: MLast Price: $16.00. Not currently available for sale.My absolutely favorite Al Green single. His vocal acrobatics during this recording display the full range of his capabilities, all in one song. It still gives me goose-bumps! And do you know, this is only the fourth decent original I've had to sell in over 12 years in business! It's easy to ruin styrene pressings with a lousy needle. And many of Al Green singles fall in that category for some reason. This one shows just how good styrene can sound when it's in pristine condition. Have a listen to the mp3 "snippet"! Note: This beautiful copy comes in a vintage Hi Records factory sleeve. It has Near Mint labels and pristine Mint vinyl (styrene) and audio. (This scan is a representative image from our archives.)

Morgan James (morganjamesonline.com)(IG:@morganajames) Let’s start with the voice, an instrument through which she can communicate anything. A gift bestowed upon her that she has expertly trained, meticulously nurtured, and passionately galvanized into action by an urgency to make real music. Next, the stories, and she has them in spades. They are full of truth and beauty, heartache and thoughtfulness. They reveal colors we weren’t expecting to see. They make us close our eyes and relate. And finally, the soul – the emotional and intellectual energy through which these parts are fueled. That special something that prompted The Wall Street Journal to herald her as "the most promising young vocalist to come along so far this century." That young vocalist is Morgan James. And Morgan James is a soul singer.Armed with her dedication to create authentic soul music, James and her husband Doug Wamble, her producer, co-writer and arranger, spent months writing twelve new songs in New York City. “Doug and I have always wanted to make a classic record like this,” she says. “Doug is originally from Memphis and we are both so inspired by the roots of classic soul music. Being entrenched in a place like that really informs everything you make there.” So, instead of recording in New York, she aimed straight for the source and booked a week at a new music studio in Memphis, at the recommendation of drummer George Sluppick. She immediately connected with the space: Memphis Magnetic, a renovated old bank transformed into a classic recording studio, decked out with a collection of vintage Nashville gear by owner Scott McEwen. The space exemplified exactly what James wanted her album to be: something new through the prism of something old. She and Wamble assembled a group of local musicians, including Sluppick, organist Al Gamble, bassist Landon Moore, and pianist Alvie Givhan. They tapped legendary Memphis musicians Reverend Charles Hodges and Leroy Hodges, who were the backbone of the Hi Records rhythm section, which played with Al Green and Ann Peebles, to contribute to two tracks. And finally, the team was rounded out with a classic Memphis horn section, plus the amazing Memphis String Quartet.“What I’ve learned over the years is to hire great people and let them do what they do best,” says James. “We came in with all the music charted and ready, and left space for people to be themselves and infuse it with their own magic. I really wanted every single person involved in the album to be from Memphis and to channel the great albums I admire so much. From every end of the spectrum, in every department, it felt like the right people.”   The entire album was recorded to analog tape, a first for James. She wanted to be less precious about the process overall and to capture the same invigorated feeling as her live performances. Much of the album comes from single, complete takes, giving it a vibrant, in-the-moment sensibility. The songs on the album range in tone, but there’s a hopeful, life-affirming feeling that threads through the tracks. The playful “I Wish You Would” takes its cues from “Mr. Big Stuff,” while “All I Ever Gave You” looks back on losing someone after endless sacrifices. The album also features two duets, another first for James, with Marc Broussard and three-time Grammy nominee Ryan Shaw. The collaboration with Shaw, “I Don’t Mind Waking Up (To A Love This Good)” is the first single and a song James calls one of her favorites she’s ever written. And a standout moment comes on the closing track “Who’s Going to Listen To You? (When You’re Crying Now),” a song James and Wamble wrote with lyrics from a poem by Spin Doctors’ lead singer Chris Barron. It creates a poignant and heart-wrenching final note for the album, a collection of genuine, satisfying songs that embrace the best of American songwriting. The experience was so inspiring and affirming that James ended up titling the album Memphis Magnetic after the studio where it was made (an homage to Jimi Hendrix and his Electric Ladyland). For James, Memphis Magnetic is the culmination of a life-long love affair with music. She grew up listening to everyone from Joni Mitchell to Paul Simon to Prince to Aretha Franklin, cultivating an insatiable love for strong songwriters. After graduating from The Juilliard School with a classical music degree, and performing in the original companies of four Broadway productions, James began writing and recording her own music. Meeting her mentor Berry Gordy, Jr. led to a record deal at Epic Records, where she recorded and released her solo album Hunter in 2014. In addition to her studio albums, James recorded and released a full album cover of Joni Mitchell’s seminal Blue as well as The Beatles’ White Album in 2018 to celebrate the 50th anniversary. Through her unique and varied career, there have been many ups and downs, but James cites her failures as more important than her successes in shaping the artist she is today.After her tenure with Epic Records, she took charge of her career from the business side as well. She cultivated a new world of fans with her viral YouTube videos, and while connecting with them on social media and at her live shows, she found the support and strength to go out on her own as an independent artist. Over the last several years, James has built her own empire and established herself as a touring powerhouse, allowing her to raise the funds to create her albums and make every decision from the ground up.“This album feels so unburdened by anybody or anything. All of the songs were written for this project. They were recorded in the same way, in the same room. It’s a moment in time captured. I felt like I was a part of the lineage of soul music. My guiding force throughout the record was ‘What would Aretha say? What would Otis say?’ It’s not a retro album or a throwback by any means. This album is me: classic elements, timeless melodies, and lyrics from my soul and experience. We need that right now. We need real music now more than ever.”

Morgan James (morganjamesonline.com)(IG:@morganajames) Let’s start with the voice, an instrument through which she can communicate anything. A gift bestowed upon her that she has expertly trained, meticulously nurtured, and passionately galvanized into action by an urgency to make real music. Next, the stories, and she has them in spades. They are full of truth and beauty, heartache and thoughtfulness. They reveal colors we weren’t expecting to see. They make us close our eyes and relate. And finally, the soul – the emotional and intellectual energy through which these parts are fueled. That special something that prompted The Wall Street Journal to herald her as "the most promising young vocalist to come along so far this century." That young vocalist is Morgan James. And Morgan James is a soul singer.Armed with her dedication to create authentic soul music, James and her husband Doug Wamble, her producer, co-writer and arranger, spent months writing twelve new songs in New York City. “Doug and I have always wanted to make a classic record like this,” she says. “Doug is originally from Memphis and we are both so inspired by the roots of classic soul music. Being entrenched in a place like that really informs everything you make there.” So, instead of recording in New York, she aimed straight for the source and booked a week at a new music studio in Memphis, at the recommendation of drummer George Sluppick. She immediately connected with the space: Memphis Magnetic, a renovated old bank transformed into a classic recording studio, decked out with a collection of vintage Nashville gear by owner Scott McEwen. The space exemplified exactly what James wanted her album to be: something new through the prism of something old. She and Wamble assembled a group of local musicians, including Sluppick, organist Al Gamble, bassist Landon Moore, and pianist Alvie Givhan. They tapped legendary Memphis musicians Reverend Charles Hodges and Leroy Hodges, who were the backbone of the Hi Records rhythm section, which played with Al Green and Ann Peebles, to contribute to two tracks. And finally, the team was rounded out with a classic Memphis horn section, plus the amazing Memphis String Quartet.“What I’ve learned over the years is to hire great people and let them do what they do best,” says James. “We came in with all the music charted and ready, and left space for people to be themselves and infuse it with their own magic. I really wanted every single person involved in the album to be from Memphis and to channel the great albums I admire so much. From every end of the spectrum, in every department, it felt like the right people.”   The entire album was recorded to analog tape, a first for James. She wanted to be less precious about the process overall and to capture the same invigorated feeling as her live performances. Much of the album comes from single, complete takes, giving it a vibrant, in-the-moment sensibility. The songs on the album range in tone, but there’s a hopeful, life-affirming feeling that threads through the tracks. The playful “I Wish You Would” takes its cues from “Mr. Big Stuff,” while “All I Ever Gave You” looks back on losing someone after endless sacrifices. The album also features two duets, another first for James, with Marc Broussard and three-time Grammy nominee Ryan Shaw. The collaboration with Shaw, “I Don’t Mind Waking Up (To A Love This Good)” is the first single and a song James calls one of her favorites she’s ever written. And a standout moment comes on the closing track “Who’s Going to Listen To You? (When You’re Crying Now),” a song James and Wamble wrote with lyrics from a poem by Spin Doctors’ lead singer Chris Barron. It creates a poignant and heart-wrenching final note for the album, a collection of genuine, satisfying songs that embrace the best of American songwriting. The experience was so inspiring and affirming that James ended up titling the album Memphis Magnetic after the studio where it was made (an homage to Jimi Hendrix and his Electric Ladyland). For James, Memphis Magnetic is the culmination of a life-long love affair with music. She grew up listening to everyone from Joni Mitchell to Paul Simon to Prince to Aretha Franklin, cultivating an insatiable love for strong songwriters. After graduating from The Juilliard School with a classical music degree, and performing in the original companies of four Broadway productions, James began writing and recording her own music. Meeting her mentor Berry Gordy, Jr. led to a record deal at Epic Records, where she recorded and released her solo album Hunter in 2014. In addition to her studio albums, James recorded and released a full album cover of Joni Mitchell’s seminal Blue as well as The Beatles’ White Album in 2018 to celebrate the 50th anniversary. Through her unique and varied career, there have been many ups and downs, but James cites her failures as more important than her successes in shaping the artist she is today.After her tenure with Epic Records, she took charge of her career from the business side as well. She cultivated a new world of fans with her viral YouTube videos, and while connecting with them on social media and at her live shows, she found the support and strength to go out on her own as an independent artist. Over the last several years, James has built her own empire and established herself as a touring powerhouse, allowing her to raise the funds to create her albums and make every decision from the ground up.“This album feels so unburdened by anybody or anything. All of the songs were written for this project. They were recorded in the same way, in the same room. It’s a moment in time captured. I felt like I was a part of the lineage of soul music. My guiding force throughout the record was ‘What would Aretha say? What would Otis say?’ It’s not a retro album or a throwback by any means. This album is me: classic elements, timeless melodies, and lyrics from my soul and experience. We need that right now. We need real music now more than ever.”

Can you imagine growing up surrounded by legendary music greats? Well my guest for episode 129, Oona Mitchell Bean, is the granddaughter of the iconic Willie Mitchell of Hi Records who released records with likes of Al Green, O.V. Wright, Ann Peebles and many more. Oona, along with her brother Boo Mitchell, continues the family's third generation as influential music makers and producers. Oona gravitated towards the business side of music helping her grandfather secure deals while becoming an expert at copywriting and publishing. Her personal growth also developed alongside famed producer David Gest as his assistant in the states and managing European tours with artists such as Peabo Bryson, Denise Williams and Melba Moore. In addition, Oona worked for free for fifteen years as a volunteer learning the ins and outs of festival planning. Through hard work and determination, she began planning festivals on her own merit such as MEMPHO Fest and the Memphis Springboard Festival. Oona spread her wings and started internet radio station Royal Radio where she promotes local artists and business as well as live streams. In this episode you will hear some of the challenges Oona has faced as a double minority in the music business. She also shares quite a few stories with her many travels around the world promoting Memphis music. We touch on the importance of mental health awareness sharing our thoughts on the recent Kanye West updates. This topic segued into a discussion on how important it is to say “NO” in this industry when folks are beating down your door in need of a piece of you. Lastly, Oona speaks on her work with the exclusive Grammy's club dating back to 2008 where she is currently a board member for the local Memphis chapter.

Can you imagine growing up surrounded by legendary music greats? Well my guest for episode 129, Oona Mitchell Bean, is the granddaughter of the iconic Willie Mitchell of Hi Records who released records with likes of Al Green, O.V. Wright, Ann Peebles and many more. Oona, along with her brother Boo Mitchell, continues the family's third generation as influential music makers and producers.Oona gravitated towards the business side of music helping her grandfather secure deals while becoming an expert at copywriting and publishing. Her personal growth also developed alongside famed producer David Gest as his assistant in the states and managing European tours with artists such as Peabo Bryson, Denise Williams and Melba Moore. In addition, Oona worked for free for fifteen years as a volunteer learning the ins and outs of festival planning. Through hard work and determination, she began planning festivals on her own merit such as MEMPHO Fest and the Memphis Springboard Festival. Oona spread her wings and started internet radio station Royal Radio where she promotes local artists and business as well as live streams. In this episode you will hear some of the challenges Oona has faced as a double minority in the music business. She also shares quite a few stories with her many travels around the world promoting Memphis music. We touch on the importance of mental health awareness sharing our thoughts on the recent Kanye West updates. This topic segued into a discussion on how important it is to say “NO” in this industry when folks are beating down your door in need of a piece of you. Lastly, Oona speaks on her work with the exclusive Grammy's club dating back to 2008 where she is currently a board member for the local Memphis chapter.

Welcome back to another episode of Transmissions podcast, our weekly talk show. Our guest today is Don Bryant. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Bryant was one of the premier songwriters at Hi Records, where he wrote material for Al Green, O.V. Wright, Syl Johnson, and his wife, Ann Peebles. He released Precious Soul under his own name in 1969, but mostly kept behind the scenes, baring a few gospel records he released along the way, but in 2016, he returned to making records under his own name with Don’t Give Up On Love, released by Fat Possum Records.    He’s got a new one, too: You Make Me Feel. Produced by Scott Bomar, it’s a raw, live feeling record, but it also showcases the subtle lyricism and sophistication of Bryant’s songwriting chops. He joined host Jason P. Woodbury to discuss highlights from his massive songbook, his marriage and creative partnership with Ann Peebles, and his return to the stage.

Pour décrire une chanson facile à mémoriser on parle de comptine. C'est vrai que les chiffres, malgré leur réalisme, font bon ménage avec l'imaginaire : les 3 mousquetaires, les 7 mercenaires, les 12 travaux d'Hercule, les 101 dalmatiens ... Alfred de Vigny a écrit la poésie des nombres, alors pourquoi ne pas les chanter ? Des chiffres et des lettres cette semaine dans Bon Temps Rouler...        Playlist : 634-5789 (Single Version), Wilson Pickett, The Definitive Wilson Pickett Floyd 300 Pounds Of Hongry, Tony Joe White, Tony Joe White 40 Days & 40 Nights, Muddy Waters 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, Paul Simon, Negotiations And Love Songs 1971-1986 1000 Ways, Paul Butterfield, Sometimes I Just Feel Like Smilin' 44 Blues, Roosevelt Sykes, Classic Blues From Smithsonian Folkways Volume 2 Roosevelt Sykes 99 Shades of Crazy, JJ Grey & Mofro, This River, JJ Grey 100 Days, 100 Nights, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Sampler 007 Soul Bag 188 24 Hour Blues, Lurrie Bell, Blues in My Soul 8 Days On The Road, Howard Tate, What It Is! Funky Soul And Rare Grooves 1967-1977 [Disc 4], Michael Gayle/Jerry Ragovoy 40 Acres And A Mule, Harrison Kennedy, Voice+Story 304 Blues, Peetie Wheatstraw, Exile On Main Street Blues 300 Pounds Shoes, David Gogo, Roots & New 2008 - For Blues Lovers (Disc 1) Titres complémentaires 99 and a Half Won't Do, Como Mamas, Move Upstairs 3 O'Clock In The Morning, Ike & Tina Turner, Classic Ike & Tina Turner, Jules Taub/B.B. King 99 Lbs, Ann Peebles, The Complete Ann Peebles on Hi Records, Don Bryant 634-5789, Ry Cooder, Borderline 61 Highway, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Box Of The Blues; Disc 1, 61 Highway 39 Steps, Billy Price, Sampler Soul Bag 38 32-20 Blues [SA.2616-2], Robert Johnson, The Centennial Collection, Robert Johnson 7 Years, Big Daddy Wilson, Neckbone StewHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Native Memphian, Lawrence "Boo" Mitchell, was surrounded by music growing up in South Memphis. Boo is the son of legendary Hi Records and Al Green producer, Willie Mitchell. After graduating from Christian Brothers High School, he formed a rap group called the M-Team in 1988. Years later he worked as manager and talent coordinator for his family's club, "Willie Mitchell's Rhythm and Blues Club" located on Memphis's historic Beale street. As you can imagine, countless celebrities frequented the club during this time and Boo shares quite a few stories from this era in his life. We also discuss the dynamic of Memphis Music and how many artists are seeking that "vintage recording sound" from Royal Studios. Being a Grammy Award winning - engineer, producer, and composer, Boo walks me through the night he picked up the Grammy for "Record of the Year" for his work on the Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars hit "Uptown Funk." We also talk about the upcoming Mempho Music Festival which kicks off October 19th at Shelby Farms.

Join us as we celebrate Memphis/New Orleans restaurateur (and BSC community partner) Karen Carrier's 15th year bringing great music and food to Midtown. We have the best of both worlds as New Orleans and Memphis collide in today's show featuring The Wild Magnolia Mardi Gras Indians and Jack Oblivian. BSC contributor Robert Gordon returns to continue his series on the History of Hi Records.    

Music is a way of life for my guest for episode 34 Tonya Dyson. This singer/songwriter is the founder of NeoSoulVille which is a Memphis lifestyle marketing and event production firm that caters to the “soulful” side of life. Take a listen as Tonya gives us a rich lesson in music history with the birth of Stax Records and Hi Records. As many of you know, the recording industry is filled with numerous stories of talented artists having to navigate their way through unmerited contracts. Much has changed since then however Ena and Tonya discuss many parallels that are still seen today in the music business from generating multiple streams of income to cultivating an acceptance for original music. Tonya also describes the significance of her recent trip to Cuba and how when she returned home she was robbed blind. As a result, she is now a resident at the South Main ArtSpace Lofts which is home to creatives of all disciplines to live and work.

Welcome to the Memphis Travel Guide Part OneOn the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, Memphis is Tennessee's largest city and home to the historic birthplace of blues, barbecue, and rock ‘n’ roll. Memphis just doesn't attract tourists, it creates pilgrimages from all over the world.You will often find tourists stating they are on their third, 10th or even 100th visit to Memphis and who can blame them? – fantastic BBQ pulled pork, spicy dry rubbed ribs, exceptional live blues entertainment, often free, and the home of the king of rock n roll himself – The big E. --- Elvis Presley.And as much as Memphis is about Elvis, there is a lot more going on there culturally and historically that can be explored. Don't worry, we'll cover the Elvis attractions, but we will also go more in depth in a special episode giving you tips and information on visiting Graceland.One of the great things about Memphis is that it is relatively affordable to visit if you know when and where to go. In these next few episodes we will cover tourist attractions, where to stay and where to eat. We'll also give tips on how to stay on budget, and ideas for families and solo travelers.Let's start off with some recommended attractions. Even though Memphis is a large city, there are a great number of attractions situated in relatively small geographical location making it easy to see and do a lot of things in a short amount of time. One of the biggest draws to Memphis is because of its rich history in music so let's start here.Depending on when you arrive in Memphis the first stop on anyone's list should be historic Beale Street and the home of the blues. The main drag is lined up and down for several blocks of blues joints, honkytonks, great restaurants bars and tourists shops. In the evening, almost every venue hosts free live music, from Mississippi Blues to Jerry Lee Lewis tribute bands. Also at dusk, the lights turn on to the many wonderfully designed neon lights and makes for iconic photos. Drinks and food are priced moderately, even though this is a top tourist attraction. We recommend the Beale Street Tap Room and The King's Palace Restaurant where not only you can get a good beer but also some great BBQ including ribs, Voodoo Chicken and Cajun Faire.Now a lot of the action may be happening inside, but there is a lot going on outside. Street performers, acrobats and magicians sometimes perform down the main strip to the delight of onlookers. Handy Park, is usually a great place to listen to a blues band or solo artist, while enjoying the historical significance of the park.Even though Beale St. Is lined wall to wall with drinks and individuals drinking walking down the street, it is totally safe. The Memphis police department controls the entranceway's into the thoroughfare and actively patrol the street keeping everyone in check. Police monitor those underage as well and anyone under 21 is not permitted on Beale Street after 10pm – when things get a little wilder.Now if you prefer it a little slower, you can go during the day or into the evening and still enjoy Beale Street, especially if you enjoy visiting museums and historic attractions.WC Handy is considered to be the "Father of the Blues" and is one of America's most influential songwriters ever and you can take a tour of WC Handy's humble beginnings at his turn-of-the-century home on Beale Street. Admission is $6 but be aware they run a limited schedule of Tues-Sat from 10-5 in the summer months and 11-4pm in the winter months. You can find the museum at the corner of Beale St. And 4th.Another great museum to learn about Memphis' Music past is the RocknSoul Museum. The Memphis Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum is at the corner of historic Beale Street, and legendary Highway 61 (Third Street), also known as the “Blues Highway”. The museum is located on the plaza of the FedExForum, Memphis’ premier sports and entertainment complex, and home to blockbuster concerts and the NBA Memphis Grizzlies. The museum tells tells the story of musical pioneers who, for the love of music, overcame racial and socio-economic barriers to create the music that shook the entire world. The museum offers a comprehensive Memphis music experience from the rural field hollers and sharecroppers of the 1930s, through the explosion of Sun, Stax and Hi Records and Memphis’ musical heyday in the 70s, to its global musical influence. The museum’s digital audio tour guide is packed with over 300 minutes of information, including over 100 songs, and takes visitors at their own pace through seven galleries featuring 3 audio visual programs, more than 30 instruments, 40 costumes and other musical treasures. The museum is open daily, 9:30 a.m. - 7 p.m. Admission is $12.50 for adults, $9.50 for youth age 5-17.Getting to Beale Street is pretty easy from anywhere in Memphis. Good Parking, however, can quickly fill up. But the good news is that Memphis has the lowest parking rates in the United States. There are 12 main lots near Beale Street and a number of smaller lots. Prices range from $10 to $20 per day, depending on distance and security.But, here is an inside tip. There is a lot located at 110 Peabody Place, between Main St. And 2nd St. South that offers an incredibly low rate of only $3.On our next episode we'll continue our guide with stops at Sun Records, The Stax Museum of Soul Music, The National Civil Rights Museum and some other fantastic locations. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

25 år har gått sedan Wu Tang Clan släppte debuten "Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers)" och skrev om hip-hopens regelbok för all framtid. Den niohövdade klanen fick sin inspiration från livet på Staten Islands gator och la verser inspirerade av gamla kung fu-filmer över dekonstruerad Hi Records-soul. I kvällens poddspecial: Arkitekten Rza, stjärnan Method Man och galningen Ol' Dirty Bastard.

Famed producer, musician, and arranger Willie Mitchell became involved with Royal Studios (and the associated Hi Records) in Memphis, Tennessee, in the early ‘60s. He took more control of the studio operations as time went on and, in the early ‘70s, his collaboration with singer Al Green led to millions of albums sold, all of which cemented Willie’s reputation as a producer of note. These days his son, Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell, a musician, songwriter, engineer, and producer in his own right, runs Royal Studios and co-owns Royal Records. He keeps the legacy alive, while also looking to the future. Boo’s produced and/or engineered a wide range of acts including Melissa Etheridge, Solomon Burke, Al Green, Cody Chesnutt, Rod Stewart, John Mayer, Snoop Dogg, Bobby Rush, William Bell, Keb Mo, Terrence Howard, and Boz Scaggs. I met up with Boo one evening at Royal Studios (currently celebrating their 60th year) in the back control room to discuss his life in the studio. Enjoy! Disclaimer: This audio recording was not originally tracked with the intent of using for a podcast. It was recorded solely for transcription for our print interview (see issue #120). Please forgive any balance issues, background sounds, and lack of clarity. Sponsored by Burl Audio https://burlaudio.com

This week we feature a hometown performance by the North Mississippi Allstars -- Luther Dickinson and Cody Dickinson -- at the Levitt Shell in Midtown, Memphis. Their roots run deep here; we talk about how they are woven into fabric of Memphis music culture, including their history with the Beale Street Caravan program! Also on the episode, BSC contributor Robert Gordon returns to continue his series on the History of Hi Records. #ilistentomemphis

This week on Beale Street Caravan we feature one of Memphis' most cherished treasures, Susan Marshall, as she celebrates the release of her most recent studio effort, 639 Madison. BSC Contributor Robert Gordon is back to tell us more about the History of Hi Records. #ilistentomemphis

Tank and the Bangas in a killer live performance at the historic Clayborn Temple in downtown Memphis, TN. Interview with Memphis musician Tonya Dyson, and BSC Contributor Robert Gordon returns to talk about the History of Hi Records.

Reverend John Wilkins in a performance at the Country Blues Festival, recorded live at the Levitt Shell in midtown Memphis, TN. BSC contributor Robert Gordon returns to continue his series on the History of Hi Records.

Join us as we celebrate Memphis/New Orleans restauranteur (and BSC community partner) Karen Blockman Carrier's 15th year bringing great music and food to Midtown. We have the best of both worlds as New Orleans and Memphis collide in today's show featuring The Wild Magnolia Mardi Gras Indians and Jack Oblivian. BSC contributor Robert Gordon returns to continue his series on the History of Hi Records. #ilistentomemphis

This week we have Shannon McNally in a performance recorded at the Levitt Shell in Memphis. She has a new record out titled “Black Irish,” produced by Rodney Crowell and available now on Compass Records. Also on the program, BSC Contributor Robert Gordon will be with us to talk about the History of Hi Records.

Meet Dan and Dan! Dan Reed, Music Director and Afternoon Host at WXPN/Philadelphia and Dan DeLuca, Music Critic and Columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer sit down on a bi-weekly basis to talk MUSIC! You may not recognize him by name, but Don Bryant is a man whose music you know! The 74-year-old soul singer was a songwriter for Hi Records where he worked and wrote for the likes of Albert King, Solomon Burke and his wife, Ann Peebles. Don and Ann co-wrote the classic “I Can't Stand The Rain” in 1970 and Don's new album 'Don't Give Up On Love' is a tribute to his wife. Don sounds amazing on the album and is a delight to talk to.

This week on BSC we feature Scott Sharrard performing with Memphis' own Bo-Keys in Studio A at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Hi Records legend Don Bryant joins in for a couple of songs. Also BSC contributor Preston Lauterbach continues his series the Chitlin’ Circuit and The Road to Rock n Roll.

 Born and raised in Memphis, Jozzy grew up immersed in music. With her mother a part of Willie Mitchell's famed Hi Records, her mom was a solo recording artist herself, and had cuts on Hi including "Love What You're Doing to Me." Regrettably, Jozzy's older brother, an aspiring rapper, was sent to prison when she was 5, leaving a sudden void in her life. That void became a source of inspiration though, as she found many of his cassettes, including early favorites "Drain You" by Nirvana and "Man Cry" by Scarface. The siblings continued to communicate regularly during his incarceration, with Jozzy's brother, John, encouraging his sister to explore her love of different styles of music in her own original manner.       Summer of last year, Jozzy left her home town of Memphis and moved to Miami Florida to partner with TIMBALAND's PROTEGE, WIZZ DUMB and his DUMB DRUMBS productions. The experience allowed her to write for different styles and perspectives as she worked on songs for multi-platinum selling Indonesian artist Agnez Monica, as well as more established American singers like Cher and Michael Bolton. Jozzy and WIZZ'S new projects dropping next year include KANYE WEST's G.O.O.D music artist TEYANA TAYLORr, dancing with the stars MARK BALLAS, and is collabing with TIMBALAND on JENNIFER LOPEZ new project. In a year's top MISSY ELLIOTT reached out to the songwriter and admired something that Jozzy said she didn't expect for her to like. HER TONE!.

Syleena Johnson counted on her own honesty and real-life experiences to produce her compelling music. The young Chicago native confronted her own romantic pitfalls and coming of age story on her debut CD, Chapter 1: Love, Pain & Forgiveness (Jive Records), which featured guest appearances by blues guitarist Buddy Guy and contemporary R&B artist R. Kelly. Johnson's soulful rasp, reminiscent of old school R&B singers, set the tone for her confessional songs about the pain she endured in a bad relationship with a then-27-year-old man in 1997. Johnson grew from the experience and put it behind her, finding strength from a sense of forgiveness and from the spiritual guidance she received from God. In 2000, Johnson married a former college basketball player, Marcus Vetts, who became her tour manager. Johnson wrote all the songs on her debut CD except her first single, "I Am your Woman," penned by R. Kelly. Johnson began writing songs for her debut CD at age 20 in 1997 and sent her demo to Wayne Williams, V.P. of Artist Development at the Chicago office of Jive Records. He signed her and paved the way for the release of her debut album in May 2001. Johnson is the daughter of '60s R&B/blues singer Syl Johnson, part of the famed Hi Records roster. She grew up listening to Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Tina Turner, the Dells, and Mavis Staples. Early on, she developed a love for music. She performed in local bands in Chicago. She sang in her church choir at Greater Christian Unity. She worked in classical and gospel choirs as well as jazz ensembles at Drake University and at Illinois State University, where she majored in music. After having nodes removed from her vocal cords, she took two years of speech therapy. She has seven years of vocal training. All the hard work made Johnson one of her generation's most soulful and realistic R&B singers Johnson's latest release is entitles Chapter 4: Labor pains and is currently available on i Tunes and will be available i