Tag: Ray Charles

The Blues Brothers @ 40

Filmed at the end of the Seventies when the new  Oldsmobiles (for 1980) were “in early this year,” the Blues Brothers revitalized the careers of Ray Charles, James Brown and Aretha Franklin and raised the bar for big budget comedies.  With Booker T. & The M.G.’s Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper in an all-star band, there was a base of R&B and blues cred. that lifted this funny film into a music space at once rooted and fancifully imagined. John Landis directed this opus (now extended by many minutes of additional footage) at the height of his powers, and John Belushi stole the show while only showing his eyes for a few seconds. But the music numbers captured the rapture. Thanks to all involved as they kept the music alive for another generation.

The Blues Brothers is a Saturday Night Live sketch, a Looney Tunes cartoon, a demolition derby and an R&B musical revue all rolled into one, and it works you over by force.

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James Gadson – BCI #14

Soul drumming legend James Gadson graces the Blues Center Interview series with recollections of Ray Charles, The Temptations, Beck and more. He also chimes in on the blues, New Orleans central role in the music and Aaron Neville.

 

Billy Vera – Blues Center Interview #7

Singer-Actor-Songwriter-Bandleader-Music Historian Billy Vera is the guest for Blues Center Interview #7. With a star on the Hollywood walk of fame right outside the Capitol Records building lauding him mid-career, he has blazed a continual path across the related fields of the entertainment business. His 2017 documentary From Harlem to Hollywood describes his early songwriting success for Ricky Nelson with “Mean Old World” which appeared on the Ozzie and Harriet Show to his #1 hits for Dolly Parton, and then for himself with “At This Moment” in 1987.

His soul duo with Judy Clay, signed to Atlantic and worked with super producer Jerry Wexler to cut wrote “Storybook Children” in 1967. The pairing created a racially integrated act at a time of great tension and rose to fame at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Some of his other exploits, over 300 liner notes and reissue production credits. He won the Grammy for his liner notes to Singular Genius: The Complete ABC Singles of Ray Charles in 2013.

In this interview he discusses Specialty Records and its remarkable run of hits with Little Richard, Lloyd Price, Larry Williams and more. He also discusses the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Robert Plant. A fascinating journey across the decades.

 

The Eddie Hinton Story – Will a troubled Southern R&B genius finally get his due?

He should have been a superstar along the lines of Eric Clapton. Or John Mayer. Someone like that. As gifted as he was as a soul singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer, Hinton should have been rich and famous instead of a tragic cult hero who died broke and broken, known mostly only to hardcore Southern R&B obsessives, a man whose best recordings aren’t even in print right now.

But that’s how the hand of fate works sometimes.

After moving to Muscle Shoals, Hinton played guitar on Staple Singers, Boz Scaggs, Waylon Jennings, Mavis Staples, Toots Hibbert and Jimmy Cliff records. His playing is featured prominently on the Aretha Franklin LP “This Girl’s in Love with You.” And “3614 Jackson Highway,” the underrated covers album Cher made at Muscle Shoals Sound, bearing that Sheffield studio’s now famous address.

 

Read the full story at: http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2018/01/eddie_hinton.html