EDDIE HINTON
VERY EXTREMELY DANGEROUS
Shout (Shout 59)
Eddie Hinton was a white southerner who adored black music and made it his ambition to work with the greats. He was what we used to call a ‘blue-eyed' soul man. After a few years playing with local bands in his hometown of Tuscaloosa he found himself in Sheffield, Alabama sharing an apartment with Duane Allman, writing songs with Marlin Greene and playing lead guitar with the formative Muscle Shoals session team. His song writing and production skills were soon in demand and the sixties found him working in the studios of legendary producers like Quinton Claunch and Quin Ivy.
He was a truly talented all-rounder and you'll find his name listed as guitarist, song writer and backing singer on hit records by The Staple Singers, Aretha Franklin, Arthur Conley, Wilson Pickett, Joe Tex, Solomon Burke, Percy Sledge and RB Greaves as well as The Box Tops, Elvis Presley, Boz Scaggs and Evie Sands. Most experts would put him the same league as those other soul-smothered legends Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham and those of you who have heard his wonderful albums (Letters From Mississippi, Very Blue Highway, Hard Luck Guy and other archive material and session tapes on Zane Records) will agree with Peter Guralnick's description of him as ‘the last of the great white soul singers'.
This CD catches him at his very best on a slab of superior southern soul recorded at Muscle Shoals Studio for Capricorn in November 1977 with Barry Beckett, Jimmy Johnson, David Hood and Roger Hawkins who simply play their hearts out. Chances are you won't have heard any of it as the Capricorn label was falling apart at the time but, believe me, it's a true blast. Having written most of the songs himself, except for a couple penned with Donnie Fritts and Dan Penn, Hinton proves his brilliance as a songwriter and his vocals are just phenomenal. His classic deep soul throaty roar compares well with Otis Redding, Wilson Picket, James Carr or any of the great singers who ruled during the Stax/Atlantic era.
He sounds magnificent whether he's tearing his vocal cords apart on his frenetic rendition of Otis Redding's Shout Bamalama or supplying some easy going advice on the shimmering blues Get Off On It. Firmly on the deep soul trail, he wails like Otis on Brand New Man while the band whip up the beat then add a gorgeous blast from the horns to strike through the romping guitar parts. Then it's on to Shoot The Moon, a song he wrote with Dan Penn, that has this spiralling walking boogie that gets into a groove, sticks there and beats its way into your grey cells so that you're humming the bass line for days. And if you want a real taste of the days when soul music was at its height, listen to the dreamy We Got It and let its glorious mess of magic wash over you.
In fact, stop reading this and get on to Red Lick and buy the CD. It's completely enthralling and I believe you'll still be playing it years from now. My copy is in a special place on my CD racks - right next to Percy Sledge, Eddie Floyd, Joe Tex and the other great soul singers of the golden era of black soul music. It's that good.
Ask for Shout 59
Only £10.50 plus p&p here at Red Lick
Review Date: November 2009
