New Eddie Hinton Live CD: bootleggers really are heroes of culture

 

[review by Bill Glahn]

Eddie Hinton and The Nighthawks: Rose’s Cantina Atlanta ’79 (Echoes ECHOCD2070)

Venue: as stated but specific date unknown

Sound Quality: Very good soundboard with some distortion on the vocals in some places. (8 out of 10) The cover claims to be a WLIR broadcast. I don’t believe it. You shouldn’t either.

Cover: Attractive 8-page booklet and tray card with lengthy but not entirely accurate liner notes.

Tracklist: My Lover’s Prayer/ 634-57-89/ Get Off In It/ True Fine Mama/ Brand New Man/ A Change Is Gonna Come/ Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay (start)/ Announcement/ Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay (finish)/ Shout Bamalama/ Crawling King Snake/ Can’t Turn You Loose

Comments: Because of the low cost of producing CDs versus the high price of vinyl, most of the vinyl producers are sticking to more popular classic rock artists (with some exceptions, of course). For collectors of lesser-known artists, the real boon is in compact discs. Attracted by higher profit margins and lower entry costs, CD producers in Europe have been mining their collections and the Internet for radio broadcasts that comply with the loophole for broadcasts that exists there now. This has made for some surprising releases. Certainly, during the ‘70s, live radio broadcasts were at their peak, sometimes syndicated nationally, sometimes only locally.

 

Although this release claims to be one of those, it is not. WLIR is a station in Long Island (NY) noted for having up and coming artists perform live broadcasts from Roslyn, NY, usually from a club called My Father’s Place. They did not broadcast club shows from Atlanta. To put it politely, Echoes is fudging.

In fact, what appears as “Radio Announcement” on track 8 is actually a pathetic attempt to simulate one, (in a British accent no less) by telling “listeners” in mid song that it’s time to flip their tape for the continuation of the show. There is no station ID given. I suppose we should believe that members of the WLIR audience only recorded on 60 minute tapes (sarcasm intended). So what you end up with is less than a minute of “Sitting On The Dock of the Bay” interrupted with an anonymous voice, and then the conclusion – not the two versions one would expect to hear going by the tray card track listing. It’s amateur hour in unauthorized CD land. I can appreciate not wanting to exclude the song (great performance) but the disc would be better served by doing a fade in for the second part, since it is the bulk of the song anyway.

So what do we have?

It sounds like a soundboard tape recorded a little hot and a couple of generations removed from the master. Still not bad – a very enjoyable CD. The amazing thing about this CD is that it got made at all. Much to the delight of fans of the “swamper” sound that emanated from 2 studios in Muscle Shoals, AL., Hinton was an instrumental part of the studio musicians that contributed to that area’s reputation and a supremely talented soul singer in his own right.

Eddie Hinton made 4 albums during his lifetime, all excellent. One posthumous release,  came from unfinished recordings from his first album sessions (Very Extremely Dangerous, Capricorn Records) and late period sessions (90s) which were completed and assembled  with the aid of the very same Muscle Shoals musicians that Hinton had spent anonymously backing those great soul performers that traveled south to Alabama to record with the fabled Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and The Swampers – artists like Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Arthur Conley, The Staple Singers, Solomon Burke, Otis Redding and many others. If you’ve never heard of Eddie Hinton, you’ve heard his guitar playing and song writing.

In more recent years, Hinton’s specter has been raised by The Drive-By Truckers on a song about his life (“Sandwiches on the Road,” 1998 Gangstabilly album), a documentary (Dangerous Highway narrated by Robert Cray, 2008) and a 2009 series of Hinton songs released on singles (Shake It Records). The DBTs contributed “Where’s Eddie” b/w “Everybody Needs Love,” a tune which they continue to perform live and can be found on the Go-Go Boots album in addition to the Shake It Records single. That Hinton never received such accolades during his lifetime is a story all too familiar in the world of music – mental illness, self-medication with drugs and alcohol, periods of homelessness, the resulting volatile nature that left him estranged from some of the musicians he shared the studio with. None of those musicians, however, would deny his enormous talent and vocal abilities – perhaps the best white r&b vocalist that ever lived.

Rose’s Cantina finds Hinton during a relative period of calm in his life. Not that Hinton was ever a “calm” vocalist – he was a soul shouter in the best tradition and equally as adept at ballads. On this performance he is backed by Washington D.C.’s Nighthawks, one of the finer retro revivalists of the period, whom Hinton had worked with in the past. It follows the release of his first album, the set list including three songs from Very Extremely Dangerous mixed with some of the Muscle Shoals classics he had played on. The band is in fine form and Hinton still possesses that wonderful voice – the thing that most deteriorated during his demise. He wouldn’t record again for 8 years, Capricorn suffering a decline in chart dominance with disco and punk replacing southern rock as the genre de jour for the mass music audience. By his second album, 1988’s Letters From Mississippi, there was noticeable deterioration in his vocal ability from hard living. But his talents for singing and writing were still superb on those late period albums and they should find homes in any comprehensive collection of soul music.

While editorializing about the first Beatles bootlegs on CD years ago, the New York Times called bootleggers “heroes of culture.” As long as previously unavailable recordings of this importance continue to be issued, that accolade will remain true. It’s the first live recording of Hinton in my collection. In a just world, it won’t be the last. Kudos, Echoes Records!

Grade: B (an A- if not for the fake radio announcement)

Bonus view: Listen up y'all!