Happy Birthday Pee Wee King

When Carl Perkins’ Blue Suede Shoes became the first ever record to appear simultaneously in the country, pop and R&B charts a slew of cover versions quickly followed. Elvis Presley’s is probably the best known of these but accordion player Pee Wee King with his Western swing outfit The Golden West Cowboys, were there first. King had something of a headstart on rival s having been given a prerelease acetate of the song by Perkins himself when they played the same bill in Memphis. The Golden West Cowboys' version was recorded on February 7th 1956 and featured Walter Hayes, the band's fiddle player, on vocals. It is, in truth, a workmanlike and unconvincing reading of Perkins’ classic.

King made an altogether better stab at rock ‘n’ roll later that same year with vocalist Dick Glasser. Ballroom Baby and Catty Town, both of which Glasser had a hand in writing, are very pleasing examples of early rock ‘n’ roll. Pee Wee King recalled: “(Dick Glasser) was a very good rock ‘n’ roll singer …he fit into our group like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. The first two recordings we did with him were a smash. The people at RCA Victor thought I was going nuts with our new sound. I said ‘No. I’m an entertainer and we have to change with the times. Rock ‘n’ roll is changing American music, and that includes country music.’”(from Hell-Bent for Music Wade Hall)

King was not altogether the rockin’ virgin that this would suggest though. Nearly a decade before the Glasser recordings King had, with the band's regular singer Redd Stewart, written and recorded Ten Gallon Boogie which features the rockin’est accordion solo ever. It was the Golden West Cowboys contribution to the hillbilly boogie craze that swept country music in the late forties and early fifties, and which helped to lay the foundations of rock ‘n’ roll. Indeed King’s friend, Bill Haley, had recorded a number of hillbilly boogies before he discovered rock ‘n’ roll. Jolly Joyce, Haley’s booking agent, tried to persuade King to change the name of his act so that he could book him overseas as a rock ‘n’ roll act: “ I said, ‘Nothing doing! I’ve worked hard to make our name mean something and I’m not about to change it. Anyway, why should I want to become a rock ‘n’ roll band? I can play rock ‘n’ roll any time I want and still call our band the Golden West Cowboys” (from Hell-Bent for Music Wade Hall).

However it is not as a rock ‘n’ roll pioneer that King is best remembered, nor as the man whose band introduced the electric guitar to the Grand Ole Opry, nor yet as a pioneer of television, although in November 1948 Pee Wee King’s was the first show on the state of Kentucky’s first television station, but rather as the composer of one of the biggest hits in music history: The Tennessee Waltz.

Pee Wee King was an unlikely candidate for country stardom. Born on February 18^th 1914 in Milwaukie of Polish stock he was christened Frank Julius Anthony Kuczynski and his favoured instrument, the accordion, was not regarded as a ‘proper’ country instrument at that time.

In 1929 the 15 year old Kuczynski formed his first band and in 1930 he met saxophonist and band leader Wayne King, who was himself from a Polish background, who gave him this advice: “You need a catchy name…Now remember: K-I-N-G. Nobody can misspell it. Nobody can mispronounce it. That’s your hook. You say your name is Frank. Call yourself Frankie. It has a better ring. Frankie King that’s a name nobody will forget” (from Hell-Bent for Music Wade Hall). Thus Frankie King and the Kings Jesters were born.

In 1934 a stroke of good fortune brought Gene Autry into King's life. Frankie King and the Kings Jesters were playing the Polish–American Hour on WJRN in Racine. Gene Autry together with his band, The Range Riders and their agent were touring southern Wisconsin when they were forced to pull up at a garage in Racine to have a fender straightened on their car. Whilst they were waiting for the repair to be completed they heard Frankie King’s band on the service stations radio. Autry’s agent, Joe.L. Frank, was impressed enough to ask King to join The Range Riders, for the remainder of the tour.

“I wasn’t with the group long before I got my nickname. There were too many Franks in the band so Mr Frank said we had to have nicknames to tell us apart. He first wanted to call me Shorty, but I didn’t like that one, so we settled on Pee Wee” (from Hell-Bent for Music Wade Hall).

Autry left for Hollywood shortly after the tour ended and the Range Riders disbanded. Joe Frank invited Pee Wee King to join a new band he had put together, the Log Cabin Boys, who performd on WNOX in Knoxville. The steady income it provided enabled King to marry Joe Frank's stepdaughter Lydia Frank in December 1936.

In January the following year King and his new wife moved to Louisville. Joe Frank was already there and organising a new band for King to lead. Pee Wee King and the Golden West Cowboys , as the band were known, auditioned successfully for The Grand Ole Opry in 1937 and were regulars for the next ten years.

Throughout the band's thirty year lifespan, The Golden West Cowboys underwent several line up changes and at one time or another featured such luminaries as Cowboy Copas and Eddy Arnold.

Redd Stewart first joined The Golden West Cowboys in 1940 before being drafted into the Army and Stewart's return from the armed services ushered in what Pee Wee King thought of as the golden age of The Golden West Cowboys.

It was whilst driving back to Nashville from a show in Texarkana, Texas in December1946 that King and Stewart wrote The Tennessee Waltz

“We were getting close to Memphis and had the radio playing…when we heard the disk jockey say ‘I want you folks to hear Bill Monroe’s new song dedicated to his home state of Kentucky. It’s called The Kentucky Waltz’. While the record was playing Redd said ‘Pee Wee, I’ve got an idea for a song. Trade places with me and drive and I’ll get that kitchen matchbox that I light my cigars from out of the glove compartment and we’ll write a song about Tennessee. After all I was born in Ashland City, Tennessee and we both live there now. We can write a Tennessee waltz” (from Hell-Bent for Music Wade Hall).

The melody already existed, King having devised it as the Cowboys theme song though at that time it was known only as No Name Waltz:

“Redd sat there writing the words on the matchbox as we both hummed the melody we knew so well. We’d hum along and Redd would write a word down. Every once in a while he’d say ‘How does this sound?’ and he’d sing the words to the melody. Finally we had the words pretty much the way everybody knows them today”(from Hell-Bent for Music Wade Hall).

It was recorded in 1948 in Chicago and proved a hit for the Golden West Cowboys selling half a million copies. Despite a verbal agreement to the contrary, Cowboy Copas - a former Golden West Cowboy - cheekily released his version on King Records just ahead of Pee Wee King's and had a sizable hit with it too. It seemed almost from the start that Tennessee Waltz was a country music standard.

When Ernest Tubb recorded The Tennessee Waltz and published a sheet music edition, he did so without the permission of either of the song's composers. Not only that but the songwriter's credits on both the record and sheet music went to the Short Brothers (presumably referring to James Erwin Short and Melvin Leon Short - members of Tubb's band in the '40s) .

King recalled: "It was all a big stink and I didn't like it at all...we remained friends with Ernest throughout the lawsuit... We didn't get any damages but we put an end to their pirated record and sheet music. Most important we didn't make enemies out of our friends. I didn't hold a grudge against Ernest even though his company recorded and published the song illegally. Ernest and the Short Brothers made a mistake but I don't think it was an honest one. I believe they knew that they were doing something morally wrong and illegal. They were putting us to the test to see if they could get away with it. I've never heard the Short Brothers recording. I don't know how it sounded and I don't want to know" (from Hell-Bent for Music Wade Hall).

Other covers followed. On hearing Cowboy Copas' version, Tuxedo Junction composer and jazz trumpeter Erskine Hawkins was inspired to record his own version in 1950 . It was this version that caught the ear of a young Billboard columnist and jazz buff Jerry Wexler.

So when in October that year Jack Rael, pop singer Patti Page’s manager, was looking for a flip side for her Boogie Woogie Santa Claus Wexler suggested The Tennessee Waltz.

“‘Patti knew the song’ said Jack. ‘I didn’t. She said ‘That’s my daddy’s favourite song.’ We did it with five pieces. The baritone player from Ellington’s band was on the date. We copied the arrangement from Erskine Hawkins. Joe Reisman wrote it out for us” (from Road Kill on the Three Chord Highway Colin Escott).

Page used an overdubbing technique that she had previously employed succesfully on a her 1948 hit Confess.

"You recorded onto an acetate , then played it back into one microphone while overdubbing into another microphone. The engineer would mix the overdub with the original (itself no mean feat), then cut the results onto another acetate. If the singer flubbed just one note or the engineer messed up the balance they'd have to start over"(from Road Kill on the Three Chord Highway Colin Escott).

Described by James Miller, in his book Almost Grown, as "a tricked up, technologically evolved sort of pseudo folk song", Page's version was a phenomona selling in excess of six million copies. The song had transcended its roots, it was no longer simply a country song, indeed for the twenty six weeks Page's version spent on the charts, it became the country's song. In other words simply a great American song.

Everybody from Jo Stafford to James Brown has recorded The Tennessee Waltz.

On February 17th 1965 it was adopted as the official song of the state of Tennessee.

Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart were elected to the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in 1970 and Johhny Cash was on hand to present the award when King was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1974.

King died of a heart attack aged 86 on March 6th 2000.

Ain't Am Clean?

A moment from the Wattstax festival:

As Larry Shaw, vice president of advertising and publicity at Stax Records and assistant director of the movie version of Wattstax, gazes out across the Los Angeles Coliseum his face is etched with anxiety. To protect the Los Angeles Rams’ pitch the grass is off limits to the reported 112,000, largely African American, crowd packed into the stadium. Yet, despite security being provided by three black organisations (The Watts festival, The Sons Of Watts and the Watts Rangers) people are flooding onto the pitch.

Seven years earlier, in August 1965, Watts had seen an African American uprising during which the L.A. district had been engulfed by flames for five days. That day, in 1972, as the August sun once more beat down, Shaw must have wondered if this “rare opportunity that lets you do something corporately valuable without being guilty of exploitation” that he had written of in the press release was about to turn ugly.

The difference between triumph and disaster is a small fifty-five year old showbiz veteran in a fuchsia pink safari jacket and short pants … The Prince of Dance, the funkiest man alive, the world’s oldest teenager: Mr Rufus Thomas!

Since 1965 all Stax notepaper had borne the legend The Memphis Sound. Thomas, as much as anyone, had helped conceive the sound of Memphis providing the first sizable hit not only for Stax records but also, in 1953, for Sam Phillips fledgling Sun label.

Billing himself as Rufus ‘Hound Dog’ Thomas Jr, Sam Phillips' legendary label enjoyed its first chart success with Bear Cat – a fun answer record to Big Mama Thornton’s classic Hound Dog.

“Me and Sam Phillips? We were tighter than the nuts on Brooklyn Bridge – then.” Thomas told Peter Guralnick in Lost Highway.

Fun though it was Bear Cat prompted a lawsuit from Don Robey owner of Peacock Records which had released Big Mama Thornton’s Hound Dog a month earlier and Sam Phillips was obliged to part with a substantial sum of money to appease Robey.

The following year Presley hit his stride and it marked the end of Thomas’ recording career at Sun:

“When Presley and Carl Perkins and Cash came along just like he (Phillips) catered to black, he just cut it off and went to white.” Thomas remembered (Lost Highway: Peter Guralnick)

Thomas’ roots in Memphis show business ran deep though. He had worked tent shows with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels in 1936:

“I started actually as a tap dancer. That’s how my good timing came about. I was a tap dancer and I used to do some scat singing like Louis (Armstrong), you know all those kind of things. Really I did it all. If it came under the heading of show business I did it.”(Lost Highway: Peter Guralnick).

In the 1940s Thomas hosted the now legendary Amateur Show at the Palace Theatre on Beale Street. Tenor Sax player Herman Green of the Palace Theatre house band recalls:

“Rufus had a partner called ‘Bones’ and they would warm up the audience with an act called ‘Rufus and Bones’. They were kind of a black Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, with Rufus doing the straight lines and ‘Bones’ doing all kinds of crazy things.” (Waking Up In Memphis: Andria Lisle and Mike Evans)

After eleven years, and having witnessed most of the major players in black music at that time take the stage, Thomas left Amateur Hour in a dispute over money:

“I wanted more but I couldn’t get Bones to go ask for it with me. So the man got with Bones and asked him would he work with someone else…he said yes and I got fired.”(Lost Highway: Peter Guralnick).

Still Thomas had other irons in the fire including hosting another amateur show at the Handy Theatre, still with Bones, and perhaps more significantly broadcasting on WDIA The Mother Station of the Negroes.

In 1948 WDIA had introduced a policy of all black announcers playing mostly black music. A 1952 survey showed “that radios, once beyond the means of the average black family had become a standard appliance- in Memphis alone 93 per cent of black households owned a radio and 30 per cent owned two.” (Almost Grown: The Rise Of Rock James Miller).

It was in an attempt to reach that audience that Jim Stewart, head of Satellite (soon to be Stax) records first met Thomas in 1959 whilst pitching The Veltones Feel I’m In Love/ Someday at that point Satellites sole foray into R&B in a catalogue that included You Drive Me Crazy/Say Anything But Not Goodbye by Ray Scott who had authored Billy Lee Riley’s Flying Saucers Rock ‘n’ Roll.

In 1960 Jim Stewart leased the old Capitol Theatre on the corner of College and McLemore Ave in Memphis and set about converting it into a recording studio.

Rufus was amongst the first people to arrive at the new studio and brought with him a tape of Cause I Love You, a song that he had written and that he and his daughter Carla performed as a duet. Stewart liked it enough to record it with Booker T Jones on baritone sax and Marvell Thomas, Rufus' son, on piano.

Cause I Love You/Deep Down Inside was issued in 1960 and it forever changed the direction of Jim Stewart’s label and life.

Stewart recalled “Prior to that I had no knowledge of what black music was about. Never heard black music and never even had an inkling of what it was all about. It was like a blind man who suddenly gained his sight. You don’t want to go back, you don’t even look back.” (Soulsville USA Rob Bowman).

Previous Satellite releases had met with indifference but this one actually sold. Indeed it sold well enough to bring Satellite to the attention of Jerry Wexler who leased the track for Atlantic records pop subsidiary Atco and led to a deal whereby Atlantic acquired first refusal on distribution rights for ALL Satellite, and later Stax, recordings.

In 1963 Thomas delivered the track that would set the template for the rest of his career. The Dog was a dance craze record and was quickly followed by Walking The Dog and Somebody Stole My Dog. Although these had all been reasonable sized hits, by 1969 Thomas could have been forgiven for feeling a little neglected at Stax. As Rob Bowman notes in Soulsville USA: “ He had not been invited to go on the Stax /Volt tour of Europe in 1967, he was not asked to perform on the labels 1969 television special and his album, May I Have Your Ticket Please was not finished for the big LP push of spring 1969. He felt that many in the company did not take him seriously as an artist.”

In December of 1969, however, Thomas was put together with the producer Tom Nixon, whom Stax had recently recruited, and immediately the partnership hit with Funky Chicken. This was another dance craze record and the first in a series of records that saw the Nixon/ Thomas partnership chart six times. As Dean Rudland points out in his sleeve notes to The Funkiest Man, at fifty-three, Thomas was ”on the hottest streak of his career”.

It was this recent career revival that ensured Thomas’ presence at Wattstax . . .

When the crowd first start trailing onto the pitch at the end of Breakdown, Thomas lightly remonstrates with them:

“I don’t want nobody on the field – not yet. When I tell you to get on the field then you get on the field and I just might get on the field with you.”

Thomas then goes into the aforementioned Funky Chicken beginning:

“Y'all come on in now
Come right on down front
I got something I want to show you”

Maybe people take this to be the invitation that Thomas had teased them with because what had been a trickle of people turns into flood.

Al Bell, who by 1972 was effectively running Stax records and was the most senior label executive present at Wattstax, recalls:

“The only time I became concerned was when they started coming over the fences and coming out on the field because I didn’t know what that could possibly result in. And Shaw was concerned. I expressed it to Shaw, I said ‘Shaw I’m concerned right here, but the only way were going to get these people off this field is Rufus Thomas. Because Rufus Thomas can control the crowd so you (Larry Shaw) gotta go out there and tell Rufus to talk these people back off this field ‘cause he can do that or we’re gonna have to close the show down.”(Wattstax DVD commentary)

This is exactly what Shaw does, then tensely watchs, as Thomas begins. The music stops and a little hesitantly at first Thomas starts rapping: “Power to the people, let's go to the stands…” some in the stands echo him but it seems distant and half hearted. Nevertheless, the crowd on the pitch is starting to thin. Thomas spots a man waving an inside-out umbrella, more an act of high spirits than a threat, and spotlights him “He don’t mean to be mean he just wants to be seen” he mocks. It turns into a routine “Yeah that’s a brother alright, but I be damned if he be my brother”. Umbrella Man is now alone on the grass mugging trying to extend his moment, but it’s gone and only he doesn’t know it. Thomas has won the crowd, “Now y’all get him off” he orders and once more people flood the pitch but only to jostle Thomas’ anonymous stooge off the grass so the show can go on.

It’s the work of a master and, I suspect, a glimpse of Thomas the tent show minstrel. Only somebody drawing from a deep well of experience could have played a crowd so effectively.

As Al Bell says in his commentary to the DVD edition of Wattstax

“We could always be certain that when Rufus Thomas hit the stage as they say, quote, that he was gonna get the house and he got the house at Wattstax. I mean did he ever get the house at Wattstax! Get the house and control the crowd.”

After Wattstax things were never the same at Stax and the company collapsed in 1975.

Thomas recorded irregularly after the demise of Stax.

1996 saw a sort of bringing together of his two great dance craze songs when he recorded Chicken Dog with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Its hard to believe, when listening to this track, that the former Rabbits Foot Minstral and oldest living teenager was 79 at the time of recording particularly when you hear, right at the start of the track, Thomas leering “I know where I’m going now”.

On 15^th December 2001 at St Francis Hospital, Memphis, Rufus Thomas died of heart failure and with him a whole tradition of entertainment.

Further reading here.

In deference to the season you can listen to Rufus Thomas' I'll Be Your Santa, Baby here.

Happy Christmas.

Soule Man

George Soule is best known, where he is known at all, for the 1973 Fame single Get Involved. Soule originally cut this George Jackson penned call to action as a demo:
“Rick Hall decided it was worth a shot as a record and did his thing getting it ready for release (overdubs, my vocal, horns etc.)” remembers George.The record made the black Top 20 and the black television stations came calling but he felt he had to decline their invitation, because George Soule wasn’t, as so many had assumed, a black artist.
As he told Barney Hoskyns, for his book Say It One Time For The Brokenhearted:
“I just didn’t feel comfortable being a white artist giving this black message.”

In 1965 Soule had appeared, together with Ray Charles, on Jack Good's American television show Shindig singing a number called I Love The Way You Love.
“I would like to tell you I was on the show because of something I did in the music world at that time,” says Soule “The truth of the matter is it was arranged by my mother who grew up with Tom Moore, President of ABC TV. All it took was a phone call and I was on Delta flying to CA.”
The following year George produced I Gotta Find A Way / It’s Over My Head by the Six Soul Survivors on the small Meridian based Rap label. Paul Davis, of the Six Soul Survivors, had written both numbers.

In 1967 Tommy Couch founder of Malaco Records opened a recording studio in a disused Pepsi Cola warehouse in Jackson Mississippi:

‘Almost the first people to drop in were white Meridian songwriters Paul Davis and George Soule. “They were both kinda like Dan Penn,” says Tommy; “country and bluesy at the same time”’ (Say It One Time For The Broken Hearted, Barney Hoskyns)

They brought with them black singer Eddie Houston:
“Eddie Houston worked for the Soule' family business here in Mississippi as a shipping clerk. He was aware of my interest in the music business and presented me with a demo tape of him and his band. I took the tape to Tom Couch and we decided to do a speculative session on Eddie.”Capitol Records liked what they heard and issued Simon Says (a Soule/Davis composition), “The Capitol release on Eddie was a first for Tom and myself. It was the first master we ever leased to a major record label.” says Soule.

That same year Cozy Corley, who was the first artist Malaco had recorded, cut the Soule/ Davis composition Warm Loving Man.

1969 was a big year for Soule. Tetragrammaton Records released his first record as a singer Mississsippi River/ Talking 'bout Love. The b-side was a Soule/ Davis original. Mississippi River was also Paul Davis’ solo debut released the same year on the Bang label.

Also that year Floyd Brown enjoyed regional success in New Orleans with Someone the first song Soule had ever had published and recorded:
“I co-wrote the song with a life long friend Richard Cherry when we were both teenagers. The first recording was by Sue Thompson on Hickory in 1964. Later, Frank Ifield recorded the same song for Hickory. Also Etta James cut it at one point years later. There have been several cuts on the song. It never has been a hit, but, the folks at Acuff-Rose Publishing used to kid me and say it was the only soul song in their catalog.”

Most importantly, in December ’69, Jerry Wexler picked up four Soule compositions.
“At that time I decided to move to Muscle Shoals from Jackson, MS. I remember the session (for Saving It All For You Judy Clay), and how exciting it was to have Mr. Wexler use my material. I was not involved as a player on the session but was present and watched Mr. Wexler do what he does so well, produce records.”

As the Seventies dawned Soule cut So Glad You Happened To Me for the Bell label.

‘“George could really sing, he sounded totally black, says his one time writing partner Terry Woodford. “A real insecure guy, but very talented. I signed him as a writer and singer and produced his first record for Bell then he produced me on Cottillon” (Say It One Time For the Brokenhearted, Barney Hoskyns)

Soule recalled: “"So Glad You Happened To Me" did well in Washington D.C. upon release but didn't get off the ground anywhere else.”

It was with Woodford that Soule penned soul favourite You Can't Stop A Man In Love which has been recorded by Reuben Howells, Carl Carlton and Bobby Womack amongst others.

One of my favourite Woodford/ Soule compositions is Paul Thompson’s Special Kind of Woman (B Side of What I Don’t Know Wont Hurt , also co written by Soule, Volt 4042) Says George “The Paul Thompson session was a spec session in hopes of securing a record deal for Paul with a good company. After completion of the session and mixing the master was leased to Volt Records, a division of Stax in Memphis.”

In 71 he issued We’re Into Something Good on Great Western Gramophone Records as George Glenn. “Glenn is my ex-wife's maiden name. We thought at the time since everyone was having problems pronouncing my last name correctly we’d use "Glenn" instead of "Soule' ". (its pronounced Soolay by the way)

The following year saw his first Fame release I’ll Take Care of You.

In addition to releasing Get Involved, 1973 saw Soule co-write Stony with Dan Penn at the latter’s Beautiful Sounds studio. It is apparently in a similar vein to Penn’s "Nobody's Fool" album of that year though it is not included on that album. Soule also contributed the title track to Percy Sledge’s highly thought of I’ll Be Your Everything album issued by Phil Walden’s Capricorn label that year.

In 1975 he produced Frustrated Housewife by the late Ava Aldridge at the Music Mill in Muscle Shoals.
“A speculative session had been recorded on Ava and MGM was one of the companies we dropped by to pitch Ava's masters to. We made a deal for Ava and the album "Frustrated Housewife" was released on MGM as a result. The title track of the LP was used in the movie Fighting Mad starring Peter Fonda.” says Soule. He also wrote Woman Without Love with Ava Aldridge who he remembers as “a songwriter's songwriter, a great vocalist and friend.”

In the years that followed George Soule busied himself as a freelance studio man and songwriter.

In 1992 Soule contributed to Etta James' The Right Time album:“Jerry Wexler came to Muscle Shoals Sound to produce Etta James. At that time I was still living in the Muscle Shoals area and visited the studio on a regular basis. “Knowing him from his visits in the early 70's, he invited me to visit with him in the office while he made preparations for the Etta James session. He asked me how I was doing etc...and if my catalog of songs were producing enough income for a living. After he finished the tracks and lead vocals on Ms. James, he asked some of us local singers to put together a backup group… That was the last session I participated in before moving back to Mississippi.”

And that was that, more or less. (In 1994, together with Ava Aldridge, he sang background vocals on Dan Penn’s Do Right Man album.)

Then in 2003 Casual records released an excellent compilation called Country Got Soul which featured Soule’s Get Involved alongside the work of such artists as Larry Jon Wilson, Tony Joe White and the late Eddie Hinton.

Such was the interest generated by this record that early the following year its compiler Jeb Loy Nichols got together several of the featured artists including George Soule at Dan Penn’s Nashville studio for a new album Testifying . I’m Only Human written and sung by George Soule is, to these ears, the stand out track on this outstanding album.

In 2005 he performed at the Muscle Shoals night as a part of The Barbican’s 'It Came From Memphis' festival.

In July 2008 I had a quick chat with Larry Jon Wilson, who was in the UK promoting his eponymous new album. Conversation came round to the Barbican gigs and Wilson said before going on Soule was too nervous "to spit" and that Bonnie (Bramlett, who was also on the bill that night) was pretty worried. Wilson was determined to look out for Soule whom he called "that cajun guy" :" I introduced him (at the Barbican), as a man who CAN sing in key that made him laugh and he was able to perform after that" recalled Wilson.

Soule went on to perform a number of songs including a rather lovely version of The Dark End Of The Street.

All of which is a long winded way of telling you that at 60 years of age George Soule, one of the great lost voices of blue eyed soul, is releasing his first album today (tomorrow in the US). Recorded in Nashville and produced by Mark Nevers , it’s called Take A Ride and is issued by the excellent Zane records. Listen to a bit here then rush to your nearest independent record shop and buy it!!

(By the way I have, like George Soule, been a member of The Southern Soul list for some years now and those quotes not taken from Say It One Time For The Brokenhearted are taken from messages George Soule sent to that group. Thanks are therefore due to the Southern Soul moderator and listees)