Presents For Christmas

Merry Christmas!

I particularly chose today's song because it was written by Solomon Burke with his own son Solomon Burke Jr. It was released as the b-side to A Tear Fell in November 1966, and on the album King Solomon in 1969.

Solomon Burke - Presents For Christmas

Nugetre's Nuggets, Part Three: Joe Turner Ties Chains Of Love To You...

Today's nugget of Nugetre songwriting is Chains Of Love, written for Big Joe Turner.

Joe Turner had already had a long career working with big bands as a vocalist, and alongside friend and fellow bluesman Pete Johnson. By the 1950s, Joe was a veteran of the vocal jazz scene, but his popularity was limited outside this audience.



The big opportunity for Joe to revitalize his career came in spring 1951, when singer Jimmy Rushing left the Count Basie Band. Ahmet Ertegun heard that Joe was being called in to replace him, so he went to the show at the Apollo Theater. Ahmet signed Joe to a one-year contract with Atlantic. On April 19, 1951, he recorded the first song, written by Ahmet himself with pianist Harry 'Van' Walls, who play behind Joe on the song.



Chains Of Love b/w After My Laughter Came Tears was the first single in May 1951. It reached No.2, and stayed on the r&b chart for 25 weeks, and became the number four best-selling record of the year. Joe toured with Helen Humes and The Hal Singer Orchestra, then as part of Atlantic's "Cavalcade of Blues" tour traveling throughout Louisiana and Texas.

Atlantic released a follow-up while Chains Of Love was still in the charts. The Chill Is On reached No.3 on the R&B charts. In the meantime, material he had recorded earlier for other labels surfaced on the radio. Joe recorded another Nugetre song, Sweet Sixteen , in January 1952. Up to this point in his career, Joe had written most of his songs, and he continued to write material, including the 1953 No.1 hit Honey Hush. Back in New York in December 1953, Joe recorded his biggest hit of all. Shake, Rattle, And Roll reached No.1 on the R&B charts. While this song wasn't written by Ahmet Ertegun, you can hear Ahmet, Jerry Wexler and Jesse Stone making the noise and doing the backing vocals!



Oddly, despite the version by Bill Haley and The Comets being heard on the radio, it was Joe's version that remained on the charts for over six months! Such popularity for the original black artist dictated some alteration of the traditional pattern of promotion, and Joe was a rock n' roll star! Joe and Bill ended up bizarrely on a tour together, and became friends. After reinventing himself as an r&b star, Joe now was introduced into the crossover world of rock n' roll, and promoted by DJ Alan Freed as part of his tour, even starring in two rock n'roll movies: Harlem Rock And Roll and Shake, Rattle And Roll.


Pete Johnson watches in awe as J.C. Higginbotham takes on all-comers at a table-tennis tournament at the Turkish Embassy.

After a string of successful hits after that, Joe teamed up once again with his old friend Pete Johnson to record the Boss Of The Blues album, and they played together at The Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 before going off to tour successfully in Europe.

Big Joe Turner - Chains Of Love (1951)

Information from a BluesNotes Magazine article by Terry Currier, of the Cascade Blues Association. Photos from various and What'd I Say: The Atlantic Story.

Nugetre's Nuggets, Part Two: Carla And Otis Get Lovey, Dovey

Some more Nugetre magic, with some Stax sorcery added to the mix. Lovey Dovey was written by Ahmet Ertegun (Nugetre) and King Curtis for The Clovers (see Sunday's post). Carla Thomas and Otis Redding recorded Lovey, Dovey for their King & Queen of Soul album in January 1967. They replace the jazzy piano line and sultry saxophone accompaniment of the Clovers' original with Al Jackson's thumping drumbeat, and the sharp blasts of Memphis horns. I love how the horns build up and up towards the end, like when you start up on a rollercoaster, then we go over the top into the final fade out.



Carla Thomas & Otis Redding - Lovey, Dovey (Stax 244) Jan 1967

POSTSCRIPT: If you are an Otis Redding fan (you're not?!?!...), incidentally, the photo was featured on a great website devoted to Otis albums, with lyrics and liner notes, called The Otis Redding French Site. The text is in French but its got great features on hundreds of Otis items. And I am learning the French lyrics to Tramp at the moment! Clochard! (transl. Tramp!)

P.P.S. : I've been trying to buy a Clovers track Little Miss Fannie (by Nugetre) on my friend iTunes, and have discovered to my annoyance that it is only listed on US iTunes, and that as a Brit, I am forbidden from purchasing it! AHHH! WHY! (... take a deep breath, there will be other soul music, remember the 12 steps...) Ok, feeling better. I hope they never find out how many 'gift/hobby' parcels of rare vinyl history leave the New World for my door every month...

Nugetre's Nuggets, Part One: Ahmet's Days In Clover...

Ahmet Ertegun was given a small acetate recording machine at the age of fourteen, and began his own songwriting career by writing lyrics to Cootie William's West End Blues and singing them over the top of the instrumental track playing on a Magnavox record player in the background. His friends would not believe that it was his voice singing!

Being part of the creative process, not just as a producer but as a songwriter, delighted Ahmet, and over the years as president of the company, Ahmet wrote material for numerous artists, under the pseudonym Nugetre (Ertegun spelled backwards). The pseudonym has never been satisfactorily explained for me; after all, everybody knew that the Turkish Ambassador's son ran an r&b and jazz record company. Perhaps it was more that it would look bad for the company to admit that the company president sometimes had to help out at the studio. Ahmet wrote "head" melodies since he couldn't play an instrument or write music. He would record his songs in Times Square recording booths, then take the paper discs and give them to musicians to reproduce.



One of the first groups to benefit from Ahmet's songwriting talents were The Clovers. The Clovers were a local Washington group who often played in Washington's Old Rose Social Club, an old bootleg joint dating back to the 20s. In a way The Clovers were perfect for the place, since their repertoire was locked into that era also, with songs such as Yes Sir, That's My Baby, That Old Black Magic, and Pennies From Heaven. They were paid nothing, and were also responsible for looking after the building. Their singing was beautiful, but more barbershop and crooner than doo-wop, and when his old partner Max Silvermann from the "Waxie Maxie" record shop tipped Ahmet Ertegun to them , he was unsure that they could make it in the r&b market. Unimpressed with much of the syrupy material they were recording for Rainbow Records, Ahmet wrote a song himself on the plane ride down from NYC to his old haunt of Washington D.C. that had a quite different style.



On February 22, 1951 the Clovers recorded Don't You Know I Love You (Atlantic 934), a mid-tempo, choppy-rhythmed shuffle with Buddy Bailey's blues-tinged vocal leading the group. The surprising use of a sax solo (one of the first on a vocal group record) came about when bandleader Frank Culley demanded to be paid even though he and his sax were not suppose to play on the record. Since Ertegun had to pay Frank as a leader anyway, he let him play and Culley winged it from there. The song sold over 250,00 copies. Ironically, The Clovers themselves preferred the flip-side Skylark, which was more in the pop ballad vein they were used to singing!

The song was later covered by both Fats Domino and Shirley & Lee, but neither do the song full justice - the one overexciting the rock n'roll without the feeling; the other transforming it into pretty kitsch, nasal, bubblegum pop (strange, since normally, I enjoy their songs - I guess the prior knowledge of the Clovers spoiled it for me...)



Ahmet Ertegun wrote eight songs for the Clovers out of their first nine singles, including their first two number one R&B chart records, the second No.1 being Fool, Fool, Fool. The next year, Kay Starr had a big hit with this song with white pop audiences. The other stand-out songs were In The Middle Of The Night, with its distinctive heavy beat and walking bass line woven into a bluesy ballad, and Lovey Dovey, later covered in the Memphis style by the King & Queen of Soul, Carla Thomas and Otis. Don't You Know I Love You, Fool, Fool, Fool, and Lovey Dovey were each on the charts for over 20 weeks. Five of the Clovers' records during this Nugetre-penned period were double-sided hits, with 3 of them in a row.

Nugetre could write a hit or two!

The Clovers - Don't You Know I Love You? (1951)
The Clovers - Fool, Fool, Fool (1951)
The Clovers - Lovey, Dovey (1953)




You can buy all of these and many other classic Clovers tracks on the excellent compilation Your Cash Ain't Nothing But Trash - Their Greatest Hits 1951-55 by Rev-Ola Records. Most Clovers tracks are also easily found on iTunes.

Information from What'd I Say: 50 Years Of Atlantic Records, and the copious research gathered from interviews with numerous members of the Clovers for Marv Goldberg's R&B Notebooks.

POSTSCRIPT: Has anyone ever heard that Cootie Williams/Ahmet Ertegun recording? I wonder if it survived somewhere in the Atlantic vaults?...

Living In A Hopeful Future: Ahmet Ertegun 1923-2006

Ahmet Ertegün, 31st July 1923 – 14th December 2006

Ahmet Ertegün, who along with Herb Abramson founded Atlantic Records, died this week.

"Ahmet Ertegün was injured after a fall at a Rolling Stones performance on October 29, 2006. Ertegun, 83, slipped and hit his head backstage while the band were playing at former US President Bill Clinton's 60th birthday party in New York Sunday 29 October 2006. After being in a positive stable situation, he slipped into a coma and died with his family by his side on December 14, 2006 at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center. He will be buried in his native Turkey, and a memorial service will be held in New York in the New Year, an Atlantic Records spokesman said."



It was a tragic end to the life of a man who from the age of five had dreamed of being a part of the jazz and blues world he was introduced to by his elder brother Nesuhi, listening to records snuck into their bedroom into the early hours at the Turkish Embassy in Washington D.C. The Ertegun family name means 'living in a hopeful future', and Ahmet and Nesuhi's went out to live theirs as soon as they could, going out to see the great names of jazz; walking from door to door in the black neighbourhoods of Washington asking around to buy old records; and getting to befriend some of those same artists they had worshipped - Duke Ellington, Lena Horne and Jelly Roll Morton, J.C. Higginbotham and Pete Johnson.



It wasn't just about music. From the moment he heard jazz as a boy in London in the early 30s, Ahmet felt an affinity with black Americans. He was shocked by the treatment they had to contend with in their own country, and felt something similar in a Europe where their muslim faith set Turks apart despite their modernising new government:

"As I grew up, I began to discover a little bit about the situation of black people in America, and experienced an immediate empathy with the victims of such senseless discrimination. Because although the Turks were never slaves, they were regarded as enemies within Europe because of their Muslim beliefs."

The hopeful future would in Ahmet's dreams include understanding and co-operation between races. As a boy, Ahmet gravitated towards the embassy's black janitor, Cleo Payne, who became a mentor to him, taking him on trips around the black neighbourhoods of Washington and Georgetown, and introducing him to the local musicians, who would then come to play at Ahmet's parties at the embassy.



Nesuhi and Ahmet decided to put on the first ever integrated concert in Washington D.C., the nation's capital being a segregated Jim Crow town back in those years. The Jewish Community Center was the only place that would allow both a mixed audience and mixed band. Later they would be allowed to use the National Press Club's auditorium for other shows.

In 1946 Ahmet became friends with Herb Abramson, a dental student and A&R man for National Records. Deciding to start a label together they talked Max Silverstein into backing them. There was to be two labels Jubilee for Gospel and Quality for jazz and R&B. When things didn't start off well, Silverstein got out, and the two were left to raise some more cash to start a new label, Atlantic Records in the autumn of 1947, working out of a condemned Jefferson Hotel on Fifty-Six between Sixth and Broadway. Sleeping in the bedroom the living room was used as a office, and the office was used as a recording studio through the night. In order to help with the rent Ahmet rented a bed to his cousin Sadi Koylan a poet. With an upcoming recording strike declared by Caesar Petrillo to commence January 1, 1948 they began recording as much material as possible. The first sides were recorded November 21, 1947 by the Harlemaires with The Rose of the Rio Grande. By the end of December a total of sixty-five songs had been recorded.



The early recordings, well-written and sophisticated, didn't sell, and searching for inspiration, Ahmet and Herb travelled south to listen to what people were dancing to. The missing ingredient was the danceable rhythm, and with that added to the mix, Atlantic had their first hit with Sticks McGhee's Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee, an Army drinking song with ribald lyrics heavily toned-down for the pop market. It would not be the last time that Ahmet and Atlantic would be willing to seek out and pick up new inspirations and new ideas, particularly from the South, in their quest for great music. It was one of the qualities that put Ahmet Ertegun apart from other record executives of the time, who relied upon talent scouts and A&R men to do the searching. Ahmet was involved with his artists, and loved the music they made:

"From the moment an artist walks through the door at Atlantic, they are already a star to us."

In r&b, Ahmet would sign up and treat like stars such talents as Professor Longhair, The Clovers, Big Joe Turner, LaVern Baker, Ruth Brown, Clyde McPhatter, The Drifters, Ray Charles, Sam & Dave, Aretha Franklin. Later, he would pioneer the move into rock music that allowed the label to offer itself up for sale in the late 60s and guaranteed its continued survival as an imprint. Ironically that change allowed for the continued support of r&b acts and rerelease of the Atlantic r&b catalogues.

To be fair to the whole man, Ahmet was of course a businessman as well as a music lover. Over the years, several artists would have differences with Ahmet and Atlantic over the business of music, and the payment of royalties. Fred Wilhelms, lawyer involved in royalties work for artists such as LaVern Baker, had this to say this week:

"I had a much harder time than most people reconciling what Ahmet Ertegun accomplished with what he knew was being done to artists with his full complicity."

Unlike some other outfits such as King Records, Atlantic had in fact paid music publishing royalties and also royalties to their performers from the start, but while the contracts were considered standard for the time, as the popularity of the music grew, the deals began to appear less than generous. When disagreements emerged over accounting and collection of royalties due, splits occured, Ruth Brown, Ray Charles and LaVern Baker amongst the well-known. To his credit, in recent years Ahmet and the other old executives of Atlantic were amongst those willing to contribute to the foundation of the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, and other artist benevolent funds, as well as reconciling several outstanding royalties disputes out of their own fortunes.

Now the adventure in search of "cowboys, indians, beautiful brown-skinned women and jazz" , which Ahmet dreamed of as a nine-year old boy collecting and treasuring old 78s has ended with his return to rest in his native Turkey. Ahmet once explained it all, in a slightly tongue in cheek way:

"If it hadn't been for the fall of the Ottoman Empire ..."

I certainly had never really considered the contribution of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to the spread of black American music into the homes of all Americans and on across the Atlantic into the consciousness of the whole world, but it is impossible to forget the part that Ahmet and his brother Nesuhi played in that. Ahmet and Nesuhi didn't treat r&b as 'race music' in the way so many others had done previously, but as music at the forefront of creativity and genius. Quincy Jones made a similar comment in one of many tributes in the press this week:


"[Ahmet was] one of the pioneering visionaries in this whole scene. He was a very 360-degree person. He loved to have a good time. He knew how to party, which is my kind of guy, and he knew how to work. He knew how to look into the future and how to execute to bring it to fruition.”


The music Ahmet brought to the world made us think about living in a more hopeful future.

To read about Ahmet's life and Atlantic Records in his own words, read What'd I Say: 50 Years of Atlantic Records, from which much of the information and quotes here are to be found. Another good read is the biography Music Man. Fred Wilhelms article at CounterPunch offers another interesting perspective on Ahmet.

The House That Ruth Built: Ruth Brown 1928-2006

This post began a few days ago as a continuation of my series of Nashville linked songs. Already in this month, we have mourned the loss of Mr Buddy Killen. However, as I went back to researching yesterday, the sad news began to appear that Ms Ruth Brown has passed away also at the age of 78. Red Kelly at The B Side has produced a memorial post, to which a friend of Ms Brown, Mr Stanley Behrens, has contributed a personal message of condolence. Link to them here. Read an article in the Virginian-Pilot newspaper here.

Born Ruth Weston in Portsmouth, Virginia on January 30th 1928, she began to sing at Emanuel AME Zion Church in Olde Towne, Portsmouth. After tasting the limelight while singing (unbeknownst to her parents!) in local USO shows during the war, and even going up to New York City and winning the Harlem Apollo Amateur Night on another secret trip, she finally ran away for good to Washington D.C. aged 17, in 1945, to live the life she had dreamed about listening to the jazz singers and orchestras of the 1940s. When she began to lose her way in 1947, Blanche Calloway took her under her wing and began to manage her, getting her an audition with a small new label called Atlantic Records. After recovering from a broken leg brought about by a serious car accident in 1948, Ruth Brown finally began her first Atlantic recording session eleven months late in May 1949.


Ruth Brown at The Hippodrome Memphis 1950, photograph by Ernest Withers.

So Long reached No. 4 on the R&B chart, and began a string of hits, with her next song, Teardrops from My Eyes, becoming her first No.1 record in 1950, and staying at the top for 11 weeks. Next was I'll Wait For You in 1951, reaching No.3; in 1952 there were 5-10-15 Hours, reaching No.1 R&B, and Daddy, Daddy at No.3; Atlantic Records came to be dubbed "The House That Ruth Built".

I have linked to a performance by Ruth Brown singing Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean on television in 1953, which marked her appearance in the national Pop charts and wider recognition.

This track was in fact recorded twice by Ruth Brown, the first time in New York City in 1953. Ruth Brown wasn't impressed with the 1953 demo, feeling it was too crude, and suggested that it not be released. However, Ahmet Ertegun was adamant that it was a potential hit. He was proved correct when it reached No.1 on the R&B chart, and No.23 on the Pop chart. White entertainers such as Frankie Laine became vocal admirers, and it was Frankie who dubbed Ruth Miss Rhythm.

The hits continued with Wild Wild Young Men, and in 1954 with two more No. 1s, Oh What a Dream and Mambo Baby. In 1955 she dueted with Clyde McPhatter on Love Has Joined Us Together. She was the star of the television broadcast Showtime At The Apollo that same year. Ruth Brown recorded with Atlantic up to 1960, before parting ways in order to spend more time with her young family. In addition, she had fallen out of love with the company. While she was being paid advances of up to $350 for each song she recorded, and selling millions of records, the accounts of Atlantic Records always showed her owing the company for recording costs, touring and promotions!





Ruth Brown performing in 1960

However, she never lost the desire to sing and record, and continued to be involved in music even during this hiatus. In 1962, Ruth Brown was signed by Shelby Singleton to the Nashville-based Phillips label. He persuaded her to re-record Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean, featured on Night Train To Nashville, and this time Ruth herself was pleased with the results:

"Going down there and working with these great musicians ... there's a different feeling. Just a whole wonderful feeling... I think it's one of the best things that I have ever done."

Ruth Brown decided to return to music in the 1970s, and even branched out into TV, film, the stage, and radio; in the sitcom Hello, Larry; the film Hairspray; the Broadway show Black And Blue; and as a host on NPR radio. As well as a desire to perform, urged on by her friend the comedian Redd Foxx, another motivation was spurring Ruth Brown to work and to promote black musical heritage.

I first heard about The Rhythm And Blues Foundation when I saw a TV interview with Sam Moore of Sam & Dave, and I discovered that simply because you made the music, it did not necessarily mean that you were getting paid for it. In the late 1970s, Ruth Brown discovered that the same situation was affecting her, with less and less royalties monies actually arriving, and having to take on other jobs to support her family. Ruth Brown's greatest endeavour perhaps was her battle with Warner, new owners of Atlantic Records, and former owners Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler, to recover her royalties due since the start of her career, and to establish a fund to support other artists who had not profited by their work in music. After discussions with Ms Brown about the way deals were done in the early years, and paying her $20,000 in back royalties, former Atlantic owner Ahmet Ertegun, to his credit, agreed to personally donate $1.5 million to set up the Foundation to acheive this goal in 1987.

Ruth Brown had been on life support since Oct. 29 after suffering a heart attack and stroke. She died at a hospital in Henderson, Nevada, near Las Vegas, where she lived with family. Amongst the memories close friends and relatives shared was this one from cousin Mae Breckenridge-Haywood:

"We've lost another pearl...She was just a beautiful person with a very warm spirit, especially for her hometown, her school and also her family..."


Ruth Brown in Portsmouth, VA, in May 2006. (Photo courtesy of Virginian-Pilot newspaper.)

Information for this post from VH1.com, and Malcolm Venables and Steven Stone of The Virginian-Pilot newspaper, who give a moving and in-depth account of Ruth Browns life and acheivements. Video performance provided by innercalm.

Having Fun With The Bobbettes...

This post is brought to you jointly by the people at Brown Eyed Handsome Man and Get On Down With The Stepfather Of Soul...

Jason Stone, The Stepfather of Soul, was hunting for a copy of I've Gotta Face The World by long-running girl group The Bobbettes. I was in a record-buying mood, cash card in hand, innocently perusing the Rare Soul Man website, and came away a little while later with one 45 and £30 lighter... and this is the first my girlfriend will know about it! What, have you lost yer marbles, you can't run with the northern soulers, I told myself, soon you'll be taking out a mortgage to fund your habit, I knew that, but then... Go on, said the voice...

The best praisie of The Bobbettes that I can find is by Marv Goldberg as part of his R&B Notebook series, based upon interviews with surviving members of hundreds of vocal groups of the 50s and 60s. For The Bobbettes, he was able to speak to surviving member Reather Dixon Turner.

In brief, The Bobbettes began as teen group the Harlem Queens, comprising Emma Pought, Jannie Pought, Reather Dixon, Laura Webb and Helen Gathers. Their first hit was the song Mr Lee in 1957 for Atlantic Records. When the relationship with Atlantic began to sour in 1959, they went on to record elsewhere for two more decades. Some of the most popular tracks include I Shot Mr Lee (based loosely on a teacher they didn't like -"shot him in the head, boom, boom.”- gangsta style in chiffon), and I Don't Like It Like That, an answer song to Chris Kenner's I Like It Like That. After a long career in which they created many classic records, tragedy struck in 1980, when Jannie Pought was killed in a random shooting, a victim of the gun culture they had once satirised. Yet, even today, the remaining members continue to perform.



The track featured today is the b-side to a single recorded in May 1966. It's called Having Fun, and that you will have, if you are past sixteen and fancy free. Oh, so long ago... A thumping bassline, punchy horns that suddenly break into a little nod to the Otis signature riff, and lots of attitude.

The Bobbettes - Having Fun (RCA Victor 47-8832) 1966

Now, if you haven't already, jump over to the Stepfather of Soul, who has another Bobbettes treat for you...

Information in this article taken from Marv Goldberg interviewing Reather Dixon Turner for the R&B Notebooks. Another source on the Bobbettes' career can be found at The Doo-Wop Society of Southern California.

You can buy the Bobbettes Ultimate Collection on CD from doo-wop and vocal group specialists Dead Dog Records, which contains all of their hits up until 1964.

The Soul Clan: Where you going, Joe?...

The way that Don Covay asks, "Hey Joe's packing his bags, where you goin', Joe?" at the begininning of The Soul Clan's single "Soul Meeting" has never sounded like a good omen. The concept of the southern soul supergroup, founded by Covay in 1968, and comprising Don Covay, Solomon Burke, Joe Tex, Arthur Conley and Ben E. King, never fulfilled the hopes of its members, and perhaps some could already sense it while recording their first and only single.

The original plan had included Wilson Pickett, but reportedly, Pickett had backed out, concerned both for his solo career ambitions, and perhaps concerned that the group would not prosper amongst Solomon Burke's many other business ventures.

Otis Redding was the other mooted Clan member, and the beginning of recording had been delayed while Otis underwent throat surgery and recuperated. Sadly, by the time the situation had been finalised, Redding had met his tragic death. Arthur Conley, an artist whom Redding had cultivated and produced, was inducted in his stead. Joe Tex said during the 1981 reunion, "I would have given it a chance if Otis had lived. Man's head was on straight... the future of the Soul Clan died with Otis..."

Joe revealed also his take on the spirit he had hoped the Soul Clan would embody, as he describes Otis thus: "Talk to white, talk to black, don't piss nobody off, but don't Tom neither..."

Solomon Burke, who, after Covay himself, was possibly the most committed to the enterprise, said in an interview, “We wanted to interlock ourselves as a group, to express to the younger people how strong we should be and to help one another, work with one another and support one another...”

The sentiment was a noble one, therefore, but the business acumen of Atlantic Records' Jerry Wexler was not buying into it. The Soul Meeting single failed to catch fire, reaching No.34 on the RnB Chart, and only No.91 on the Pop Chart. An LP was scheduled and duly appeared, but it seems Wexler cancelled funding for group recordings. The LP has the two sides of the single, plus a selection of solo recordings by the Soul Clan members. What was the motivation for this? Don Covay said in an interview with Gerri Hirshey, "Some funny stuff went down at Atlantic." Solomon Burke seemed to believe that Wexler in particular did not want to give his most successful black stars a greater control over their careers.

There is some cold logic in this. Wexler had groomed Ray Charles, only to see him leave at the moment Atlantic might have capitalised upon their investment by involving Charles in movie deals etc. He may have feared that to allow five of his greatest and most lucrative hitmakers to work and act in solidarity would give them the power to collectively renegotiate their contracts, and cut the company's profit margins. As I said, logical, but hardly honourable or far-sighted, in my view. In each case, the members of the Soul Clan were poorly served by a company which failed to invest in publicity and actively sabotaged their recording schedule. Times were changing, and none of the final line-up of the Soul Clan were experimenting with, nor being encouraged to try, the new sounds of funk that might have boosted and elongated their hit careers. Atlantic Records was happy to let them fade away, while sucking up the back-catalogues and talents of regional hit factories such as Stax. No Marvin Gayes or Stevie Wonders would be nurtured in New York City.

The B-Side to Soul Meeting is That's How It Feels, an apt summation of a bold but doomed venture to establish the Five Pillars of Southern Soul. It was written by Don Covay and Bobby Womack. The single was recorded in Nashville, in February 1968.

That's How It Feels - The Soul Clan (Atlantic LP 587127 1968)

This song has just been released on Atlantic Unearthed: Soul Brothers, a new compilation of allegedly never-released tracks, that have been mercifully set free from their state of limbo by Rhino Records. I am sure this is not the only example of a track that, rather than being unreleased, Atlantic simply willfully forgot... you can buy it here.

Joe Tex said at the press conference before the1981 reunion show: "I'm tellin you right now, it ain't gonna work." The concert was reportedly chaotic, with many technical problems and other setbacks. "...we been having to make it on our own so long it's hard to get in step. A soul man is that. Singular. Soul Clan is more a beautiful idea to me." A statement that undercuts the sugar-coated marketing of soul music that tries to reduce it to a Starbucks moment.

The quotes and some of the facts for this entry have been found in Gerri Hirshey's "Nowhere To Run: The Story of Soul Music".