Episode 3: Eddie Hinton

None

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to the Vibe of Muscle ShoalsSound Podcast. This podcast is brought to
you by Florence Lauderdale Tourism. Comesee what the Shoals has to offer.
Visit their website at Florence al dotcom. Edward Craig Hinton was born June
fifteenth, nineteen forty four, inJacksonville, Florida. In nineteen sixty seven,

(00:24):
Eddie arrived in Muscle Shoals with apromise to be the next genius.
He was the grandson of a preacherand he had the voice of his hero,
Otis Redding. When Eddie was asmall child, he moved from Jacksonville,
Florida, to Tuscaloosa, Alabama,and his musical interest was first peaked
by Rickie Nelson. He loved Hello, Mary Lou, Traveling Man, and

(00:45):
Lonesome Town. As his musical interestgrew, he discovered Ray Charles, Bobby
Blue Bland, and eventually Otis Reddingand Bobby Womack. Eddie was well rounded
and was even on the basketball teamin high school. He enrolled at the
University of Alabama, but Eddie hada dream to be a musician, so
he dropped out of school and joineda local Tuscaloosa band, the Five Minutes,

(01:08):
and in that band he first metJohnny Salon, later to be in
The Hourglass with Greg and Dwayne Alman, as well as a renowned producer,
particularly of the Allman Brothers band.In nineteen sixty seven, Eddie left The
Five Minutes and moved to Muscle Shoalsand teamed up with a Merlin Green for
songwriting, and he began playing ona few records released on the Quinvy label.

(01:33):
He was simply put a musicians musician. The late drummer Jerry Corrigan said
Eddie could play anything. Instead oftelling you what rhythm he wanted you to
play, he could sit down atthe drums and show you. Jerry Wexler
of Atlantic Records called Eddie the whiteOtis Redding. British critic Barney Hoskins called
Eddie simply the blackest white voice evercommitted to Vinyl. Eddie's voice was what

(01:57):
always drew you in. His songwritingand playing made him in demand. In
the fall of nineteen sixty eight,Eddie and Donnie Fritz were trying to come
up with a song for the upcomingDusty Springfield album Dusty and Memphis to be
produced by Jerry Wexler. The songthey wrote was Breakfast in Bed. It
was actually the B side of thesingle, and the flip of the record

(02:21):
had radio playing Breakfast in Bed ratherthan the intended Don't Forget About Me.
This was not the first hit songwritten by Eddie and many collaborators he wrote
or co wrote. Classic songs recordedby Percy Sledge cover Me the Box Tops,
Choo Choo Train, which was recentlyheard in the Quentin Tarantino's new film
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,and Bobby Womax hit a Little Bit Salty,

(02:45):
and later on Where's Eddie? Performedby Lulu on the new Roots LP
recorded here at Muscles Roll's Sound.We've spoken about Eddie's voice and his songwriting,
but the hidden treasure of his talentwas his playing at sparse style and
it would fit whatever song he wasplaying on. The Great Dan Penn described

(03:06):
Eddie's playing by saying he was withoutpeer. The great musician, producer and
stylist from Memphis, Jim Dickinson,brought Eddie to Memphis to work on Hibbert's
solo record. Toots, of course, was in the reggae group Toots and
the Maytals, and he said thathe broke into tears watching Eddie play on
Freedom Train. Dickinson said the businessbroke his heart. You can hear it

(03:29):
in his records, but inside thisdestroyed human being was a spirit who could
still play and sing. Eddie hadstruggled with mental health issues for years,
and in the early seventies Eddie beganlosing Eddie Dwayne Alman had asked him to
join the Allman Brothers band, butEddie declined. He decided to put all

(03:49):
of his energy in producing a poprecord on a singer named Jim Coleman,
more of a Beatles pop record thana Southern soul record. The record was
then into several labels, including JerryWexler at Atlantic, who refused to put
it out as will, and innineteen seventy two Eddie shelved the record.

(04:09):
The outcome crushed him. Jimmy Johnsonof the Swampers said that he was never
the same, and in nineteen ninetyfive, when Eddie passed away at his
mother's home in Birmingham, the onlything found in his room concerning his musical
past was the master tapes of theColeman Hitting project under his bed, Eddie

(04:29):
went off the grid for several years. He supposedly lived in Tennessee, eventually
moving to Macon, Georgia, thehome of Capricorn Records, where he worked
for a while as a janitor atthe studio. It was during this time
that Jerry Wexler suggested to Capricorn Recordspresident Phil Walden that he signed Eddie to
a solo contract, and the resultis a lost classic of Southern soul,

(04:53):
Very extremely Dangerous. The record wasrecorded here at Muscle Shoul's Sound with swamper
Berry Beckett producer. The record didwell upon initial release, sold around twenty
thousand copies, and then Capricorn wentbankrupt. Black radio in Los Angeles,
Detroit, and Philadelphia played songs offthe record that created a buzz until Capricorn

(05:15):
folded. The promise and subsequent lackof sales and promotion hit Eddie hard,
and his mental health began to declineeven further. He became even more unpredictable,
and by the early eighties he wasliving with his mother in Birmingham again.
Eventually she threw him out of herhouse and in an attempt to get

(05:36):
from Birmingham to Nashville, he ranout of money in Decatur, Alabama,
and was homeless for a while.His old friend from college, John d
Wiker, rescued him from the streetsand eventually, with the help of Dick
Cooper, helped Eddie record his secondsolo record, Letters from Mississippi, which
led him to be signed by Bull'sEye Records, a label that was a

(05:57):
part of the Rounder Records group.Very Extremely Dangerous continued to grow as a
cult record, and it was astaple on the tour buses of the Rolling
Stones and Bruce Springsteen in the EastStreet Band. Finally, in nineteen ninety
seven, it was re released onCD along with nineteen ninety nine's Hard Luck
Guy, which included unissued material fromVery Extremely Dangerous and tunes that Eddie was

(06:20):
working on prior to his death.Hard Look Guy is autobiographical, and each
lyric tells the story of Eddie Hinton. In the early two thousand, Zane
Records and English Label put out DearY'all, The Songwriter's Session, which was
a collection of demos Eddie had puttogether when he was pitching songs. Later
on, two more volumes of theSongwriter's Sessions were released. Eddie struggled most

(06:45):
of his adult life with addictions andmental health issues, and due to those
issues, Eddie became a what ifin the music world. But the people
that Eddie worked with still tolerated hisbehavior most of the time. Stories abound
of his borrowing money from his friendsand then walking fifty miles to pay them
back. He was a hard luckguy. I've talked about Edward Craig Hinton

(07:11):
in this podcast Warts and All withthe bottom line. He was an incredibly
talented musician. He could have beena household name. Some things are just
not meant to be. Eddie passedaway in nineteen ninety five. He was
fifty one. He remains unique,wrote Jerry Wexler, a white boy who
truly sang and played in the spiritof the great black soul artist. He

(07:33):
venerated with Eddie. It was animitation. He was totally created, with
a fire and fury as real asOtis Redding or Wilson Pickett. There are
still a few of Eddie's records outthere on CD, including Very Extremely Dangerous
and Dear Y'all Volume one of thesongwriter's sessions, as well as cover Me,
a compilation of Eddie's songs recorded byvarious artists, as Mussel Shull's music

(07:57):
historian Dick Cooper said, Eddie Hintonwas a le Eddie Hinton was a hard
luck guy. Join us next timefrom the historic Muscle Shoals Sounds Studio located
at thirty six fourteen Jackson Highway inSheffield, Alabama. For the Vibe of
Muscle Shoals Sound, Come visit thestudio. We're open Monday through Saturday from
ten until four, with tours ofthe studio beginning at ten thirty and occurring

(08:20):
every hour on the half hour,and listen to the Vibe of Muscle Shoals
Sound podcast on whatever platform you preferfor your podcast. The Vibe of Muscle
Shoals Sound is brought to you byFlorence Lauderdale Tourism. Come see what the
Shoals has to offer. Visit theirwebsite at visit Florence al dot com.