The greatest male white soul singer?
Notice the word male because if the question was the greatest white soul singer there is obviously only one winner and that would be Dusty Springfield.
Let's look at some of the male candidates - early Rod Stewart ? Steve Marriott? Top 10 material. Maybe even top five.
Frankie Miller? Now we 're talking. Certainly the best British one.
World wide however he takes second place to the late great Eddie Hinton.
An artist who first came to my attention via the Andy Kershaw radio shows and one who featured a couple of times in the eaarlier days of this blog. Somewhat criminally he hasn't graced these pages since.
Hard Luck Guy was released by Zane Records in 1999 and was purchased as soon as Kershaw alerted me to it's release (ah, the good old pre- Internet days!)
No Depression gave the album a brief review which highlighted his Muscle Shoals roots and declared it as the discovery of the year.
Jerry Wexler was clearly a fan -He remains unique. A white boy who truly sang and played in the spirit of the great black soul artists he venerated.
Another fan was Otis Redding's widow Zelma who asked Eddie to teach their children to play guitar.As well as Hard Luck he had a hard lifestyle as he fought a losing battle with the bottle and died of a heart attack at the age of 51
You could do a lot worse than buying this album
Wow, I'd never heard of him but yes that accolade would be well suited, great stuff. I immediately thought of Steve Marriott too when you said greatest male white soul singer, shout-out too to Chris Clark in the female category. This could be a new series, CC!
ReplyDeleteShe would be second!
DeleteGreat stuff, CC. Prior to your post, I had the sum total of two Eddie Hinton songs in my collection, What Would I Do Without You and Cover Me. This equally wonderful trio should be all the motivation needed to go track down Hard Luck Guy. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteGotta add Eddie to my wants list. Like C I'd never heard of him before at least knowingly. We flick through so many racks and read so many reviews just think how many other worthies get overlooked
ReplyDelete