Rock and Roll; Interview with Jerry Wexler [Part 4 of 4]

And to my mind there's no greater phenomenon in popular culture music than the impact of Motown on generations of people the Motown music because Berry Gordy's their spirit. You know I'm the founder of Motown. Well they did it on purpose. There's an action that he locked up he found something that we didn't couldn't do i didn't think about going in public. We tried he went with his version of black music directly to the white teenage by Motown music has left its impact on people. I would say like let's say between maybe 30 and 50 or 55 in a way that no other music has done. He made his records and so far as I know it still does all I know how active it's in the studio in a method that bore some relationship to the Stax and Muscle Shoals Records which was. Having house musicians or studio

bands. Play. Rhythm patterns and rhythm tracks into shape and then maybe turning them over to various lyric writers. Maybe they had a prepared lyric doing the music first and then actually writing the song to the music. Which is one method I shouldn't presume to pontificate on how Motown made its records that's only my understanding and only the similarity between Stax which is having. A house rhythm section. To build these records from scratch and of course the greatest bass player. That you know popular music James Jamison from well every other bass player. Took note lessons and licks. But. The impact of a Motown Pop culture was much wider than I'd say an impact of my record company Atlantic Records.

Because. When our records from the very beginning. Would be signed. By black musicians and black songwriters for black buyers. Later on when Atlantic widens into a power field with some some of the most significant groups of all time of course Led Zeppelin Rolling Stones. Yes King Crimson all those wonderful groups and of course the Bobby Diana started but. They didn't have the peculiar magic that can be clearly thought was culturally thought of Motown because many people who. Maybe don't know any better are not fully informed. The word Motown it's a generic term for all rhythm and blues music. Oh that's sick. It just shows you the impact that it had.

Oh yeah like let me go on to that you know. And of course the Motown songs. Each one was like a little true confession vignette. Written from the sensibility of. A teenager whose homeowners were just starting to circulate and rage and they were these nice little stories. About meeting the right boy or the wrong boy and falling in love and falling out of love. And. Let's put it this way the classic Motown song was not a gritty funky lowdown kind of a Ray Charles or Joe Turner. Or a Solomon Burke preachment or rhythm and blues song. It was a little true confession story which again was part of the magic because when you take this little type of story is that which appeals to adolescence

and put it with superior music. Let's never forget that the Motown music was really you know not provide. It was just great. It made the most wonderful kind of music to fit the kind of stories they were telling. But it was with a few exceptions. I'm not talking about Junior Walker but the main Motown thing was about a kind of nice teenage music. And. Like I say there are people today who maybe you know are beauty operators college professors accountants Motown is their imprint. Oh. But you know that's kind of self-serving idea. You want me to do that not like you.

OK all right. I built. This little vignette. It's about. When I produced midnight hour. At the Memphis studios with the Memphis rhythm section. And. How I work with the rhythm. Now this story's been told by young men and Rolling Stone and other people so like Casey Stengel says you could look it up. I felt that the Beat that. Caught Jackson and the boys were working on OUT IN THE STUDIO. I needed a little bit of variation. So there was. A kind of a dance at that time called the jerk. And the idea of getting technical.

Since there were four beats in the measure. And rock n roll depended on these beats being very even with accents on the second and the fourth beat which is called the back beat. I had a feeling that the Gerry kind of rhythm would apply here whereby you push. A. Second beat a little bit and laid back on the fourth beat a little bit. It really changed the character of the rhythm and put an incredible. Swing into the records. And as Al Jackson and Duck Dynasty proper said to this day they incorporated that into their music from then on. When I went to see the commitments which was sort of a review of many of the records that I made I thought that they'd a wonderful job. But I wish they had called me in. To do midnight hour so they could have gotten the rhythm a little bit more authentic. They didn't quite get it right otherwise much kudos to them.

Yes. Well I did. You know like Yeah I well when I. I've always considered myself and my partners to be what we call in on a pass because we're not musicians. We really don't read music. We don't know the names of the chords and so on. So we work by ear to find where the pocket is. And. Personally when I feel that there's a certain pocket of groove that we're looking for I would get up and dance it. It took several years maybe a decade before I could risk making a fool out of myself in front of some great musicians. I mean you don't get up in front of somebody like Grady Tate or Ron Carter. And with impunity show them the rhythm that you want unless you're damn certain that it's not going to come down on you.

Why yes. One of them yeah. Why. Now. I mean Europe but Europe has always been very receptive toward American jazz. And of course later on American rock n roll. Not so much the American blues and rhythm and blues. Except for a small cult not this cult.

Small though it was is much more intense than any fans of any and the American fans could ever hope to be. These people with devoted their lifes and they know every master numbered in the way every beside them of the personnel of every old session. But when Otis Redding and the Stax review. Hit Europe. It transcended this cult interest it transcended just being a little specialty thing the way jazz always what it just was every system of Otis Redding onstage but that band and Sam and Dave tearing it up or said that they just swept through Europe. You might ask how did Louis Armstrong do it when he went to Europe when he went to Africa. It's just the system will power of great music. The first time I saw the real impact the crossover of Otis Redding was at the Monterey Festival in 1967 and Phil Walden and I brought. The Stax band out there and Otis.

At the request of Lou Adler and John Phillips they called me up a second you get always there. And I was. Very leery about bringing Otis Redding and the energy used to play outdoors in front of you know these thousands and thousands of San Francisco flower children to make you know they were locked into the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane stop. This is important. Yeah. You know unfortunately Otis Redding. Had to die in order to cross over. Sittin on the dock of the bay. Was the only record of all his Freddy which really swept the pop charts and turned the whole pop world onto him. But of course he was gone.

But. The impact came at the Monterey Pop Festival. Which was organized by. Lou Adler and John Philips. And. They had sort of snatched it away from a friend of mine named Allen preset. How and why you. And they asked me to bring Otis Redding and bring Otis Redding to Monterey. And then naturally we needed a band so we brought back at the in the MTs to back him up. I was apprehensive and very leery of exposing Otis Redding. To the thousands of flower children you know the odor of patchouli and good sense to me and I was like. Pervasive throughout the park and here were the Jefferson Airplane that looked like they were playing with 20 foot Martian lamps. And the grateful dad doing the long ball gaze.

And here comes book at T In The AM cheese and I've got the little Sears Roebuck amps and this tiny sound and four walled and I. Already said manager. We looked at each other after this. So the. Here's the way it worked. Book the book at the end he empties the band when the insect came out and warmed up. And gradually the pop quite quieted down. And suddenly now you could hear the little rhythm section. Well then Otis came on and is he was so charismatic he was so strong. He said I love children he said well I'm going to sing a love song and he sang I'm loving I've Been Loving You Too Long To stop now. And he just swept them it was so tumultuous they just went crazy for him. I do have to say that. It's the second time I was fooled the other time was when I brought everything frankly in the play at the Fillmore West

again for. This. Crowd of flower children. I thought. How are these kids you know. Who have been imprinted impressed with so-called psychedelic rock which I didn't hold in high esteem by the way. How are they going to respond to this. But it was amazing. They made incredibly correct intelligent response at all the right things in the music and it was a huge triumph for Ethan. Of course. Ray Charles came on as a walk on and that was the whipped cream on the cake. Oh yeah. Why. Are you. OK. I had been hawking a wreath of

Franklin for many years and hoping. That a contract would run out at CBS at Columbia Records and that I'd then might be in a position to sign her. I wasn't exactly hoping that she wouldn't have any hits on Columbia thereby engendering you know without picking up her option. But the way it went they dropped their after five years. And. A friend of mine from Philadelphia Louise Williams who is they have to this day is a gospel disc jockey. Called me at Muscle Shoals and said here's a Rita's phone number call that she waiting for the call. I called the Rup a week later we were in my office in New York we signed up and since Muscle Shoals was now my prevailing passion I was so kept down that these players the rhythm section and the horn player is that I said let's go to Muscle Shoals and make a record. Well she had no problem with that. But we went down there.

And. We cut I never loved the man. All. Life. In one we was. Like yes we had three track. Yes we did and I was fortunate. We had three track but we kind of live with the horns live in the law. And. There was a ruckus. There was. One of the horn players. And the wreath is then husband Ted White. THAT into it. Had they been drinking from the same jug. And now this real you know Kamerad Korean great pal ship turned into some kind of alcoholic hostility. Well the session blew up. And instead of staying there for a week to complete the whole album everybody went back where they came from. Ted never even went to Detroit and went to New York. I had this wonderful record it was finished and I never loved the man and I had a

three piece track on the B side. Called the right woman. The three pieces are. Bass. Rhythm guitar. And drums. Had no piano. No lead guitar no aunts no nothing. Now. We cut the acetates and I never loved the man and sent out to this jockeys and was a tidal wave response and I distribute isn't the star so let's have the record the record we had no beside. And it took me quite a while. A couple of weeks to find the research. Well we found that she came to New York with us sisters. She and I sisters finished this record with no one to help. What did they do. Aretha sat down and to the tracks played an organ background then an acoustic piano background. Now we had a track with two keyboards

bass drums and rhythm guitar. There's the lead guitar on that record. Then everything went out and sang the lead. Then she joined by sister and then the background thoughts. Of course the songwriters Chips Moman Chips Moman and. Dan Penn just amazed I was able to finish this record. Well all we had was spitting chewing gum. And. Like the fella says you never look back. How we doing. Yeah. Rolling. The soul music which had sort of you know originated somewhere in the early 60s and kept building through the 60s till. Very early in the 70s it produced.

An incredible roster bonus for us. Oh Mark. Soul they were of the 60s which of course had been the way had been prepared by Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin resulted in an incredible roster of soul artists on Atlantic Records when you think of it all in the soul category. Wilson Pickett Solomon Burke Aretha Franklin the Sweet Inspirations Benny King and the great Stax roster Otis Redding Sam and Dave Rufus and Kala Johnny Taylor. It looked as though Saul was now the imprint was now the rubric forever. But I had a hunch and I even told my partner I think it was maybe 68 or 69. I said I have a feeling this is going to grind to a

shuddering halt I felt new things happening. One thing is what you call the rise being rising aspirations of the inner city. That they were looking toward other things than this kind of so-called religious church based music. There was a new spirit it was more secular. But of course the thing that really seemed to cap it was the assassination of Dr. King. That. Changed feelings added to it and it changed a lot of relations. A lot of those things have been healed now but a lot haven't been healed and somehow. Soul was replaced. Maybe not immediately but eventually by hip hop which projects a whole other kind of story a whole other kind of emotion and a whole other kind of statement from a black point of view. My name is Jerry Wexler. And what I do is produce phonograph records.

14. What has come to be known as the solar array which is merely another form of rhythm and blows at the time. Because of its emphasis on so-called spiritual feeling and gospel music and hopeful and positive messages. And which had been initiated by Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin and developed by people like Benny King. Solomon Burke. Let's pick at. The Sweet Inspirations. Off the comedy. Otis Redding and so on. There's an incredible roster. But I had a hunch that it was grinding to a shuddering halt because of changes in the city's changes in interrelationships and most of all the assassination of Dr.

King. Everything grant they were really shuttering hole and that was the end of it. All.