Your editor got to Drive-By Truckers’ last album Go Go Boots late but first time through I fell hard for “Everybody Needs Love.” It took me South to a forever young place. And the journey’s just started because “Everybody Needs Love” is a cover of a song by the great lost soul singer/songwriter/guitar player Eddie Hinton. I recalled that name from credits on the back of beloved Percy Sledge records from the 60s, but I really didn’t have a clue. Patterson Hood schooled me in Go Go Boots’ liner notes. Thanks to him for allowing First to reprint his Boots‘ tribute to Eddie Hinton here. (Now if he’ll just dub me a copy of Hinton’s Letters From Mississippi.)
I can still remember Eddie Hinton coming over to our house when I was a small child. He was my Dad’s friend and they played together on some really cool records. As a kid I remember him being more attentive to a small child than most of Dad’s co-workers. Later on he was known to be very troubled and spent a good part of his later years in and out of institutions and such, but I was never around him then. I did get to see him play once in the 80s in a small bar in Sheffield, Alabama called Calico’s. It was a great show.
Legend has it that when Bob Dylan came to Muscle Shoals to record for the first time (summer 1973), playing on Donnie Fritts’ first album Prone to Lean, he spent most of his time sitting under a tree conversing with Eddie Hinton. Eddie was brilliant on so many levels and it figures Mr. Zimmerman would be drawn to him.
Eddie made a brilliant album with a man named Jim Coleman that was never released during his lifetime. They say it broke his heart and he was never the same after that. Later on he made Very Extremely Dangerous which is a certifiable masterpiece. Unfortunately it was released on Capricorn Records right before they went belly up so almost no-one ever got to hear it. (It’s well worth seeking out though if you can possibly find it.) After that Eddie was in and out of mental hospitals and at one point was homeless, living in a park in Decatur, Alabama. During this period he had an infamous run-in involving a big stick and Disney actor Dean Jones. Eddie was troubled.
Once Eddie and Donnie Fritts wrote a brilliant song called “Where’s Eddie”. The psychology of Eddie writing this song from a woman’s perspective, sorry that she had done Eddie wrong and wishing she could find him and make it up to him says more about Eddie than any shrink’s perspective. The fact they wrote the song up in a tree as the sun was rising (I’ll bet on a Sunday morning) says even more. Lulu recorded the song in 1969 for Atlantic Records and we cover it on this album.
Later on our friend Dick Cooper helped Eddie record and release an album called Letters From Mississippi, which includes the song “Everybody Needs Love.” Eddie was a triple threat, an amazing songwriter, brilliant guitarist and blessed with one of the greatest “soul singer” voices I’ve ever heard. I know what heartbreak feels like and Eddie’s voice is what it sounds like.
Eddie passed away living at his mama’s house in Birmingham, Alabama in July of 1995. I wrote a song about him right after that. “Sandwiches for the Road” was the last song on our first album and anyone who has ever been to see us live has heard Eddie Hinton’s music playing over the PA system before our performances. A small record label in England has put out a series of posthumous releases called The Songwriters Sessions, (Dear Ya’ll, Playin’ Around, and Beautiful Dream) which are the finest examples of his artistry and more than worth the effort to track down if you love incredible country soul music (www.zanemusic.com).
Last year we were asked to contribute a couple of Eddie Hinton covers for a series of singles commemorating his work. A great record store in Cincinnati, Ohio called Shake It Records put the series out and we were honored to be a part of it. We grew so attached to the results that we decided to include them on this album. (A Great Thank You to Darren Blase for everything.)
Eddie can be heard playing guitar on Boz Scaggs’ immortal debut album and is the un-credited lead player on The Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There.” He co-wrote “Breakfast in Bed” which was a big hit for Dusty Springfield and later for UB40 (with Chrissie Hynde). His songs have also been covered by Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Tony Joe White and The Box Tops.
Editor’s Note: Drive-By Truckers’ buddy Dick Cooper wrote his own testament to Eddie Hinton back in 2000 http://swampland.com/articles/view/title:remembering_eddie_hinton. One anecdote from that:
“Wayne Perkins, a Birmingham guitarist with the Rolling Stones, Bob Marley [Perkins did the lead on “Concrete Jungle”], and Albert King among his credits, was a teenage guitar slinger when he first arrived in Muscle Shoals and got a chance to show Eddie his stuff.
After watching Wayne playing blazing rock guitar lead after lead, Eddie told him, “I’ll always play one note better than you.”