Soul Man

So many things fail to live up to the hype (New Coke, most "supergroups," anything Ben Affleck has ever starred in) that it's cause for celebration when one does. Once in a while, an artist comes along that even surpasses expectations.

For me, Eddie Hinton is such an artist. For a couple of years, I'd been reading reviews about Hinton, the great, lost, white soul singer born at the wrong time and stuck in the shadows of giants. Even when those luminaries faded, he was cruelly swept aside by popular taste, the story went. As a critic, I realize you have to take these articles with a grain of salt. We all have our favorites; our stray dogs we take home and lost causes that we champion.

I'm pleased to report that in the case of Hinton, the critics were right.

It took a while to find out for myself. Hinton was a crackerjack session guitarist and singer for the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section from 1967-71, so he played on dozens of hit records by those aforementioned luminaries, which included Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, Percy Sledge, The Staple Singers, Elvis Presley and Otis Redding, according to his credits on the All Music Guide Web site. His recording career was another story.

Hinton, who died of a heart attack at the age of 51 in 1995, released only four albums in his lifetime. Reissues have helped in recent years, and I probably should have gone the Internet route to get my hands on some of his work. Like so many other things, I put it off. Like so many other times, my man Barry Friedman at Birdland Music in Virginia Beach hooked me up.

I made one of my too-infrequent visits to Birdland last month, and found a copy of Hinton's 1993 disc "Very Blue Highway" on sale for $9.99. My search was over, and I snatched the disc up faster than you can say "MasterCard." What followed was, as they say in the ad, "priceless." When I got to the register, Barry noticed the Hinton disc and pointed out that he got a new Hinton anthology that very day. Did I want it, he asked – as if he needed to.

Back at the hotel, I popped the new compilation, "A Mighty Field of Vision: The Anthology 1969-1993," into the CD player (don't leave home without it). It took about 10 seconds to make me a believer.
After a short, Stax-like guitar intro on the opener, "I Got The Feeling," Hinton began to sing. I felt like the ghost of Otis Redding was in the room. And believe me, Otis fans, I know better than to just throw the Big O's name around unless I'm serious. It just got better and better as the horns kicked in. It sounded like some great lost recording from 1967. It was great. It was lost. But it wasn't Redding. It was a Hinton original from his debut album, "Very Extremely Dangerous." It also was from 1978, when disco was sweeping the nation. Needless to say, it didn't sell.

The anthology is chock full of Hinton songs in the same old-school-soul vein, with a dose of rock and blues, too. Hinton even acquits himself well on two Redding cuts, "Shout Bamalama" and "Sad Song."
Redding and Hinton had more in common than the rough-edged but sugar-sweet voice. Both were gone before their time. Redding at least got some of the credit he deserved in his too-brief life.

The beauty of recorded music is that we get a second chance to set the record straight and gain a fuller picture of history. Whether it's Howlin' Wolf or Eddie Hinton, we can sit in the comfort of our own homes and feel the chills up our spines when we hear the lost voices as clear as if we were sitting in the room. It can be eerie, but instead of running for the door, we reach for the volume knob.

So there's my endorsement. You might be sitting there thinking I'm overstating the case so somebody will show me the secret handshake and give me a membership to the Rock Snob Society. It might be so. But I'll bet my membership privileges that if you check out Eddie Hinton, you'll feel like I do: like you've been let in on a secret that too few know.