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Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South
In the sound of the 1960s and 1970s, nothing symbolized the rift between black and white America better than the seemingly divided genres of country and soul. Yet the music emerged from the same songwriters, musicians, and producers in the recording studios of Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, and Muscle Shoals, Alabama--what Charles L. Hughes calls the "country-soul triangle." In legendary studios like Stax and FAME, integrated groups of musicians like Booker T. and the MGs and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section produced music that both challenged and reconfirmed racial divisions in the United States. Working with artists from Aretha Franklin to Willie Nelson, these musicians became crucial contributors to the era's popular music and internationally recognized symbols of American racial politics in the turbulent years of civil rights protests, Black Power, and white backlash.
Hughes offers a provocative reinterpretation of this key moment in American popular music and challenges the conventional wisdom about the racial politics of southern studios and the music that emerged from them. Drawing on interviews and rarely used archives, Hughes brings to life the daily world of session musicians, producers, and songwriters at the heart of the country and soul scenes. In doing so, he shows how the country-soul triangle gave birth to new ways of thinking about music, race, labor, and the South in this pivotal period.
Hughes offers a provocative reinterpretation of this key moment in American popular music and challenges the conventional wisdom about the racial politics of southern studios and the music that emerged from them. Drawing on interviews and rarely used archives, Hughes brings to life the daily world of session musicians, producers, and songwriters at the heart of the country and soul scenes. In doing so, he shows how the country-soul triangle gave birth to new ways of thinking about music, race, labor, and the South in this pivotal period.
280 pages, Hardcover
First published March 10, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
July 16, 2020
Really enjoyed this. Hughes does a great job in breaking down and complicating the relationship between race, genre, and location as he grapples with the music made in the triangle of Memphis, Muscle Shoals, and Nashville in the '60s and '70s.
August 26, 2015
Charles Hughes's book has given me a new body of music to listen to over and over and over as well as language with which to (begin to) understand the seeming paradox between racial disparity and racial collaboration in the South. A fantastic, and quick read with much to offer to very different readers. Great research, and so many voices in constant quotes from text and live interviews.
July 23, 2023
Clear-eyed and nuanced, a corrective to the simplified idea that the groundbreaking interracial musical collaborations in Memphis, Nashville, and Muscle Shoals were immune to structural racism and that all participants benefited equally.
August 3, 2020
Super fascinating and well worth the read. You'll learn a lot.
May 2, 2015
An analysis of how musical genres "Country", and " Soul" , defined racial lines in American culture. Country obviously being identified with whites, whereas Soul was considered black music. To a large extent that was true and particularly when you had the likes of Merle Haggard representing part of the white backlash against the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements. The Nashville recording empire and Southern Rock in the later 60s and early 70s, would be embraced by conservative whites such as Nixon, George Wallace and others to further their political agenda.
However, it was hardly as simple as a black/white division would suggest. The Country Triangle - Nashville, Memphis, Muscle Shoals had mixed race studio musicians recording many of the songs that would be associated with "white" music. Furthermore, after you moved beyond the older "hillbilly" roots of Country, much of its later incarnations were rooted in the black musical tradition and sound, and you had black composers writing the music for white artists.
Meanwhile, Soul (previously Rhythm and Blues but given a name change) was increasingly adapted to appeal to a crossover market. Barry Gordy at Motown in Detroit was very successful with the very popular 3-minute pop hits formula. It featured black recording stars but resonated well with white listeners.
And from the mid-50s on, you had Memphis with distinctly black Blues roots enjoying immense success with Elvis and other white singers and bands. Down the road in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the first studio was established in the early 50s and would eventually be hailed as a model of racial enlightenment. This was partially true but it too was not immune to racial tensions in management and production. The strongest part of the book was the coverage of the evolution of Muscle Shoals and its genre offspring: Swamp Music, Outlaw Rock (think Willie Nelson), and Southern Rock.
In essence, though Country and Soul may have been the markers, you had blacks creating white music; whites creating black music, and the bottom line was achieving commercial success regardless of the labels. As for the core of studio musicians, who like the Wrecking Crew on the West coast, they weren't particular. They came from an assortment of jazz, blues, and classical backgrounds and played what you put in front of them as they moved from site to site bringing their considerable talents and collecting their paychecks. With the exception of Booker T and the MGs, who as much as anyone was credited with creating the " Memphis Sound", most studio musicians worked in obscurity.
I vacillated between rating it a strong "3" or a light "4" and went with the latter. It is certainly informative and those interested in music history will find it a well of information. But it was repetitive and you have to navigate an often confusing maze of record labels, contract battles, and studio shuffling and name changes.
However, it was hardly as simple as a black/white division would suggest. The Country Triangle - Nashville, Memphis, Muscle Shoals had mixed race studio musicians recording many of the songs that would be associated with "white" music. Furthermore, after you moved beyond the older "hillbilly" roots of Country, much of its later incarnations were rooted in the black musical tradition and sound, and you had black composers writing the music for white artists.
Meanwhile, Soul (previously Rhythm and Blues but given a name change) was increasingly adapted to appeal to a crossover market. Barry Gordy at Motown in Detroit was very successful with the very popular 3-minute pop hits formula. It featured black recording stars but resonated well with white listeners.
And from the mid-50s on, you had Memphis with distinctly black Blues roots enjoying immense success with Elvis and other white singers and bands. Down the road in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the first studio was established in the early 50s and would eventually be hailed as a model of racial enlightenment. This was partially true but it too was not immune to racial tensions in management and production. The strongest part of the book was the coverage of the evolution of Muscle Shoals and its genre offspring: Swamp Music, Outlaw Rock (think Willie Nelson), and Southern Rock.
In essence, though Country and Soul may have been the markers, you had blacks creating white music; whites creating black music, and the bottom line was achieving commercial success regardless of the labels. As for the core of studio musicians, who like the Wrecking Crew on the West coast, they weren't particular. They came from an assortment of jazz, blues, and classical backgrounds and played what you put in front of them as they moved from site to site bringing their considerable talents and collecting their paychecks. With the exception of Booker T and the MGs, who as much as anyone was credited with creating the " Memphis Sound", most studio musicians worked in obscurity.
I vacillated between rating it a strong "3" or a light "4" and went with the latter. It is certainly informative and those interested in music history will find it a well of information. But it was repetitive and you have to navigate an often confusing maze of record labels, contract battles, and studio shuffling and name changes.
March 10, 2018
This fascinating book makes the continued point about music and race: it's complicated, and intertwined. I did a search on Arthur Alexander at my public library and wound up with this recent book, which sort of begins, in the first of several chapters, with the late great singer, expanding upon a recent biography, Get a Shot of Rhythm and Blues: The Arthur Alexander Story. Hughes, a musician as well as a historian and fan, cites case after case of songs and careers that show the ironies of race in what he refers to as the country-soul triangle, Memphis, Nashville, and Muscle Shoals.
So, our own Macon, Georgia intersects the triangle through the careers of Otis Redding, Phil Walden, Duane Allman, and, nominally, James Brown. This is chronologically - and briefly- touched on, as the careers of Tennessee, Alabama, even Mississippi musicians are more central here. Hughes offers his narrative as a corrective to the earlier work of Peter Guralnick, who in the 1980s book Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom looked at Memphis and Muscle Shoals and the "southern dream of freedom." As this is at least a generation later, the more nuanced discussion here works for me, too, but I would add readers to compare this books with, for instance, Guralnick's most recent book, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll. It's complicated.
Highly recommended.
So, our own Macon, Georgia intersects the triangle through the careers of Otis Redding, Phil Walden, Duane Allman, and, nominally, James Brown. This is chronologically - and briefly- touched on, as the careers of Tennessee, Alabama, even Mississippi musicians are more central here. Hughes offers his narrative as a corrective to the earlier work of Peter Guralnick, who in the 1980s book Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom looked at Memphis and Muscle Shoals and the "southern dream of freedom." As this is at least a generation later, the more nuanced discussion here works for me, too, but I would add readers to compare this books with, for instance, Guralnick's most recent book, Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock 'n' Roll. It's complicated.
Highly recommended.
April 19, 2022
I've been meaning to read this for a while now, and finally took the plunge. We've become so accustomed to reports of the racial progress defined by the interracial musical performances at Stax Records and other labels. Hughes acknowledges the fact that many white and black musicians worked together to make some of the most important and exciting records of the 60s and beyond. But he also shows very clearly that race did matter, and that with few exceptions, whites were able to benefit more than African-Americans.
That is the main theme of the book, but it is illuminated with dozens of examples, primarily based on music created in what he calls the country-soul triangle of Nashville, Memphis, and Muscle Shoals. It is interesting that I noticed some names popping up in more than one place, but I didn't really notice just how much interaction there was between these places. It was staring at me in plain sight how much country music in the 60s and 70s took from soul music - but I now appreciate these elements even more.
Hughes is an excellent music writer, but that is only one small part of this book, which offers the perspective of musicians as working people. As such, they were (and are) part of the culture which surrounds them, and far from immune to systemic racism even in the creation of musical marvels. This is an important and engaging book that should help change the way soul and country music is discussed.
That is the main theme of the book, but it is illuminated with dozens of examples, primarily based on music created in what he calls the country-soul triangle of Nashville, Memphis, and Muscle Shoals. It is interesting that I noticed some names popping up in more than one place, but I didn't really notice just how much interaction there was between these places. It was staring at me in plain sight how much country music in the 60s and 70s took from soul music - but I now appreciate these elements even more.
Hughes is an excellent music writer, but that is only one small part of this book, which offers the perspective of musicians as working people. As such, they were (and are) part of the culture which surrounds them, and far from immune to systemic racism even in the creation of musical marvels. This is an important and engaging book that should help change the way soul and country music is discussed.
August 28, 2024
TL;DR Valuable but limited lens that does disservice to the music and history.
I love this music deeply and not once in Hughes’ book did I feel his admiration or enjoyment for some of the greatest songs of all time.
I appreciated learning the race-tension details that are left out of some of the more famous stories like Aretha in Muscles Shoals and the original bass player in the MGs, they offer important context for how racial tension in society seeped into the studio spaces.
While I share the outrage for how, overall, white people economically benefited more than the black people from the music made, he never acknowledges the talent of the white session musicians nor their innate love for music; their talent is merely used to rip off black musicians for economic benefit, never with the purpose of creating something beautiful.
He strips all of the magic of music away to focus on the ugliest part of American society, and while I believe it is important to look at, he seems to have lost the bigger picture, sometimes completely obscuring it to make his point stronger. This stood out most starkly when talking about the end of Stax in the 70s. He ties the label’s closure to the prioritizing of outlaw country and the industry’s renewed preference in white artists over black artists. He doesn’t mention the financially devastating contract agreement Jimmy Stewart made with Atlantic Records and any of the issues with distribution or the bank. If one didn’t know these parts of the story, Hughes’ book would leave you thinking Stax’s downfall was solely due to racial tensions and it is does a disservice to the complex and numerous ways Stax struggled.
In his coda, Hughes critiques the many people who obscure how racial tension was a key component of this history, and this is a valid point. But statements like, “nothing mattered more to these musicians than race,” creates an unnecessary and unprovable hierarchy that doesn’t even consider how important creating music was to those musicians.
As someone who has visited the studios discussed, read books and watched documentaries on them as well as listening to the music on heavy rotation, I am glad to have added Hughes’ perspective to my overall understanding of this incredible period of time in music and society. But I fear if I had not already had such an extensive understanding of these places this book would have left me with a cynical and limited perspective.
I love this music deeply and not once in Hughes’ book did I feel his admiration or enjoyment for some of the greatest songs of all time.
I appreciated learning the race-tension details that are left out of some of the more famous stories like Aretha in Muscles Shoals and the original bass player in the MGs, they offer important context for how racial tension in society seeped into the studio spaces.
While I share the outrage for how, overall, white people economically benefited more than the black people from the music made, he never acknowledges the talent of the white session musicians nor their innate love for music; their talent is merely used to rip off black musicians for economic benefit, never with the purpose of creating something beautiful.
He strips all of the magic of music away to focus on the ugliest part of American society, and while I believe it is important to look at, he seems to have lost the bigger picture, sometimes completely obscuring it to make his point stronger. This stood out most starkly when talking about the end of Stax in the 70s. He ties the label’s closure to the prioritizing of outlaw country and the industry’s renewed preference in white artists over black artists. He doesn’t mention the financially devastating contract agreement Jimmy Stewart made with Atlantic Records and any of the issues with distribution or the bank. If one didn’t know these parts of the story, Hughes’ book would leave you thinking Stax’s downfall was solely due to racial tensions and it is does a disservice to the complex and numerous ways Stax struggled.
In his coda, Hughes critiques the many people who obscure how racial tension was a key component of this history, and this is a valid point. But statements like, “nothing mattered more to these musicians than race,” creates an unnecessary and unprovable hierarchy that doesn’t even consider how important creating music was to those musicians.
As someone who has visited the studios discussed, read books and watched documentaries on them as well as listening to the music on heavy rotation, I am glad to have added Hughes’ perspective to my overall understanding of this incredible period of time in music and society. But I fear if I had not already had such an extensive understanding of these places this book would have left me with a cynical and limited perspective.
December 10, 2020
When I started this book, I figured it would just be a casual background read for some additional information on two genres that I enjoy. I had no idea how deep the historiography went on this subject. I was very impressed with the way Hughes brought together entire southern populations into an argument that spans racial, cultural, and sociological areas.
The three cities of focus are Nashville, Memphis, and Muscle Shoals. Addressing some of the key players in STAX, FAME, and other studios, Hughes shows a sophisticated interrelationship between black and white musicians. Going from the early days of touring musicians well into the late 20th century, the book shows how layered and complex these cultural and financial systems really were.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in music history. If you are a fan of soul music, country music, and especially the artists that blend those genres (Arthur Alexander and Ray Charles, for example), definitely check out this book. I will be revisiting this book in the future as there were some specific section on each of the three cities that will require deeper mining of the notes. This is a rich and rewarding book for scholars of American music history.
The three cities of focus are Nashville, Memphis, and Muscle Shoals. Addressing some of the key players in STAX, FAME, and other studios, Hughes shows a sophisticated interrelationship between black and white musicians. Going from the early days of touring musicians well into the late 20th century, the book shows how layered and complex these cultural and financial systems really were.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in music history. If you are a fan of soul music, country music, and especially the artists that blend those genres (Arthur Alexander and Ray Charles, for example), definitely check out this book. I will be revisiting this book in the future as there were some specific section on each of the three cities that will require deeper mining of the notes. This is a rich and rewarding book for scholars of American music history.
July 31, 2020
The events, people, issues, and ideas discussed in this book are interesting and important. Unfortunately, the book has the feel and language of a discussion among academics who attempt to show their "unique" insight and intellect by endlessly repeating the same points and using jargon to increase the significance of the points. Nevertheless, because I am very interested in southern soul music and the country/soul triangle I gained something from reading this book.
June 6, 2024
A good, in depth look at the Muscle Shoals scene in music, and how soul and country were sort of marketed against each other through backlash during the Civil Rights movement. It was interesting reading about the history of swamp music, outlaw country, and Southern rock as genres. Unfortunately, I waited too long to review this and cannot give a better review.
December 31, 2025
I had read this book for one of my favorite classes I took at Dickinson called “Racial Politics of American Popular Music.” Was a very eye-opening read describing the racial politics within American county and soul music in the 60s & 70s.
April 10, 2016
Kind of fun, kind of tedious, great look at the music I love (all of it, except disco). But, there is a certain undercurrent that ALL decisions made re recordings, contacts, distribution, etc., are all based on race. The line between the actual timelines/facts, and Mr. Hughes' interpretations gets really fuzzy more than I felt it should for an academic, vice a polemicist.
September 19, 2015
Well-worth the read. I enjoyed listening to referenced songs along the way, with the book's context in mind.
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January 6, 2017781.64208 H8932 2015
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews