Briefly give me an idea of who someone like yourself got involved in recording black music.

When I started recording black music of course I had been in a country band, a fiddle player. I'd played square dances I was in a Special Services band in the army. And I came back to Muscle Shoals intrigued with the business and was a song writer at the time and a musician and wanted to get more and more involved and wanted to, ah, move to Nashville and be a session player, etc., etc.. But consequently I couldn't get in the door, I couldn't, nobody would pay attention to me and so it was out of desperation that I started my own studio in Muscle Shoals in flustration and I had no choice. If I was going to be in the music business I, I was going to have to do it any way I could. And so I built this little studio, not this studio but an older studio much more quaint, smaller and with typical egg crates, crates on the walls, carp., carpet that we got out of a theater, etc., etc., and we began to cut little demos and write songs me and several black would be song writers, I was a would be song writer also of course. One was Arthur Alexander and Arthur had written several tunes but he couldn't play an instrument so he had to pop his fingers and sing the song a cappella and so consequently he brought me a tune called "You Better Move On" and asked me what I thought. And of course immediately I began, I was intrigued by Ben E. King, "Stand By Me" and the Jacksons and people like that. And the beat was pom pom pom che pom she pom pom pom. That was a very popular beat up on the roof a lot of Drifters, Coasters, a lot of people had those, had that groove. And that song can fit that groove and he said, what do you think? I said, I think it's a hit. I think we should cut it on right away. He said, that's great. So we went in the studio with four microphones and a Burlent recorder, a small little Burlent recorder, used the bathroom for an echo chamber and, ah, and we proceeded to cut it, ah. I took it to Nashville because I didn't have an ins with New York, LA or any of the major cities, Philadelphia, New Orleans. And I was a country boy, no money and no means to do anything. So I took it up there thinking I might be able to make a deal on it with the master, pledged to seven record label executives: the Chet Atkins, the Owen Bradleys, Shelby Singletons, the Don Laws, etc., etc. but not knowing that they were strictly country. People then didn't know anything about R and B or black music. They all turned it down. I came back and finally took it back there, played it a disc jockey, an ole boy who, called Randy Wood who was the President of Dot Records and had Pat Boone and, and several other big acts. And consequently was a big, big hit record. Shortly after that, I, I, I had considerably more confidence in my abilities as a producer and thought maybe I'd found my stick. And I found Jimmy Hughes who was working at a rubber plant here, Robbins Rubber Company in Muscle Shoals. He brought me a song called "Steal Away" that he'd written. I cut it and it was a hit, a smash but it was at least to VJ, it's a much longer story but I won't go into all the dirty details but the, to make a long story short, I had to press it upon my own label and promote it myself and go to all the black disc jockeys, New Orleans, Memphis, Atlanta, Miami by car and do the promoting. But it became a very big smash record with VJ records and that, that started my black music career. Of course I had been intrigued as a songwriter, a musician and played all of those things that Ernie K. Doe and all the big acts, the black acts that were selling a lot of records to the white audiences. And I was intrigued by it and it was my stick, I, I loved it, still do, always will.

Well for me to tell you why I like, like black music is tough because I came from a remote area in Alabama. My father was a saw miller, sharecrop farmer and Freedom Hills and I, I loved, in those days when I was a teenager, Bill Monroe, the Blue Grass Boys, Roy Acuff, etc., but then he moved during the second, during the forties and early fifties to Cleveland, Ohio and I became more culture minded and got involved in Beethoven, Bach and that whole thing with ballet and, and so then from there I came back South and began to play and was intrigued by R and B and black music. so it, ah, it, it's been a long trip.

Did you get involved in black music in the sixties because of what the country was interested in at that time?

Well, are you recording me? Yes. I got involved in the music business in the sixties because I was in a band and that, the music trend was changing rapidly; you had the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, ah, who were making a lot of noise, Jerry Lee Lewis and that bent more and more towards R and B and towards Fats Domino and, and the big ____ __, I mean Ray Charles, etc., etc., what I say in all those things. That's when I started to really bloom and get really intrigued with the music business is when Ray and, and, and all those big acts, Chubby Checker and the twist. And we were in a band and playing all over the country and that's what we were demanded to play. They wanted to do the twist so we were doing those kind of tunes. Ah, Gary U.S. Bonds, etc.,, etc.. And that's, that's where I got my education. That's where I became a little more producer minded but I really was songwriter, musician first then an engineer then a record producer.

I think people from the big cities from the Northeast, from California don't understand the similarities between country music and rhythm and blues and the blues. Do you feel there's a lot of similarities?

Would you ask me once more, I'm sorry.

The question is, do you feel that black music, R and B and the Blues and Country music have similar roots, have a lot in common?

Well they both have I think more soul, ah, I, I think each one, country artists and country writers and country players play, they're, they're, they're true to their cause. They, they play what they live. Black people I think are the same sense but I think black people's lives are considerably different from, ah, country people. I, I think of country people and country musicians and, and I'm quite involved in that today but as being, ah, they, they want to sing about their job, about the beer they drink, the pickup truck, the girl that got away, how much whiskey I can drink and that kind of thing. Black people tend to write and sing about their own lifestyles and they vary a little in that respect but I think they're both very, very true to their culture and it's a little different culture I think brought on by, by different lives they've lived and the hard times they've come up through.

Was there a problem when you started recording black artists with an all white band. How did they get along?

Oh, when we started recording, ah, black musicians or black artists had no qualms with the fact that we had, ah, white rhythm section and, and, and a black horn section and two black girl singers and one white girl singer. We, in the music business, are colorblind. I think most of the arts are colorblind. We never, some of my best friends ___ today and then are black people, the Otis Reddings I mean we, we, ah, we integrated the, the four-way truck stops at 1 o'clock in the morning and things like that. It was tough. You got to remember this was in the sixties and this was when George Wallace was standing in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama. This was when the National Guard came to Arkansas. These are, these are tough times and they didn't, black people I had no problem with. If I had a problem with anybody it was white people who didn't like me socializing or recording black music in Alabama with this all going on. But I never had any problem with it, ah, not here. I had more trouble when I went to LA or New York than I had in, in, in the studio or in Alabama or on concerts and things of that nature.

In terms of getting the feel of the music in the white rhythm section and the black artist like a Wilson Pickett. They really gelled.

Yes, they did. Well the white musicians were out of necessity, of course later when Pickett and Aretha in some of those sessions if you would hear you would know that we had musicians three deep sitting in the lobby waiting for a shot to be on the session. And if one man copped out it couldn't, couldn't, couldn't hack the, the lick, couldn't play the lick, ah, he was simply eliminated.