Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Jimmy Hall & The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Collective: Build ...

348

Jimmy Hall & The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Collective: Build Your Own Fire

Jimmy Hall & The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Collective: Build Your Own Fire
Singer/harmonicist Jimmy Hall's Build Your Own Fire is the third in Zoho Music's Roots series, joining Bonnie Bramlett's Roots, Blues, and Jazz and Ike Turner's Risin' With the Blues. These first two releases have been enthusiastically received, encouraging label founder Joachim Becker to expand the scope of his "Latin Music with a New York Vibe. This decision has been a true blessing.

The musical pedigree for Build Your Own Fire is made of 24 karat gold from multiple veins. The principle artist, Jimmy Hall, possesses unquestionable Southern-fried white soul bona fides honed with his years leading the Southern-rock group Wet Willie. Hall is backed by the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Collective, whose nucleus comprised the famous Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, which helped artists like Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and Johnny Taylor define Southern soul music in the 1960s and 1970s.

The repertoire is of a single and singular composer, the late Eddie Hinton, house lead guitarist for the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section between 1967 and 1971, when he contributed to soul masterpieces like Aretha Franklin's This Girl's in Love with You (Atlantic, 1970) and Boz Scaggs' 1965 eponymous first release on Polydor. Hinton may have been the finest white soul singer, and with evidence like Very Extremely Dangerous (Capricorn, 1978), one can hardly argue.

Jimmy Hall is cut from the same cloth as Hinton, as is his duet partner Delbert McClinton on the hard-driving opener, "I Still Want to be Your Man. On "Salty, perhaps the finest of Hinton's ballads, Kira Small joins Hall for a convincing performance that is reprised later on the disc with the exquisite guitar/lead guitar mix of Greg Martin.

"Poor Old Me sports both Hall's fine harp playing and Martin's sharp slide guitar in a 12-bar juggernaut. "Coming After You is 100% Delta blues, soupy as a Mississippi River backsplash, humid as a Helena, Arkansas night. "Cover Me is another Hinton ballad masterpiece, with Hall singing from his knees while Martin's slide guitar propels the song over Clayton Ivey's electric keyboards. It is really hard to believe that music can get any better than this.

Track Listing

Still Want to Be Your Man; Salty; Here I Am; Poor Old Me; Coming After You; Cover Me; Build Your Own Fire; It

Personnel

Jimmy Hall: vocals, harmonicas; Clayton Ivey: keyboards; Larry Byrom: guitars; Greg Martin: guitars; David Hood: bass; Jonathan Dees: drums; Delbert McClinton: vocal (1); Kira Small: vocals (2, 12), Bruce Dees: vocal (3).

Album information

Title: Build Your Own Fire | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: Zoho Music

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.