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Jimmy Hughes - Steal Away (1964)

Track listing:
  1. Lovely Ladies 2:23
  2. There Is Something on Your Mind 3:06
  3. Shot of Rhythm & Blues 2:19
  4. Neighbor, Neighbor (First Version) 2:59
  5. Everybody Let's Dance 2:32
  6. Steal Away 2:28
  7. Try Me 2:38
  8. I'm Gonna Rise Again 2:21
  9. I Tried to Tell You 2:31
  10. I'm Getting Better 2:05
  11. Stormy Monday Blues 3:11
  12. I Want Justice 2:18

Notes

Japan 24-Bit Remaster

Jimmy Hughes established producer Rick Hall's fledgling Fame studio as an R&B mecca with his 1964 blues ballad "Steal Away." The ex-gospel singer hooked up with Hall in 1962 but it wasn't until the explosive "Steal Away" was issued on the Fame label that his career took off. With an intense, crying vocal style that was perfect for deep soul ballads, Hughes scored with the pleading "Why Not Tonight" in 1967, although the untypically uptempo "Neighbor, Neighbor" proved another giant hit. Hughes broke away from Hall and recorded an album for Volt before retiring from performing in the mid-'70s.

Hughes grew up near Muscle Shoals, in the town of Leighton, AL, where he learned to sing in church, and joined a gospel group called the Singing Clouds before deciding to give soul music a shot. Like many soul legends, Hughes mixed the sacred and the secular in his own work, and it's been noted that "Steal Away" - the story of a late-night rendezvous between two young lovers - bears a striking resemblence to the gospel anthem "Steal Away to Jesus."

When Hughes recorded "Steal Away" - in one take - at FAME Studios in 1964, owner Rick Hall instantly knew he had a hit on his hands. He had only to convince the rest of the country. Hall remembers that with an idea from then 15-year-old friend and legendary songwriter Dan Penn, "we pressed up some 45 RPM records, borrowed a Ford Fairlane station wagon, bought two cases of vodka, and hit the road on a holy mission to transform 'Steal Away' into a hit record." Hall and Penn traveled to radio stations across the southeast, including Memphis, Tupelo, Little Rock, New Orleans, and Mobile, leaving a copy of 'Steal Away" and a bottle of vodka at every stop. "Miraculously, that's all it took," says Hall. "Each and every one of them played the new Jimmy Hughes record."

Jimmy Hughes himself picks up the story. "I resigned from my job [at a rubber factory] in April, 1964, and started touring. I went out with Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Bobby Womack, when he was with his brothers, and so many other people. I played the Apollo and many other theaters. I was working with people that I'd [previously] paid to see!"

But Hughes eventually grew weary of life on the road, and retired from the music business by the early 1970s. He worked for the government for twenty five years, making parts for nuclear power plants in the Tennessee River Valley. Today, Jimmy Hughes still lives in Leighton, AL, and still sings in church most Sundays. But his recordings live on, and the sound he helped create - The Muscle Shoals Sound - has had an influence beyond anything he or Rick Hall could have imagined.