COLEMAN-HINTON PROJECT:
Lost And Found
Original release:
CD: Breathe Easy Music (1995)
Other releases:
CD: Orchard 5642 (2000)
(Recorded: 1969-1971)
1. | I Wanna Die | |
2. | Just Like The Fool That I Was | |
3. | Before I Left Home | |
4. | What Goes On | |
5. | The Angels | |
6. | Sha Na Boom Boom | |
7. | He Kept It In The Family | |
8. | Where You Come From | |
9. | In The Beginning | |
10. | Never, Never, Never Again | |
11. | Got Down Last Saturday Night |
Duane Allman plays on track 4.
Sources:
1) the biography on Jim Coleman's website:
http://www.jjcoleman.com/Biography.html
2) Stuart Krause's article 'Duane Allman: The Studio
Recordings' (published in the November 2005 issue of 'Discoveries Magazine').
Stuart Krause spoke with Dr. Jim Coleman who verified that Duane Allman plays on
track 4.
3) an interview Bruce Schurman had with Jim Coleman where he confirms this.
Duane would have played on the whole album but at that time Jim preferred Tippy
Armstrong's guitar playing over Duane Allman.
(Thanks to Bruce Schurman for this information).
This is an unreleased alternate mix of 'What Goes On' with Duane Allman on dobro, but without John Hughey's pedal steelguitar.
This version is a few seconds longer than the released version: |
From the CD booklet:
Lost And Found
The Coleman-Hinton Project 1969-71
Produced and Engineered by Eddie Hinton and Jim Coleman
String Arrangements: Jim Coleman and Eddie Hinton
Recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Muscle Shoals, Alabama
Quad Studio, Nashville, Tennessee; and
Olympic Studio, London, England
1. I Wanna Die (J. Coleman)
2. Just Like The Fool That I Was (J. Coleman)
3. Before I Left Home (J. Coleman)
4. What Goes On (J. Coleman)
5. The Angels (J. Coleman)
6. Sha Na Boom Boom (Barry-Bloom)
7. He Kept It In The Family (J. Coleman)
8. Where You Come From (Hinton-Coleman)
9. In The Beginning (J. Coleman)
10. Never, Never, Never Again (J. Coleman)
11. Got Down Last Saturday Night (E. Hinton)
In the summer of 1969, Eddie Hinton and I began a project that was to be a
turning point in both of our lives. Eddie had signed me as a writer with his
publishing company and I had come up to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to try and get a
song on the album being recorded there by Lulu of "To Sir With Love" fame. At
the time, Eddie was the guitarist at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio and had recorded
on many great R&B tunes by Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Joe
Tex and others. When I got to town, Eddie said he wanted to save my songs for an
album he had decided to produce on me.
It was summer and I was out of school so I moved to Muscle Shoals and began
going to the studio with Eddie. We would usually get in the studio on Friday
night and stay up until Monday morning recording. During our formal recording
sessions we used the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section with Barry Beckett on piano,
Roger Hawkins on drums and David Hood on bass with Jimmie Johnson helping Eddie
out with the engineering.
Jim Coleman - Vocals, Guitar, Bass
Eddie Hinton - Vocals, Guitar, Piano, Harmonica
Tippy Armstrong - Electric Guitar, Vocals
Roger Hawkins - Drums
David Hood - Bass
Barry Beckett - Piano, Organ
John Hughey - Pedal Steel Guitar
King Curtis - Soprano Saxophone
Chuck Swartz - Clarinet
The London Symphony - Strings
Eddie's good friend and former roommate, Duane Allman, was asked to play guitar,
but, I told Eddie I wanted Tippy Armstrong to play guitar instead. Tippy was a
great player and a great friend of mine. He played on albums for Bobby Womack,
Albert King, and Jimmy Cliff among others. Duane was planning to leave town
anyway and had asked Eddie to join him in a new band he was putting together
with his brother, Greg, to be called "The Allman Brothers Band." Eddie turned
him down for his studio gig and to finish the album we had decided to call "The
Coleman-Hinton Project." Eddie had also picked Tippy to replace him as the staff
session guitarist at Muscle Shoals Sound when he and I left to go on the road to
promote our record.
In addition to recording in Muscle Shoals, we also recorded at David Briggs'
Quad Studio in Nashville and at Olympic Studio in London where we recorded the
strings. We used the same string players from the London Symphony who had played
on the Beatles' records. Other notable musicians on this record include the
late, great King Curtis on Soprano Saxophone and John Hughey on pedal steel
guitar. I was a big fan of Conway Twitty at the time and wanted to use Hughey
who was Conway's steel player. John Hughey now plays for Vince Gill. King Curtis
was very popular in the 60's and was actually the opening act for the Beatles
during their 1965 US tour when I saw them in Atlanta. King Curtis and Tippy have
both been gone now for many years along with Duane.
Of the many stories I recall from these recording sessions the one about the
string session in London remains particularly vivid in my mind. Eddie had
refused to allow either of us to begin writing the string parts until we were on
the plane headed for England. We got on the plane with only blank music paper
and began writing the arrangements for string quartet and string ensemble with
11 strings. This was all done in our heads without guitar or other instrument to
help play the parts as they were being written. We had never heard the
arrangements until we were conducting the sessions with the London Symphony
string players. When we did the song "Where You Come From," an arrangement that
Eddie had written for the string ensemble, everything was going fine until they
got to the short instrumental part at which time everyone stopped playing. The
conductor turned to Eddie and said, "Mr. Hinton, the notes you have written are
not on the viola and go off the fingerboard." Eddie responded without hesitation
saying, "When they get there just have them transpose down an octave." They did
and it worked out fine.
Eddie Hinton was a great producer and a great guitar player, and, he was just
about the most un-compromising man I have ever known. He was so full of talent
but couldn't seem to find a way to get his feelings across without alienating
someone along the way. He was one soulful dude with his own, intense 'philosogie'
of life. His vocal on the Staple Singers' "Heavy Makes You Happy (Sha Na Boom
Boom)" on this CD is to me the essence of Eddie Hinton. I'll never forget
watching him scream like Mavis at the end. He was always in the pocket. Famed
producer Jerry Wexler said in a letter to Eddie's mother, "He remains unique, a
white boy who truly sang and played in the spirit of the great black soul
artists he venerated. With Eddie, it wasn't imitation; it was totally created,
with a fire and fury that was as real as Otis Redding's and Wilson Pickett's."
For a number of reasons this album never came out. We had worked out a deal with
Ahmet Ertegun and Atlantic Records but Eddie refused to accept Ahmet's offer.
Eddie then contacted Chris Blackwell of Island Records and we actually left
Muscle Shoals and moved to Atlanta to be where Island was going to be based.
But, the deal with Island also fell through. Eddie and I grew farther and
farther apart and I never actually got to hear the final mix of the album after
we returned from England. I went on to play guitar on the road for a couple of
years waiting for word from Eddie. Eventually, I went back to college and then
medical school and now practice Internal Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. As
the years slipped by, turning into decades, we communicated very rarely and
Eddie went down his star-crossed road. I last talked to Eddie in 1979. I had all
but forgotten about this album but not Eddie and the influence he had on my life.
Eddie Hinton died July 28, 1995 at his mother's home in Birmingham, Alabama.
About eight weeks after his untimely death, I got a call from Eddie's second
cousin in Tuscaloosa who told me that Eddie's mother, Deanie Perkins, had said
she wanted to talk to me. I later called Eddie's mother and she told me that
after Eddie died she and her husband had gone into Eddie's room and had taken
out all the tapes and music manuscripts and other personal things that he left
behind and had completely cleaned the room out. She said a few weeks later they
realized that they were still bothered by the way the room looked because it
reminded them so much of Eddie. They decided to go back in and rearrange the
furniture. When they started to take Eddie's bed out of the room they picked up
the box springs and found a tape underneath. This tape was the only known copy
of the long lost Coleman-Hinton project. With help from Marc Harrelson at
Boutwell Studio in Birmingham, Alabama, I was able to restore the tape to its
present condition and the finished product is contained on this CD.
I want this CD to be a tribute to Eddie Hinton. It was really his album anyway.
All I did was write a few songs and try to sing and play a little guitar. Like
Eddie use to sing to me, "I once was lost but now I'm found, was blind but now I
see," finding this album after 25 years makes me see those early days in a much
different light. Those really were magic times when our dreams and innocence
were great. Eddie Hinton got lost in this life. I hope he's found peace in the
next. "You don't miss your water 'til your well runs dry," he used to say. We'll
all miss you, Eddie.
Jim Coleman