AUDIO: Jerry Wexler (1985)
Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, November 1985
Speaking at the Friars Club in midtown Manhattan, the great Atlantic producer recalls the black bands he loved as a kid and talks about Louis Jordan, Tiny Bradshaw and the birth of R&B. "Wex" also holds forth on the growth of urban black America; the influence of gospel on black pop; the importance of Western Swing; the other labels and white entrepreneurs involved in black music; discovering Stax and Muscle Shoals in the dog days of the early '60s; tying the knot with Stax... and getting back in the studio with Wilson Pickett.