Six Degrees of Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis

Passport in hand, British pop star Dusty Springfield traveled all the way to Memphis, Tennessee in September 1968 to cut this geography-transcending masterpiece. Or did she? Truth is, Springfield spent just a week with the 827 Thomas Street Band at American Studios, recording her final vocals in New York. "My producers didn't exactly have an easy time with me," the late singer recalled in the liner notes for the deluxe reissue of... Dusty in Memphis. "I was terrified the entire time. They take you to the studio, and they stand you in the booth 'Oh, that's where Wilson Pickett stood' Being English, it's very hard to explain how we adore and worship these people. And to be put there [was] so incredibly intimidating. They didn't mean it that way they meant to be encouraging. They didn't have a clue that it absolutely froze me!" As Springfield intimated, Atlantic mastermind Jerry Wexler had his work cut out for him. The diva rejected most of his ideas, and approved just two of the numbers on his set list: The Barry Mann-Cynthia Weil penned torch song "Just A Little Lovin'" and a heretofore unknown Aretha Franklin cast-off called "Son of a Preacher Man." The latter, of course, became Springfield's anthem, and was later covered by a wide variety of musicians, including Bobbie Gentry, Nancy Sinatra and Aretha herself. Remarkably, it doesn't quite outshine the remainder of the album, which includes the sultry "Breakfast in Bed" (a contribution from southern songwriters Eddie Hinton and Donnie Fritts, who originally wrote it for Baby Washington) and a coy rendition of "The Windmills of Your Mind." 41 years after its release and nearly a decade after Springfield's death the album remains one of the most enigmatic, and intuitive, collaborations ever captured on tape. Springfield went on to record 10 more albums before she succumbed to breast cancer at 59, but, unfortunately, she never again returned to Memphis.

Ten months before Dusty Springfield's jetliner landed in Memphis, Otis Redding's twin-engine Beechcraft crashed into an icy Wisconsin lake. Thankfully, the Memphis soul star left behind a recorded legacy that will guarantee his reputation for all eternity. As his Stax output makes clear, there will never be another singer like him. Otis' voice, channeled into an urgent intimacy, brought raw emotion to the surface like a bubbling cauldron of love. Witness his... impassioned pleas, his propulsive movements, his gritty declarations: for Redding, life itself boiled over. Nowhere is this sentiment better captured than on Otis Blue, his third and most conceptual album, recorded and released in 1965. Largely dedicated to one of his idols, Sam Cooke, Otis Blue includes Redding's energetic interpretation of the Stones' "Satisfaction," his own gigantic "Respect," and the clinching "I've Been Loving You Too Long" and "You Don't Miss Your Water." This is soul music. Listen and weep.

This original "daughter of a preacher man" her pater was Rev. C.L. Franklin honed her chops as a gospel singer before embarking on a secular career at Columbia Records. However, jazz-tinged pop offerings like 1963's Laughing on the Outside failed to take off. Near the end of the decade, a new contract with Atlantic Records gave Aretha a renewed lease on life, and her 1967 Atlantic debut, I Never Loved a Man,... proved to be unstoppable. Recorded at Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the album featured many of the musicians who would go on to play on Dusty In Memphis, including bassist Tommy Cogbill, drummer Gene Chrisman and background vocalists the Sweet Inspirations. And, like Dusty In Memphis, it was produced by Jerry Wexler. However, where Springfield sounds genteel, Aretha purveys a cruder sophistication, devouring Otis Redding's "Respect" and ripping through Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come."

In 1975, Rod Stewart quit the Faces, inked a solo deal with Warner Bros., and bade farewell to the U.K. As soon as Britt Ekland was settled in his Los Angeles tax shelter/love nest, he headed south, to Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in northern Alabama. After Smiler, his last Mercury effort, unceremoniously flopped, Stewart needed a hit record. Muscle Shoals, and brilliant producer Tom Dowd, provided the perfect environment. Backed by a... plethora of southern session players namely, Barry Beckett and the MGs' Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn and Al Jackson, Jr. #8212; ho supplanted Ian McLagen, Steve Marriott, Ronnie Wood and Kenney Jones, Stewart served up a polished, masterful album that solidified his value as a solo artist. Best bets: the hilariously unrepentant opener "Three-Time Loser," a Stewart-Cropper collaboration titled "Stone Cold Sober," and a smoldering reworking of the Isley Brothers' "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)."

In the early days of Saturday Night Live, John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd galvanized the audience by donning bee suits and singing the Slim Harpo classic, "I'm A King Bee." Christened the Blues Brothers, the comedians recruited Booker T. & the MGs alumni Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn and blues guitar great Matt Murphy for their backing band, while key performance elements were borrowed from legitimate acts like John Lee Hooker and... Sam and Dave. Jake and Elwood Blues proved to be the sleeper hit of the late '70s, recording the double platinum Briefcase Full of Blues live at Los Angeles' Universal Amphitheatre in September 1978. Thanks to spirited renditions of dusty juke joint platters like "Rubber Biscuits" and "Soul Man," a movie franchise followed, although the real beneficiaries of their legacy proved to be then-forgotten R&B legends Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Cab Calloway, who were rediscovered by young Blues Brothers fans.

In the early months of 1987, Minneapolis' favorite sons ensconced themselves at Memphis' Ardent Studios, putting their melancholic, ramshackle sound to tape with the help of producer Jim Dickinson. Somehow, the chaotic, alcohol-driven sessions yielded the band's mainstream breakthrough although much of the debauchery was hype. "Paul Westerberg had a jug of Gallo wine that he pitched into a garbage can," recalled studio engineer John Hampton. "It spit a plume of red... wine on the wall. That turned into, 'Paul barfed,' which turned into 'They were barfing into their hands and throwing it on the wall.'" Of the song "Alex Chilton," an ode to the reclusive patron saint of power pop, Westerberg claimed, "In my naive way, I thought it would help Chilton make some money. I never thought he'd become this stalkable figure because I used his name in a song. I apologize for doing anything that may have interfered with his personal life. Other than that, I still admire him."