“Mum didn’t like me singing secular…”
William Bell talks to Geoff Brown.
Which came first, producer John Leventhal or re-signing with Stax? “Stax picked up the soundtrack to the movie Take Me To The River I was in. Then I was approached to do an album by Joe McEwen, one of the Stax/Concord executives, and he knew John Leventhal. Our first meeting we just clicked.”
In This Is Where I Live you reference Sam Cooke. He obviously had a profound effect on you. “Oh he did. Even as a younger kid I sang in church when I was about seven and Sam Cooke And The Soul Stirrers were the group for me. Then when Sam started singing secular I followed his career and later on had the great fortune to meet him. He was my primary influence. Back then it was unheard of for any artist, black or white, to have their own publishing and record label and all that, so I listened to his advice and started studying and learning about behind the scenes of all aspects of the music business because of that.”
You also sing about going to New York at 16, “singing in a big ol’ band”. The Phineas Newborn Sr Orchestra? “During the summer time I would go on the road and tour with the Phineas Newborn Orchestra and we would work Chicago and New Orleans and back up to New York, Washington DC, so I got to travel with the band as soon as school was out. Of course my mum objected to me singing secular music and old man Phineas had to ask her if I could work at the Flamingo Rooms [in Memphis] on Friday and Saturday nights. He finally won her over because he told her his kids, Phineas Jr and Calvin, were working in the band. He said, ‘I will look after him the same as I would my kids.’ So she kinda caved in and let me work on the weekends, but one of the stipulations was that no matter what time I came home on Saturday night, I had to be in church Sunday morning (laughs).”
In the title track you also reference writing a song in a hotel. This is your first hit You Don’t Miss Your Water? “It is. I was on the road and feeling lonesome for my girlfriend and all this stuff. I was in New York, we happened to be off that night, and there was a thunderstorm. I wrote the song then. When I came back to Memphis at the end of the summer, Chips [Moman, producer] asked me about doing a solo project and that was one of the songs I had.”
Does the melody come first or are you a lyrics man? “Well, it’s both. Sometimes I’ll have a whole story, because I put my thoughts on paper, I’ve done that since I was six or seven years old. I was an only child up until I was 10 so that was like an escape for me. And I write about life, I write about truth. I guess I’ve had so many covers because people can relate to what I write about. I have to believe in what I’m singing about for it to be effective.”