Magic man

Legendary Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler, the "Godfather of Muscle Shoals Music," died of complications related to congestive heart failure Friday morning at his home in Sarasota, Fla.

He was 91.

Wexler produced recording hits with artists such as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan and dozens more, often at recording studios in the Shoals.

"He was a magic kind of person, and he brought that magic into the music," said local keyboardist Spooner Oldham of his longtime friend.

Oldham worked as a studio musician on the recordings that Wexler produced in the Shoals, including soul diva Franklin's hit records, "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)" and "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man." Wexler produced both of those hits on the same day.

Songwriter Donnie Fritts knew his friend was sick but had simply hoped the inevitable wouldn't come.

Fritts learned of his good friend's death at 8 a.m. Friday after a phone call from another close friend, actor/musician Kris Kristofferson, who co-produced Fritts' album, "Prone to Lean," with Wexler in 1974.

Still struggling with his emotions later in the morning Friday, Fritts relayed what he called, "one of the most beautiful displays of friendship I've ever heard of."

Fritts said Kristofferson, who'd been in Europe on business, flew to Wexler's Florida home on Monday.

"(Kristofferson) went in and played (guitar) and sang to Jerry for two hours, just the two of them," Fritts said. "Jerry had a way of loving his friends that can never be forgotten, and we adored him. He gave to each of us intellectually, inspiring us to be better people. I know I'm a million times better man for having known him."

That sentiment is shared by those who collaborated with Wexler, especially Rick Hall, owner of FAME Recording Studios in Muscle Shoals, where so many of the hit rhythm and blues records of the 1960s were recorded.

"He was like a father to me," Hall said.

"He kicked my rump a lot, and I'm sure there were times that I needed that. He was strong-willed and tough, but fair."

It was at FAME where Wexler would help establish the Muscle Shoals sound.

"He would sit with us in the studios and pamper us, and he would hang out on the steps here and observe in amazement what was going on with these white boys cutting records with the likes of Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter and Percy Sledge," Hall said.

"He was somebody we all idolized and thought of as the master. He was really the first big-name record executive to come here."

Wexler had a most unlikely induction into the musical genres that he ultimately helped make synonymous with the sounds coming from Muscle Shoals, according to local music historian Terry Pace.

"Jerry championed Muscle Shoals music more than anyone else," Pace said.

"He was so different - he was a Northerner, Jewish and a part of the New York intellectual elite. Really, the only commonality he had with anyone here was his love of the blues, rock and the music that he found when he came here. In New York, they worked with written arrangements and everyone followed that one blueprint.

"In Memphis and here, he was amazed at how the musicians contributed to the molding and shaping of that music and the groove and feel of the record. It wasn't about interpreting notes off of paper, but feeling their way and interpreting songs as they felt them. It was invigorating to Jerry and he was impassioned by it."

Musicians understood, too, that in Wexler they had an ally, someone who understood the sound they were creating and who wanted to bring that sound to the masses.

David Hood, an original member of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and played bass on many of the top hits recorded in the Shoals, said Wexler's death was like "losing a member of the family." Wexler performed the wedding when Hood married his wife, Judy, although an official ceremony also was conducted.

"He took the music industry to a higher level, both locally and worldwide, by his presence and influence here," Hood said.

"We had been cutting hit records with Rick (Hall) and Quin (Ivy), but they were like us - Southern, small-town people who had basically spent our lives here. It went to a different level when Jerry came to town. He exposed us to what it was like in New York and the international scene. We learned some things about the business that we may never have known without Jerry. You could say he helped Muscle Shoals music grow up."

Muscle Shoals helped shape Wexler as well. In a 2001 interview, Wexler described how the area and its sound changed his life.

"Those bad funky white boys taught me how records really ought to be made," he said.

The musical pioneer known as "Wex" guided the careers of Ray Charles, Solomon Burke, The Drifters, Ruth Brown and many other Atlantic acts before bringing Wilson Pickett to FAME Studios in 1966. Before that, Wexler and Atlantic had released Ivy's production of the Percy Sledge classic, "When a Man Loves a Woman," the first No. 1 hit to emerge from the Muscle Shoals studios.

It was Pickett's success that catapulted Muscle Shoals onto the international music scene, taking the talent of local musicians producing regional hits to a level heretofore unheard of and creating a sound others emulated. It's a sound that continues to influence all musical genres today, according to Oldham.

"The thing that I hope for as a songwriter is that something that I write will live on," he said.

"And I know that so much of what Jerry produced will do that. I don't think he would have wanted us to think of his death as the end of an era but a beginning and as a place for others to come and be inspired by him."

In the wake of Pickett's success with "Land of 1,000 Dances" and "Mustang Sally," Wexler began sending more Atlantic acts to Muscle Shoals, where he sought a repeat of the success of the first foray.

Among those acts was Aretha Franklin who, in 1967, recorded at FAME Studios her first million-selling No. 1 hits, "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) "and "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man."

Two years later, Wexler went on to help the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section establish Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Sheffield. Hood was among the musicians who benefited from the gesture.

"I still remember his voice coming through on the talk-back speaker when we were in the studio, and it sent chills down my spine," Hood said.

"I knew his reputation of being a ruthless businessman and music man, and it was a little intimidating in the beginning. But we became very close friends."

Later Muscle Shoals projects ranged from co-producing with Barry Beckett on albums for Dire Straits and Willie Nelson. Wexler also co-produced Bob Dylan's album, "Slow Train Coming," which was recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound.

In 1987, his career in the music business led to his election into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Also that year, he was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, something that Hall said signaled a greater success for Wexler than his ceremony at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"You've got to understand that you need to be a native of Alabama to get inducted, and he's not, so his induction shows how we in the industry and in the South felt about this man and how we wanted him to be part of our lives in this way," Hall said.

Although it had been years since he'd been in the Shoals, Wexler returned in November of 1999 when he joined his three friends - each international music moguls - Hall, Sun Records founder Sam Phillips and music publisher Buddy Killen - as part of a TimesDaily-sponsored symposium: Muscle Shoals Sounds: The Rhythm of the River, which was held at the University of North Alabama. It was the only time the "big four" were ever in such a format together. Hall is now the only living member of the group.

Failing health and a break from Atlantic Records took Wexler out of the music spotlight through the 1990s, but Mickey Buckins, a percussionist and songwriter from Muscle Shoals who first worked with Wexler in 1967, said it's the music Wexler produced and the musicians he mentored that will forever be his legacy.

"What can you say? He was a wonderful man, a talented man, and he knew so much about music and musicians," Buckins said. "Here was a man who went for the guy with the right feel, and that was why he loved us. We could play anything he put in front of us."

Wexler is survived by his third wife, Jean, and two children from a previous marriage, Lisa and Paul.

Michelle Rupe Eubanks can be reached at 740-5745 or michelle.eubanks@TimesDaily.com.

Lisa Singleton-Rickman can be reached at 740-5735 or lisa.singleton-rickman@TimesDaily.com.