The YouTube gods teased us with “A Producers Epiphany: Jim Dickinson on Working with the Rolling Stones, Part 1 of 2.” Dickinson is such a natural story teller we we just sat back and let him describe the Stones’ songwriting process, Keith handing him the wrong chords, laying down out-of-tune tracks and then asking Dickinson to play piano on “Wild Horse” because Ian Stewart disliked minor chords. The interview reminded us that we still had not watched our last Netflix. When they pulled the plug on dvds they let you keep the last one and we put ours , 2013’s “Muscle Shoals,” away without ever watching.
The first hour of the 1:42 was brilliant. The birth of the studio, the soulful country vibe, the hits they churned out for Percy Sledge and Wilson Pickett and most of all the decision by Jerry Wexler to bring Aretha Franklin, who had been recording with arrangements, charts and session musicians down south where all those magical songs were recorded. The “Queen of Soul” recording with a bunch of honkies. I have no idea why they had Bono as a talking head. That was the only not brilliant piece of the first hour. The movie takes a wrong turn just after the Stones section with Duane Allman, Leonard Skynyrd and the birth of Southern Rock.
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