Say It One Time For The Brokenhearted: Country Soul In The American South

In the wake of Ray Charles’ recent country music box set, as well as Lambchop’s recent soul dabbling (both on their own and with Vic Chesnutt), this reprint of Barney Hoskyns’ country soul study couldn’t have come at a better time. Say It One Time For The Brokenhearted was originally published in 1987 and has now been made available in the UK after being out of print for years.

In his preface to the 1998 edition, Hoskyns describes how the book’s focus arose from an interest in the American South combined with his burgeoning awareness of soul music and his recent appreciation of country music: “Listening to Hank Williams or George Jones sing was just as gnawingly, viscerally emotional an experience as was listening to Al Green or Betty LaVette. Listening to Gram Parsons, who covered the two country-soul masterpieces Dan Penn wrote with Chips Moman — ‘Dark End Of The Street’ and ‘Do Right Woman, Do Right Man’ — brought the whole subject full circle for me.”

While the book succeeds as a guide to the finer points of country soul, juxtaposing its historical black and white dynamic, it also sheds light on the individuals who made the music unique. Hoskyns is just as likely to examine a Muscle Shoals session player such as Eddie Hinton as he would a country soul originator such as Ray Charles. Session players, studios, record labels, songwriters and performers all receive due attention.

For those seeking interesting subplots, Hoskyns also traces Nashville’s unwitting absorption of country soul. The Muscle Shoals story begins with a couple of local boys, Rick Hall and Billy Sherrill. While Hall stayed close to home, Sherrill quickly hightailed it for Nashville. Both had tremendous impact on country and soul, with Hall playing the role of the outsider while Sherrill tried to change things from within. In the end, as the book keenly observes, both of these former country music outsiders became part of the Nashville establishment.