Atlantic Records in-house producer Jerry Wexler was given Wilson Pickett as a project by the label's president Ahmet Ertegun. When Wexler told Pickett they were going down to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to record, he recoiled in horror. Wilson, like many southern blacks, had fled the south to escape it's brutal racism. Wexler prevailed, and Wilson says when he entered Fame studios his worst fears were realized. Sitting around the studio were a group of "crackers"---chubby white guys with stogies in their mouths, hats pushed back on their heads. You can picture them, right?
Wilson's fear dissolved when the group of crackers commenced playing; he says it was the funkiest band he had ever heard in his life! Bob Dylan knew before anyone else what those southern players had to offer; he had been going there to record since early-'65. Many others have gone their since, including Eric Clapton, The Stones, and on and on.
Speaking of Clapton and Ertegun, here's how the latter characterized the Disraeli Gears album tapes the former turned over to Atlantic: "Psychedelic horsesh*t". Sound like any other recently-mentioned guitarist? Clapton soon thereafter saw the wisdom of that statement when George Harrison played him the Music From Big Pink album. That was the end of Cream (thank God ;-) .
