This master was truly lost, found under the box spring of the late Eddie Hinton's mattress, the sum total of a series of sessions recorded in the summers of 1969 and 1970 in Nashville and London by Jim Coleman and the late, great Eddie Hinton. It's an unlikely pairing, Coleman who gave up music decades ago to practice internal medicine, was a pop songwriter looking for a way to get his songs placed on other people's records, and Eddie Hinton, the Muscle Shoals session guitarist who played with everyone from Otis Redding and Wilson Pickett to the Staple Singers and Percy Sledge, and who was as great a writer and producer as anyone the South ever produced. Despite the fact that these songs are layered in the various ambiences of the times, Hinton's grease and grit and tough, uncompromising soul come shining through even this rough mix. Hinton wanted to record an album of Coleman's songs for his new production company, and he arranged the sessions himself. The Muscle Shoals rhythm section (Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins, and David Hood) was employed, along with King Curtis on soprano sax; Conway Twitty's pedal steel player, John Hughey; and guitarist Tippy Armstrong (Duane Allman was slated to be the original lead guitarist, but took to forming the Allman Brothers Band instead), in addition to Hinton. The string section of the London Symphony Orchestra is also present. Coleman's songs are good if not fine, but Hinton's production sets them apart clearly. While his treatments of them are lush and multi-layered, they are never excessive. Listeners familiar with Chris Bell's I Am the Cosmos album will feel right at home with this sound, texture, color, and atmospherics. The difference is that Hinton infused everything with a trace of gritty soul. On his own songs -- Where You Come From, a co-write with Coleman, and Got Down Last Night -- Hinton's voice digs deep into the groove and shoves hard-edged RB up against the more twee psychedelic elements for jarring effect as the strings loop in and out. On Where You Come From, think of Savoy Brown's Train to Nowhere via Sgt. Pepper's less elaborate treatments; on Got Down Last Night, a long string intro gives way to a bluesy Hinton acoustic guitar run that trots out a sleepy but sprightly vocal, reminding one of Paul McCartney's vocal on Rocky Raccoon. This album is far more than a curiosity piece; it is a timeless production dream filled out with excellent songwriting and brilliant arrangement, all steeped indelibly with Eddie Hinton's mark. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi

1		I Wanna Die
2		Just Like the Fool That I Was
3		Before I Left Home
4		What Goes On
5		The Angles
6		Sha Na Boom
7		He Kept It in the Family
8		Where You Come From
9		In the Beginning
10		Never, Never, Never Again
11		Got Down Last Saturday Night