by Lana Austin —
Aretha, who needs no last name,
called their playing greasy. Not
something slithering
across a skillet, but the very
fluid of life. Slick, sensuous, love-
making wetness. Primordially
pure rhythm, a pulse, a new
song from a bunch of white boys
born by the Tennessee River
where Bono says, “The music
comes out of the mud,” and people
like Paul Simon called producer
Al Bell, asking him, “Hey, man, I want
those same black players
that played on ‘I’ll Take You There.’”
Bell, who wrote the 1972
Staple Singers hit, replied,
“That can happen, except these guys
are mighty pale.” So the mighty pale
Swampers—Barry, David, Roger
and Jimmy– played greasy and grew
the Muscle Shoals sound along with Rick Hall, that crazy-
like-a-fox white producer in Alabama.
Rick and the Swampers created
their own sound in that booth
booth–not black, not white, but greasy,
color-blind and throbbing and they all came
to sing with them, not just Aretha,
but Percy Sledge, Etta James, the Stones,
Arthur Alexander, Wilson Pickett and on and
on with the list of greats
growing almost as long
as the story of life itself.
Lana Austin was a finalist for the 2015 James Wright Poetry Award. Her work has recently been featured in or is forthcoming from Mid-American Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Southern Women’s Review, among others. Her first poetry chapbook, In Search of the Wild Dulcimer, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Austin has received multiple poetry awards & scholarships from Hollins University, The University of Mary Washington & American University & has an MFA from George Mason University. Born & raised in Kentucky, she has lived in England & Italy but currently resides in Alabama with her husband & three children. An adjunct writing instructor, she teaches multiple writing courses & is about to begin directing the first Opera In the Schools program in Huntsville in 2016, culminating in original operas being written & performed by area students.