Jimmy Hughes

JIMMY HUGHES

Like his cousin Percy Sledge, and his friend Bob Carl Bailey, Jimmy Hughes was born in Leighton, Alabama, where he started his music career as a member of gospel quartet the Singing Clouds. A 1962 audition for Rick Hall at FAME Studios led to the recording of Hughes first single, “I’m Qualified,” co-written by Hall and Quin Ivy, who would later produce Sledge at his own Norala Sound Studio.

Two years later, Hughes teamed up with Hall again to record his first and biggest hit, “Steal Away.” An original composition inspired by a gospel tune called “Steal Away to Jesus,” the song was recorded in one take by Hughes, David Briggs, Norbert Putnam, and the rest of the FAME rhythm section. “Steal Away” peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100, and was followed by an album of the same name, which showcased the early songwriting collaborations of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham.

In 1968, Hughes moved from Muscle Shoals to Memphis, where he recorded an album and a handful of singles for Stax Records before retiring from the music business in 1970.

“Just like his idol Sam Cooke, Jimmy Hughes was an extremely handsome young black man, with a unique and sensational high tenor voice. Nobody could ever hit those high notes Jimmy Hughes could as a singer, and they certainly couldn’t milk the emotion and soul from the lyrics like he could.”
—Rick Hall

Sources:

Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2015).

Terry Pace and Robert Palmer, Times Daily, August 1, 1999.