David Hood's Untold Story: How a Southern Soul Icon Subtly Influenced the Edge of Alt-Rock
Music history enthusiasts are familiar with David Hood. He contributed to the development of the soulful foundation of American music in the 1960s and 1970s as the groove-laying bassist for The Swampers, the legendary house band of Muscle Shoals. Everything from Paul Simon's jangly Kodachrome to Etta James's fiery Tell Mama to Aretha Franklin's moving Call Me bears his fingerprints. His playing was sensed rather than ostentatious. Kind, astute, and consistently on time.
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However, there is a little-known story hidden within that well-known history. Hood's second act was a covert one that took him far from the Alabama studios where his fame was established and into the murky waters of alternative music. However, this phase of his career can be equally intriguing.
Following the mesmerizing high of their 1991 masterwork Screamadelica,
Glasgow's genre-bending band Primal Scream decided in 1994 that they wanted something more earthy, soulful, and authentic. For their following album, Give Out But Do not Give Up, Hood and fellow Swamper Roger Hawkins were invited in. Rich in raw Southern muscle, the sessions were produced in Memphis by the famous Tom Dowd (of Allman Brothers and Derek & the Dominos fame). Hood's bass tones throbbed with genuineness.
However, the band discarded the majority of those original Memphis recordings in an all too frequent turn of events in the music industry. With the ever-experimental George Clinton and Black Crowes producer George Drakoulias, they rerecorded the album in Los Angeles. The outcome? It never quite resonated with the rawness Primal Scream had intended for, but it was a funk-laced, haphazard approximation of what it could have been.
Those early sessions were discovered and made public by Primal Scream in 2018. The more understated soul-rock renditions were wonderful this time. Hood was at his best in the sultry track Rocks, which was the result of those initial Memphis takes. Frontman Bobby Gillespie told Record Collector, "I knew right away they had to be published when I heard them again. They were obviously better.
David Hood continued his alt-rock explorations after that.
He contributed warmth and solidity to the eccentricity of Honeycomb, a solo album by Pixies leader Frank Black (also known as Black Francis), in 2005. In 2011, he rejoined Black on the Paley & Francis record, this time with piano virtuoso Spooner Oldham of Muscle Shoals. Hood later told No Treble, "The quirkiness is something that is natural for him," drawing a comparison between Black's unconventional lyrical genius and that of Paul Simon. He made the lyrics fit the music.
Modern Blues followed.
The Waterboys recruited Hood for their expansive, guitar-heavy album Modern Blues in 2015. In addition to playing on the record, he accompanied the band on more than 100 gigs across the world, including stops in North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan.
Even their lovely November Tale music video featured him. It was a frenzy for a man who had lived most of his life in studios behind glass.
In a 2016 interview, he said, "I did have some fun." "However, those lengthy flights and lengthy airport waits are awful. I adore playing in sessions. As long as I am here, I would like to do that.
Why would not he, too? David Hood's specialty has always been session work. The magic occurs in the quiet times in between the hits and the news. Whole genres have established themselves in the voids between his notes.
Perhaps the loudest name in rock history is not David Hood.
