Jerry Wexler: Rhythm and Truth

How the Producer Behind Muscle Shoals Shaped Rhythm and Blues, Soul, and the Golden Era of American Music

De: Rowan C. Whitforde

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Jerry Wexler’s story is inseparable from the rise of modern American music. From his coinage of the phrase “rhythm and blues” as a Billboard journalist in 1949 to his transformative production work with Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, and Dusty Springfield, Wexler shaped the soundtrack of the twentieth century. Rhythm and Truth: Jerry Wexler’s Rock and Soul Productions offers the first full-length, documentary-grade portrait of this complex, brilliant, and often underestimated figure.

Born in 1917 to Polish-Jewish immigrants in the Bronx, Wexler grew up absorbing jazz, blues, and gospel through the static of early radios and the stacks of shellac records in corner shops. His working-class upbringing instilled the resourcefulness that later defined his approach to the studio. As a young journalist, he chronicled the shifts in postwar American music, coining terms and categories that reframed how the industry understood Black artistry.

In 1953, Wexler joined Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun at Atlantic Records, quickly proving himself not a flamboyant auteur but a master of chemistry. He believed in assembling the right voices, musicians, and rooms, letting atmosphere and feel shape the outcome. Under his steady guidance, Ray Charles synthesized gospel and blues into modern soul with “I Got a Woman,” Ruth Brown built Atlantic’s early reputation, and Wilson Pickett exploded with “In the Midnight Hour.”

Wexler’s genius lay in recognizing settings that allowed artists to flourish. He championed the Southern sound of Muscle Shoals, insisting on its groove and imperfection as truer than polish. His boldest move came in 1967, when he brought Aretha Franklin to Alabama, freeing her from Columbia’s constraints and igniting her transformation into the Queen of Soul. Albums such as I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Lady Soul, and Aretha Now defined not only her career but the cultural soundtrack of civil rights–era America.

The book traces Wexler’s collaborations with Bob Dylan on Slow Train Coming, Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis, and Willie Nelson’s Stardust, highlighting his adaptability across genres. It examines Atlantic’s corporate expansion, Wexler’s eventual retreat from major-label culture, and his late years as a mentor and memoirist. It also situates him within the racial and cultural dynamics of the Jim Crow South, Jewish outsiderhood, and the shifting economics of the music business.

Drawing on press archives, studio notes, and candid interviews, Rhythm and Truth reveals Wexler not as a mythic impresario but as a pragmatic, sharp-witted craftsman whose strength was in listening. His story illuminates the larger arc of twentieth-century American music, where authenticity wrestled with commerce and rhythm carried the weight of truth.

This definitive biography is both a cultural history and a gripping narrative, bringing to life the man whose fingerprints lie behind some of the most enduring records ever made.