Steal Away (Jimmy Hughes song)

Jimmy Hughes of Leighton, Alabama, had since the age of eight been a church chorister: by 1962, when the 24 year old Hughes was working at the rubber plant in Muscle Shoals, he was regularly performing with a gospel group at Colbert County venues and also on Tuscumbia radio station WZZA. The success of local singer Arthur Alexander, whose single "You Better Move On" was a Top 30 hit in the spring of 1962, encouraged Hughes to audition for Alexander's producer Rick Hall at the latter's fledgling Wilson Dam Highway recording studio. After Hall had Hughes record two singles which failed to pass the threshold of local success, he suggested that the singer himself write a song Hall might produce for him: Hughes resultantly reworked the hymn "Steal Away" into a secular cheating song, reportedly coming up with a line or two at a time while on the factory night shift over a two week period. Hall - still operating on Wilson Dam Highway - had Hughes record a demo of "Steal Away" in 1962, but reportedly had fears about the reception likely to be afforded a black man's exhortation to infidelity: it was not until some two years after Hughes cut the "Steal Away" demo that Hall had Hughes make a full recording of the song, "Steal Away" being the first track recorded at the FAME Studios which Hall established at 603 East Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals in 1963, the session personnel being that which had backed Arthur Alexander on "You Better Move On": guitarist Terry Thompson, keyboardist David Briggs, bassist Norbert Putnam and drummer Jerry Carrigan. Hall also had Hughes - who recorded his vocal in one take - backed by a chorale, an effect borrowed from the 1959 Bonnie Guitar single "Candy Apple Red". Also on the session were backing vocalists Darlene Eddleman and Jerry Eddleman. The release of "Steal Away" on Fame in May 1964 was occasioned by a visit to FAME Studios by "Mr Atlanta Music" Bill Lowery, on whose say-so Hall made an initial one thousand copy pressing of "Steal Away", Hall and FAME Studios sideman Dan Penn - then 23 years old - distributing the discs to radio stations throughout the South in a two-week road trip in a station wagon Hall borrowed off the used car lot where he worked part-time for his father-in-law With Lowery's assistance, Hall's "grass roots" efforts on behalf of "Steal Away" led to a distribution deal for the disc with Vee Jay Records: reaching the Top 40 in July 1964, "Steal Away" would rise as high as No. 17 on the Hot 100 in Billboard magazine: the Cash Box Top 100 chart listed "Steal Away" as high as No. 12 while the Cash Box Top 50 R&B 20 chart of 22 August 1964 ranked "Slip Away" at No. 2 behind "Under the Boardwalk" by the Drifters (Billboard magazine did not publish a ranking of top R&B singles from 30 November 1963 through 23 January 1965). In Canada, the song reached No. 17. "Steal Away" served as the title cut of Hughes debut album, released on Vee Jay Records in 1964. ==Remakes==