Legendary Memphis songwriter, musician and producer.
Though he released nine solo albums, Memphis musician Don Nix, who died at home in Germantown, Tennessee in his sleep on New Year’s Eve, main claim to musical fame is much more based on his backroom role as a musician, songwriter, author and producer than as a solo recording artist. He was steeped in the music of Memphis and the American South, and with Leon Russell and Delaney and Bonnie was a major influence on white predominantly British musicians who were looking for a more authentic sounding roots version of American music as the ‘60s morphed into the ‘70s. Don Nix worked with artists like George Harrison, John Mayall, and Jeff Beck, and his songs were covered by artists like Freddie King, Albert King, the Rolling Stones, Jerry Garcia and J. J. Cale. It was during this time that he recorded three solo albums on major record labels, and when he made his reputation as an architect of the move to a more informed roots-based sound by the leading rock stars of the day.
William Donald Nix was born on the 27th of September, 1941, in Memphis, Tennessee to a musical family. He tasted fame in 1961 as a member of the Mar-Keys with future MGs Steve Cropper and Donald “Duck” Dunn when their record ‘Last Night’ with Nix on saxophone, became one of the first hits for the fledgling Stax Records. He played sessions for Stax in the early ‘60s before moving to Los Angeles in the mid-60s where he worked with Leon Russell and artists like Gary Lewis & The Playboys and Delaney & Bonnie, learning the skills of a record producer. It was through Russell and Delaney & Bonnie that he met George Harrison which led to him arranging the choir that sang on “The Concert For Bangladesh” in 1971. He recounted that he had a lot of questions to ask Harrison about the Beatles, but that Harrison beat him to it by asking about Stax Records. In the early ‘70s, he was back in Memphis working as a producer for blues and rock acts. It was his work with Albert King and Freddie King that consolidated his reputation with the rock star fraternity. His first solo album “In God We Trust” was released in 1971 on Leon Russell’s Shelter label, and featured the Muscle Shoals Swampers and rural blues man Furry Lewis. The album was a homage to the music of the American South, and informed his tour with a Review of assorted artists, The Alabama State Troopers, which was captured on a live album of the same name.
Nix left Shelter because he felt his own sound was too close to Leon Russell’s own take on Southern music and that the label would struggle to promote both artists. He recorded two further studio albums for major labels, one for Elektra, “Living by the Days”, and one for Stax subsidiary Enterprise, “Hobos, Heroes and Street Corner Clowns”, which didn’t find much traction with the record-buying public. He continued to record occasionally using the best musicians from in and around Memphis and its environs. One of the best of these was “Going Down – The Songs of Don Nix” which featured various friends such as Dan Penn, Bonnie Bramlett, Tony Joe White, Steve Cropper, and John Mayall to name only a few. He also published three books that gave a feel for what he was like as a person as well as a legendary musician. He was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame in 2023.
As a songwriter and producer who helped bring an understanding of Southern music to white British rock stars at the start of the ‘70s, Don Nix has had a lasting influence on music. The fact that he was able to shine a light on the black origins of rock and roll and soul music for white artists meant that he helped lay the foundation for subsequent roots-based music, including americana. His most successful song is ‘Going Down’ which has been recorded by innumerable rock and blues artists and was originally made famous by Freddie King, John Lee Hooker, J. J. Cale and Jeff Beck, subsequently becoming something of a rock classic with eventually hundreds of cover versions. What many people may not know is that Don Nix wrote the song after falling from a first-floor window, which gives a hint of the humour and warmth of him as a human being.
