What’s a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee doing in Buddy Miller’s Nashville living room? Recording his country album, of course. Solomon Burke may have taken four decades to follow up his 1961 country-radio hit ”Just Out Of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms)” with a full album of C&W material, but Nashville (Shout! Factory) finally gives the self-proclaimed “king of rock and soul” the wide-open spaces his voice deserves, featuring duets with Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch and Patty Loveless.

At what point did you seize upon the idea to record a true Nashville country record?
The idea came when, after finishing our first album for Shout! Factory, Mr. and Mrs. Foos (original founders of Rhino Records) say to me, “Let’s do another one. What do you wanna do?” They’re asking this crazy kid who wanted to be a cowboy all his life, “What do you wanna do?” Are you kidding me? [Laughs] And I guess they thought I was gonna say, “Let’s go get Puff Daddy or Dr. Dre and go at it.”

Maybe that’s the next one.
Can you give ’em a call for me? [Laughs]

Happy to do my bit, Dr. Burke.
So here we go, something that I’d always dreamed of doing: a real country album with a choice of some of the greatest songs ever, instead of sneaking one in here or there. After having a minor breakthrough with my first country songs—“Just Out Of Reach (Of My Two Open Arms),” “He’ll Have To Go,” “Travel On,” “A Tear Fell,” all on Atlantic in 1961—I figured, hey, let me try it now! I put my foot in the door and Ray Charles moved in, with furniture! [Laughs]

He sure did; his family came with him, too. That record (Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music) feels like a missing link between those early sides you mentioned and this record. You rushed for three yards and a cloud of dust, and he got to score the touchdown at the end of a 99-yard drive.
Well, sure, because he had the support. Our record company completely shut down: “no more country.” We went through hell and high water to get those records played. Even Gene Autry gave us his support and we can’t get that every day, so it’s a fascinating situation. I remember what they went through back then; it was a year and a half before anyone would even play that record. It had to come from major radio stations, Billboard magazine, asking record-company people to hang on and believe in the record. Disc jockeys got fired for playing it because it just wasn’t in the format. There wasn’t a format for black artists singing country music in America. It didn’t happen. Not in the ’60s, anyway. And Herb Jeffries had been around since the ’30s, doing Country and Western—and nobody even recognized how great and powerful he was. He’s been around doing his songs and movies as a cowboy, and yet never gets the credit. So I thank him for being the original pioneer. But he never crossed that line that gave some pop station the idea, “Hey, we’re going to take a chance with this,” and forcing the black stations to go on the record with it and make a place for it.

I guess you can make two observations. First, that it’s still hard to cross that line, even today, and second, maybe someone like Charlie Pride owes a little bit of his success to Herb Jeffries.
Well, you know, once you open the door, the family members all come in.

Given the size of your family [Burke has 21 children, 84 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren], I think you are as well-situated to make that observation as anyone.
[Laughs] The beans were on, the grits were cookin’, we just needed to make enough biscuits to feed everyone. What a blessing. Ray put the icing on that cake and turned it into a birthday for everybody. Charlie just walked in and said, “Hey, let me show you what I’ve been born and raised with.” And that was country music, which was literally all he knew to play. And so many other great American black artists, Mexican artists ... the Latin market is so rich with country music it’s incredible.

The Norteño and requinto traditions—you’re right, it’s everywhere. I hear it on the radio in the U.S. no matter where I go.
We could go on and on. They’ve got it down, the tubas, trumpets, trombones. So we decided to stick with the thing that came naturally to us—the cowboy playing his guitar.

“Up To The Mountain” feels like it’s utterly connected to your gospel work. Maybe it’s less of a country album than just a soul record, whatever that may mean to whoever is listening to it.
Absolutely. That song took me with tears in my eyes up to the mountain with Dr. Martin Luther King, the mountain in my own life, and put me right there where I needed to be: a mountaintop looking at a higher peak seeing that there’s even farther to climb. “Keep climbing, you haven’t reached it yet, you’ve got a long way to go. Just look around you at the people who gave up.” We grabbed a George Jones song, “Hold On,” that was so incredible, and here comes Emmylou Harris saying, “I love this song so much, can I sing it with you?” I looked at Buddy and said, “Are you kidding? This lady can sing along with the newspaper if she wants to.” Please! How gracious is that, when you’re singing with five of country music’s royalty? Their dedication to the music and ability to say, “We’re family, let’s do this, and welcome to town.” That’s terrific.

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