Wexler’s focus shifted to the South, where gospel-trained singers and musicians with a background in country and rhythm-and-blues in Memphis and Muscle Shoals were creating the new blend of influences that came to be known as soul music. Part of the process was the distribution deal he set up for the Memphis-based Stax label which resulted in hits by Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Rufus and Carla Thomas, and Booker T and the MGs, but resulted in Stax losing the rights to their own master recordings.
In the studio Wexler’s approach was simple - give the artists freedom to be themselves and follow their instincts in a sympathetic environment.
After supervising the sessions that produced the Drifters' Money Honey, Big Joe Turner's original version of Shake, Rattle and Roll and LaVern Baker's Tweedlee Dee, Wexler hit the real big time with a 23-year-old singer and pianist from Florida named Ray Charles and a stream of hits that included It Should Have Been Me, This Little Girl of Mine, Lonely Avenue, I Got a Woman and What'd I Say. Wexler later stated the best thing he had done for Charles was to let him do as he pleased.
After Charles left Atlantic, in 1959, Wexler produced Solomon Burke, another singer coming from gospel music, resulting in Everybody Needs Somebody to Love and a magnificent version of He'll Have to Go.
Sessions with Wilson Pickett and Percy Sledge produced Midnight Hour and When A Man Loves A Woman but Wexler’s greatest success came with Aretha Franklin, although the Muscle Shoals session that produced her first Atlantic single, I Never Loved a Man, ended in an almighty and near-catastrophic row between the session musicians and Aretha's manager-husband, Ted White.
The decision to sign Aretha to Atlantic came after seven years at Columbia Records, where one of the great voices had been submerged in a sea of strings and show tunes. After I Never Loved a Man Wexler produced sixteen albums and numerous hit singles for Franklin, including Do Right Woman - Do Right Man, Respect, Chain of Fools, and I Say a Little Prayer.
Thinking they’d reached as high as they were going to get, Wexler persuaded his partners to sell Atlantic to Warner Brothers for a $17.5 million in 1967. Although they stayed on to run the company, Ertegun and Wexler continued moving in different directions.
Ertegun, who’d started off resisting the takeover, eventually thrived in the corporate environment, thanks largely to his diplomatic pedigree. Wexler, freed from concerns with the company's bottom line, focused on the music he wanted to hear including Duane Allman, Dr. John, and Delaney & Bonnie. Some productions sold well. Others, including Dr. John's Gumbo and Doug Sahm and Band were among Atlantic's worst sellers.
Hughesy, on the other hand, loved them...
Wexler also produced Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis and the hit single, Son of a Preacher Man, a benchmark of blue-eyed soul, although Springfield chose to record her vocals over backing tracks in New York, rather than live in the Stax studio. He was active behind-the-scenes, encouraging songwriter Carole King to embark on the solo career that resulted in Tapestry, although the production credit on the album went to Lou Adler rather than Jerry Wexler.
In 1974, he tried to establish a Nashville branch of the label, which resulted in two albums by Willie Nelson and not much else, and by the end of 1975, Wexler had left Atlantic and, apart from a brief spell as the East Coast A&R man for Warner Bros. went freelance for the rest of his career.
Over the next two decades he produced albums for Bob Dylan (Slow Train Coming and Saved), Cher (3614 Jackson Highway), Dire Straits (Communiqué), Etta James (Deep in the Night and The Right Time), Allen Toussaint, the Staple Singers, George Michael, Jose Feliciano, Linda Ronstadt (What’s New, a collection of Sinatraesque standards) and Carlos Santana (Havana Moon), as well as soundtracks for films by Louis Malle and Richard Pryor.