For More Than 50 Years, People in the North Alabama Town of Muscle
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| FEATURE | FOR MORE THAN 50 YEARS, PEOPLE IN THE NORTH ALABAMA TOWN OF MUSCLE SHOALS HAVE PULLED COUNTLESS SONGS FROM THE RED DIRT, MIXING TOGETHER A BIT OF LUCK, A LOT OF HARD WORK AND AN UNDERSTANDING THAT, MAYBE, MUSIC IS JUST IN THEIR NATURE. by Haley Herfurth 4 | ALABAMA ALUMNI MAGAZINE SUMMER 2015 | 5 here is no sure answer for others might not have noticed, and how it got this way. Some say opened FAME Studios (short for there’s something in the air, Florence Alabama Music Enter- Tlike every hollering folk song was prises). Rick Hall, Billy Sherrill and caught up in the wind and scattered Tom Stafford first rented rooms about, and that if you breathe it above the City Drug Store in Flor- long enough, it catches in your soul. ence for the recording studio. In Others say it’s in the water, like a the early ’60s, when Hall split from thousand melodies are laid to rest at Sherrill and Stafford to take on the bottom of the Tennessee River, the enterprise alone, it moved to piles of music notes and pretty lines an abandoned tobacco warehouse and broken guitar strings, carried by on Wilson Dam Road in Muscle the current into the next generation. Shoals. There, country and soul art- It could have been fate or God ist Arthur Alexander recorded “You or good luck, or some quiet agree- Better Move on,” FAME’s first hit ment between the three, because record, the proceeds from which the world needed music with guts built the company’s current facilities and depth and dirt under its nails, on Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals. and Muscle Shoals was the place to Rhythm and blues artist Jimmy Etta James recorded at FAME, as did Wilson Pickett, above, second from right; dig it up. Hughes was the first to record at the below, FAME Studio A in the 1960s Perhaps it grew from nothing at new location, cutting his hit “Steal all, from silence, from the ringing Away” in 1961. In the mid ’60s, University of Alabama in 2004 and stillness of an Alabama night, when Percy Sledge (from nearby Leighton, is the author of Muscle Shoals Sound one old woman chose to breathe Alabama) recorded his hit “When Studio: How the Swampers Changed fire from a harmonica just to fill a Man Loves a Woman” at nearby American Music. “You have to credit up the quiet. Or it could be that its Norala Studios, owned by Quin Ivy, him as the grandfather of the entire own people grew a Mississippi native and proprietor of scene.” it up from the a record store in Sheffield who often Under Hall’s guidance, FAME ground, because wrote songs with Hall. “There were rolled out hit after hit in the 1960s. resilience and a number of studios in the area, but In 1968, Hall produced Etta James’ talent can some- Hall is the one who was really deter- Tell Mama album, one of her biggest times equal suc- mined to make it no matter what,” hits; the record was also published Also in the late 1960s, Atlan- cess if enough said Carla Jean Whitley, who earned by FAME Publishing, a division of tic Records producer Jerry Wexler stubbornness is her master’s in journalism from The the original company. brought rock ‘n’ roll/R&B singer added in. Wilson Pickett to FAME, where he Maybe what recorded hits like “Mustang Sally” matters is what that first foot- and “Land of 1,000 Dances.” Wexler stomping tune turned into, as artist Muscle Shoals incorporated into a remained incomplete until 1924 later brought newly signed artist after artist came to the Shoals to town of a few more than 700 people and barely used until 1933, when Aretha Franklin. It was at FAME that coax music out of their bones, and in 1923, birthed 20 miles south of President Franklin Roosevelt com- she cut her double-sided smash “I that they still come, songs in hand, the Tennessee line in the shadow manded that the rushing waters bow Never Loved a Man” and “Do Right because the magic has yet to aban- of the Wilson Dam, which sits just to the Tennessee Valley Authority. Woman.” Otis Redding produced don it. north of town and spans the Ten- The city forms part of an Alabama and recorded two classics there— Previous page: George Jackson, the nessee River between Colbert and quartet of sorts called the Quad Cit- “Sweet Soul Music” and “You Left songwriter behind Bob Seger’s hit “Old Lauderdale counties. Commissioned ies, encompassing Florence, Shef- the Water Running,” respectively. Time Rock and Roll,” by the Old Railroad during World War I by President field, Tuscumbia and Muscle Shoals. Eventually the group of musi- Bridge in Sheffield, Alabama; above, cians that was formed to back the the Muscle Shoals water tower; Woodrow Wilson to help power In the late 1950s, three local boys inset, a postcard from 1948 nitrate plants for munitions, the dam saw something in that patch of dirt studio’s recording artists grew into a 6 | ALABAMA ALUMNI MAGAZINE SUMMER 2015 | 7 Rick Hall, at FAME in 2010, was one of the founders of the recording studio; below, Carla Jean Whitley is the author of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. camped in the FAME park- the building was sold to a film and ing lot before being hired television production company. by Rick for a two-year stint In 1999, a sound producer “Brown Sugar” and “Wild Horses” as a session musician, play- named Noel Webster from nearby there in December 1969, quietly ing on Pickett’s cover of the Huntsville, Alabama, purchased rolling into North Alabama with- Beatles’ “Hey Jude.” the old Jackson Highway build- out any fanfare or applause. “Most Artists like Paul Simon, ing and refurbished and reopened of the locals didn’t know anything Willie Nelson and Rod Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. In was going on,” said Patterson Hood, Stewart all came to Mus- 2010, American rock duo The Black a Muscle Shoals native who is the cle Shoals Sound, record- Keys recorded their 2011 Grammy- frontman of the alternative country/ ing both individual songs winning album Brothers at the res- Southern rock band the Drive-By and entire albums, many urrected location. Webster sold the Truckers and whose father is David of which were backed by Hood of the Rhythm Section. “They the Muscle Shoals Rhythm didn’t even know the Stones were in Section. “If you play back town; it probably would’ve been a any of those songs, you can fame of their own, becoming known and James’ “Tell Mama,” impressing disaster if they had. It was still a very recorded hits like “One Bad Apple” hear the level of quality in musician- as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Sec- musicians and executives across the conservative place.” and “Yo-Yo.” Rick Hall was nomi- ship of the guys who are playing in tion. The original four members country. The biggest influences the area nated for a Grammy in the Producer the studio,” Whitley said. moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in In the span of a decade, Muscle has had on the music industry may of the Year category in 1970. Bobbie Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded its 1964, making room for a second Shoals had ridden into history on have come from what you can’t hear, Gentry, one of the first female coun- entire first album at Muscle Shoals group of musicians that Lynyrd the harmonies of two-dozen hits, Whitley noted. The rural location of try music stars to compose her own Sound in 1971 and 1972, although Skynyrd would later memorialize finding its place alongside music cit- the Shoals was the draw for many material, recorded her album Fancy the songs weren’t released until later as “the Swampers” in their hit song ies like New York, Los Angeles and performers. “It’s so out of the way; there, and singer/songwriter Mac in the band’s career. The studio relo- “Sweet Home Alabama”: guitarist Nashville. Artists were coming from even today it’s not particularly easy Davis recorded four gold albums. cated to a larger building nearby Jimmy Johnson, bassist David Hood, all over to record there, betting that to get to,” she said. “That has given Famous guitarist Duane Allman in 1978, and Bob Dylan recorded drummer Roger Hawkins and first a hit could be heard in their songs if musicians freedom to do whatever “Gotta Serve Somebody” pianist Spooner Oldham, replaced they sang them from that sweet spot it is they want to do. There aren’t the there in 1979. Julian Len- later by Barry Beckett. The rhythm a half-hour from the state line; and pressures of being involved in an non record Valotte there section backed Pickett’s “Mustang they were right. industry city.” in 1984, but recordings Sally,” Franklin’s smash “Respect” Rodney Hall, Rick’s son, who slowed down after that, In 1969, Johnson, Hood, Hawkins earned his master’s degree from and in 1985, the stu- and Beckett left FAME to UA’s Culverhouse College of Busi- dios were sold to Jack- found Muscle Shoals Sound Stu- ness in 1991 and is the president of son, Mississippi-based dio, setting up shop in a small FAME, said the small-town atmo- Malaco Music, which brick building off Jackson High- sphere provided fewer distractions also bought the Muscle way in Sheffield, proceeding to for musicians. “The ruralness of the Shoals Sound publish- spin swampgrass into gold. The area, especially in the 1960s and ing rights.