Outside the walls of two studios in Muscle Shoals AL, the battle of segregation was at a full time high. However on the inside, Caucasian and African Americans were working together to create some of the most timeless music recorded and the majority of them still stand as classics today.
A down on his luck producer that could probably have been considered in depression or almost there, gathered up his current band and singer Jimmy Hughes to record a song called “Steal Away”.
As soon as Rick Hall, a native of Freedom Hills, AL and owner of FAME Recording Studios, hit the record button, the Muscle Shoals sound was born. It would be the start of an unbelievable run for FAME and the singers and musicians plus leave an imprint on the business that stills stands today.
If you are a music lover and have never seen the Muscle Shoals Documentary, you need to remedy that as soon as possible. The documentary traces the history behind the Muscle Shoals sound as it relates to Rick Hall and members of his rhythm section that eventually would form Muscle Shoals Sound Studios with the help of record executive Jerry Wexler. If you are a fan of southern rock or you are an Alabama fan that has paid any attention to the words of “Sweet Home Alabama”, you have heard the lyrics “Muscle Shoals has got The Swampers”. Well, this is them. It’s the name given to the first Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.
After losing his wife in a car accident, Hall made the decision to come back stronger than his first try which was a failed partnership with a publishing company that claimed he worked too hard. He set up shop in an abandon candy and tobacco warehouse, brought in his current band that he was working with consisting of Peanut Montgomery, Norbert Putman, David Briggs and others plus singer Arthur Alexander, and made some magic.
That first cut was a hit. Not the second nor the third but first.
The first configuration of the studio band decided to move on and try their hand at things in Nashville, using what they learned in Muscle Shoals. The next ones in had their hand in some of those classics that you know as soon as you hear them. They would be inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1995 for a “Lifework Award for Non-Performing Achievement” and into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2008 (the performers inducted into the latter were the four founding Swampers: Barry Beckett (keyboards), Roger Hawkins (drums), David Hood (bass), Jimmy Johnson (guitar), plus Pete Carr (guitar), Spooner Oldham (organist), Albert S. Lowe Jr., Clayton Ivey, Randy McCormick, and Will McFarlane). They were nothing but a bunch of country people from around the Florence and Muscle Shoals area that could lay the funk down. A lot of the singers that inquired about using them even thought they were all African American musicians just from the way they played. Paul Simon even called the head of Stax Records, Al Bell, and wanted to go record there but insisted that he use the African American players heard on all of the records. Bell responded, “Well, that can happen but these guys are mighty pale”.
An orderly that worked at the local hospital and a native of Leighton AL just happened to be in the right place at the right time. He was asked to perform at the Elks Club in Sheffield. A local disc jockey asked him if he had ever been interested in making a record. It was his first one.
Percy Sledge and all of the staff at FAME had a hit on their hands. Hall would end up putting in a call to Jerry Wexler with Atlantic Records. Hall reminded him that he had once told him that if he heard something that could be a hit to call him and played him a bit of “When A Man Loves A Woman” over the phone. The rest is history.
The artists would start to line up to come and record at FAME. Truthfully, there are way too many to list here and it would take hours to get it completed. You can take a look at the artists that have recorded at FAME on their website. Below you will find a few of the songs that have The Swampers as musicians.
After the founding members of The Swampers moved on to start their own business across town, Hall moved on and didn’t miss a beat. In his words, he felt he could make hit records with any set of musicians and proved that by winning Producer of the Year right after The Swampers’ departure. The newly founded Muscle Shoals Sound Studios had a bit of a dry spell. Alan Walden contacted them and wanted them to record a new band he had discovered in Jacksonville, FL. The band had no money and would check into a local truck stop when they were recording and live off of peanut butter sandwiches. The crew and band had decided to take a break and when they returned, the engineer turned on the playback to what they were working on and the roadie began to play the piano with the recording. No one knew that he could play. All of those present insisted on getting it on record and he joined the band a few months later. The first song that plays is the result of that session.
I won’t spoil too many of the stories that is in the documentary and there are some great ones. I hope I have influenced you to take a chance on “Muscle Shoals” if you haven’t done so already. It’s a chance to learn a little bit about Alabama’s history and it’s also possible that some of your favorite songs were recorded on the banks of the Tennessee River in a town known as Muscle Shoals. There is also a story in the documentary from a man about his great great grandmother. She was a member of the Yuchi Indian Tribe and their word for the Tennessee River meant “The River That Sings”. She was forced to move to Oklahoma with the rest of her tribe during the Trail of Tears. As the story was told, she searched all over her new home but said all of the streams and rivers were silent and that there were no songs. She couldn’t stand that and her return trip took her 5 years. After hearing some of those classic songs for nearly all of my life that came out of northwestern Alabama, you know, I fully believe she was right about those songs from the river.