| Glory Days:
For the second installment, covering sessions from 1972 to 1980, click here. |
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"Working at Muscle Shoals was by far the best period for me, from the middle sixties through the seventies" I think my understanding was broadened and deepened so much by watching records being made from scratch, rather than deductively from written arrangements. Oh, man, it changed my life! There was never such an interaction between me and the musicians, and there was never anything like it in New York or L.A." - Jerry Wexler, quoted in Richard Buskin's Inside Tracks |
The whole Muscle Shoals phenomenon easily ranks as one of
the most fascinating-and perhaps downright unbelievable-stories in the history
of pop music recording. How did this sleepy, small-town backwater on the Tennessee
River become hotbed of soul music hitmaking in the
sixties, and then in the seventies a recording Mecca for a dazzling roster
of rock superstars including The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Traffic,
Rod Stewart, Bob Seger, Lynyrd
Skynyrd and others?
It defies credibility. Muscle Shoals certainly lacked great hotels, fine restaurants,
fast-paced night-life (make that any night-life),
or miles of sun-drenched tropical beaches.
No, instead Muscle Shoals' sole drawing card to rock's elite was a peculiar
musical culture that somehow bred musicians gifted with funky chops, steely
determination, an open musical mind, and a rare commodity called 100 proof
Alabama honky soul.
I made two pilgrimages to Muscle Shoals, one in October of 1979 and again
in January of 1980. The first trip resulted in a Mix article entitled "The
Strange But True Muscle Shoals Story," published
in the December issue. The second trip was for a followup
story, tentatively slated for M.I. Magazine, that
was never published.
What follows is the guts of that second story, with
some additions, deletions and updates.
With the first string of R&B hits, nobody really knew where they came
from. They emerged incognito from this unknown corner of Alabama, spread to
the cities of the south, soon were picked up and promoted nationwide, with
some crossing over onto the pop charts. The first wave launched Arthur Alexander,
Jimmy Hughes, Joe Tex and white teeny-popper Tommy Roe. The records sold in
the millions, but only a few insiders knew of the source.
But hit records have a way of attracting industry attention. Soon some well-connected
outsiders started making the rural Alabama pilgrimage. First over the Tennessee
line was Jerry Wexler of Atlantic, moving down from Memphis following a spat
with Jim Stewart of Stax. In tow, he brought Aretha
and Wilson Pickett. Within months, this isolated community on the back porch
of Dixie was challenging Detroit and Memphis as the R&B capital of the
planet. Percy Sledge. James and Bobby Purify. Arthur Conley. The music of
black
Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, the situation became increasingly
complicated-and trends in black music had changed as well. Though the R&B
heyday hit a social roadblack, the now-legendary
ex-casket factory on Jackson Highway soon became a magnet for a who’s-who
of rock superstars. Paul Simon. Boz Scaggs. Joe Cocker. Lynyrd Skynyrd. The Rolling Stones. Leon
Russell. Traffic. Bob Dylan. The studio and its musicans received some notoriety as rock journalists made
the pilgrimage alongside the artists. The fog of mystery lifted and the Muscle
Shoals story became fully documented.
| Glory Days:
For the second installment, covering sessions from 1972 to 1980, click here. |
The "Secret" Sessions
Well, not quite. A few curious tidbits of information have yet to escape
the Tennessee River swamplands.
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For example, did you know
that Boz Scaggs,
before cutting his classic Atlantic solo debut (featuring Duane Allman
on slide) came to Muscle Shoals posing as a reporter for The Rolling
Stone? |
Most Jimmy Cliff fans would assume "Sitting in Limbo"
from The Harder They Come soundtrack was recorded in Kingston. Nope. Like
other "secret" Shoals sessions, it was never officially credited
on liner notes because Cliff was not properly papered to "work"
(i.e. record) while visiting the
These and other revelations emerged from hours of conversation with the Muscle
Shoals Rhythm Section: Barry Beckett, Jimmy Johnson, Roger Hawkins and David
Hood. Although these four played on the vast majority of Muscle Shoals hits
from 1967 through 1980, they were actually the second generation of hit-record
pickers. It all began nearly five years before, with Rick Hall and Fame Studios.
Hall started the original Fame in a couple of small rooms over a downtown
drugstore. In 1961, he discovered a singing bellhop in a local hotel, and
brought him into the makeshift studio with a rhythm section culled from a
local band called Dan Penn and the Pallbearers, and cut "You'd Better
Move On." It was a minor hit the following year. But momentum built slowly,
as he cut more hits with Jimmy Hughes and Tommy Roe before the original rhythm
section—bassist Norbert Putnam, keyboardist David Briggs and drummer Jerry
Carrigan-were lured away by more lucrative session rates in
Nashville.
MSRS: The Next Generation
Their departure opened the way for a second generation of pickers to coalesce
around Hall's studio. This new blood, which eventually included the core quartet
of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, became the propelling force behind a
succession of hits by Wilson Pickett ("Land of 1000 Dances" and
"Mustang Sally"), Arthur Conley ("Sweet Soul Music") and
Percy Sledge ("When a Man Loves a Woman"). But it was the Aretha
Franklin sessions that finally brought fame to Muscle Shoals'and
got the rhythm section out of town.
Although Aretha's only trip to Alabama produced two of her most memorable
recordings ("I Never Loved a Man" and "Do Right Woman"),
some frictions involving members of her entourage made the experience upsetting.
Wexler, not wanting to break up the winning combination, decided to bring
the rhythm section to New York.
| "The Swampers" in 1980. L to R: Roger Hawkins, Jimmy Johnson, Barry Beckett, David Hood. |
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"I was really kind of scared by the whole trip," says Roger Hawkins. "I was just a kid at the time, from the rural South, and here I was going to play in a studio on Broadway with Aretha Franklin. I was barely twenty at the time, and I had butterflies in my stomach." |
Jimmy Johnson found the experience both rewarding and intimidating.
"Every time we went up to New York, I thought it would be the last time.
But we were crossing our fingers, eyes, legs and toes hoping it wouldn't be."
It was a challenge for Alabama players. Accustomed to spontaneous "head
arrangements", they suddenly had to contend with a sophisticated, uptown
approach.
"Arif Mardin was
working with Jerry and [engineer] Tom Dowd on most of those
session," recalls Johnson. "He was so much more aware in
musical terms. It also got complicated because he had just come from
Somehow, the messages got through. For the next two years, the Muscle Shoals
musicians were traveling regularly to New York and later Miami for sessions
with King Curtis and Solomon Burke as well as Aretha. It was the close ties
to Atlantic that gave them the courage to make a bold move in 1968: they bought
their own studio.
Project Studio Soul: The Casket Factory
Fred Bevis, who had converted an old casket factory at 3614 Jackson Highway
into a four-track studio, was ready to sell. The four musicians pooled their
assets and bought it. With a promise or steady work from Wexler, they immediately
upgraded to eight track. Their first project for Atlantic was Cher,
and although that project was reasonably successful, it was the next visitor
who would firmly establish the studioÕs FM album
rock credentials.
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At the time, only bassist David Hood had even heard of the Steve Miller Band, and he had not looked closely enough at the album jackets to remember the face of Boz Scaggs. He eased into town, introducing himself (backed by co-producer/publisher Jann Wenner) as a reporter for the Rolling Stone. |
He hung out for two or three days, left, and came back several
weeks later to cut a milestone recordÑan underground
classic that marked the only collaboration between Scaggs and the studios lead guitarist at the time, Duane Allman.
ÒWe had fun playing on that one,Ó recalls Beckett. ÒWe enjoyed
it because we could loosen up and play what we wanted to play. We were dying
to shake off the tight discipline of some of the New York sessions.Ó
It wouldnÕt be long before the Muscle Shoals musicians
had a chance to loosen up even more. In the next installment, to be posted
in two weeks, weÕll look back at sessions with Paul
Simon, Traffic, Jimmy Cliff and Bob Seger.