The South’s history-making music hubs are mostly cities, binding Memphis, Nashville, Asheville (in my opinion), and New Oreleans in what some have called the Americana Triangle. Yet in the northeast of that polygon, are the clustered towns of Florence, Sheffield, Tuscumbia and Muscle Shoals, Alabama, total population of just over 150,000. Against all odds, these “Quad Cities” hugging the Tennessee River became a nexus of R&B and country soul in the 1960s and southern roots rock and roll in the 70s. With ultimately as many as 10 productive studios, the area became a recording and production haven for icons and a thriving hotspot for independent roots music to this day.
This improbable and unique creative explosion is the subject of Muscle Shoals: Low Rhythm Rising, the latest three-year special exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Likewise, and mostly by coincidence, comes an epic new 700-page book by veteran music journalist Rob Bowman. Land of a Thousand Sessions the Complete Muscle Shoals Story is already being called the definitive history of this multi-decade American story.
Both works are ruminations on Black and White music mixing in a tense post-Jim Crow South, on the opportunities that come from working largely out of supervisory range by the record industry, and on the dynamic relationship between Alabama’s musical village and nearby Music City.
“There's been a lot of back and forth between Muscle Shoals and Nashville,” says Hall of Fame exhibit co-curator Michael Gray. “There are all kinds of musicians who would maybe get their start in Muscle Shoals and move to Nashville, or vice versa.” And while the Shoals are most famous for soul hits like “Mustang Sally” by Wilson Pickett, and “I’ll Take You There” by the Staple Singers, country music is in the DNA of Lauderdale County on the Tennessee border as well. “We wanted to make sure we talked about the country elements of the story, because sometimes that is the part that gets left behind,” Gray said.
To that point, upon entering the 10,000 square foot gallery, visitors see a huge wall of photos spanning years and genres, including John Prine with songwriting friend Donnie Fritts, Bobby Gentry, Willie Nelson, Duane Allman, Little Richard (in hot pink pants), Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, and the man who launched this wild ride, Alabama native Rick Hall, a man of singular vision and manic willpower.
“Rick Hall's philosophy was, No one's leaving until we get it right,” says exhibit co-curator RJ Smith about the pioneer who built the first Muscle Shoals recording studio. “That could mean next Friday. That could mean this afternoon. So everybody organically learned how to play with each other and learn what Rick Hall wanted.”
Writer Rob Bowman, in an interview during the Hall of Fame’s opening party in November, told me: “Rick Hall, whatever faults he might have had, was an unbelievable genius who could produce Clarence Carter and Wilson Pickett. But then the Osmonds and Paul Anka. And then later, the Gatlin Brothers, Shenandoah, Mac Davis, Terry Reed. So soul, big time pop, and then great country. No other producer in America that I know of has ever shifted from Black music, to really White pop, to country and become massively successful in all three. Quite extraordinary.”
Hall, who died in 2018 at age 85, was a sharecropper’s son who played and wrote music in various groups around Alabama, including a fateful band with future giants Billy Sherrill and Dan Penn. Passionate about R&B music, Hall quickly turned his mind to producing and building a colorblind recording operation in the model of Sam Phillips of Sun Records, who was a mentor. After recording local singer Arthur Alexander’s “You Better Move On” in 1961 in a make-do studio above a drug store, he earned enough royalty money to launch his iconic Florence Alabama Music Enterprises - FAME Studios.
That facility on Avalon Avenue, now on the US National Register of Historic Places, became a haven for emerging greats including Pickett, Otis Redding, Clarence Carter, Solomon Burke, and Aretha Franklin, who said that her Muscle Shoals sessions were a turning point in her career.
Hall is certainly given ample space in the exhibit, with evocative artifacts that include his briefcase and old analog Rolodex full of contacts. Nearby is a notebook in which musician Donnie Fritts wrote songs, possibly even his Dusty Springfield hit “Breakfast In Bed.” The area’s musical scene is set with a floor standing Zenith tube radio that belonged to the family of drummer Roger Hawkins, on which the studio legend heard a variety of American music growing up. Hawkins was a member of the Swampers, the studio players who were first assembled by Hall to back up the singers who came through town. Another, guitarist Jimmy Johnson, is represented in the exhibit with a Telecaster and his old Sheffield High School letter jacket.
I asked the curators about personal favorites among the collection. Gray told me about a tip from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that they had a black western-theme jump suit worn by Pickett on the cover of his second Best Of album from 1971. “So I remember going, oh boy, I hope Wilson Pickett's Greatest Hits Volume Two has some Muscle Shoals recordings on it. And sure enough, it does, including “Hey Jude,” which was a monumental track that Wilson recorded with Duane Allman.”
For Smith, it’s the piano from FAME. As the instrument heard on every recording from the studio between 1961 and 1970, it has a central place in the Low Rhythm Rising exhibit. Most pivotally, it’s where Aretha sat and played “I Never Loved A Man (The Way That I Loved You)”, a breakout song that also came with one of the less cheerful stories, as you’ll discover when you visit. “A lot of history happened in that room,around that instrument and the amazing person who was playing it,” Smith says. “And so that's like the sun to me, that everything else kind of circles around.”
I was especially moved by a trio of stunning tie-dye dresses worn by Cleotha, Yvonne and Mavis Staples in the 1970s. In that stage wear, they sang their era-defining songs “Respect Yourself” and “I’ll Take You There.” Pops Staples is represented with a cream suit and Telecaster electric guitar.
Elsewhere, listening stations let visitors select from a virtual jukebox of the Muscle Shoals sound, including Bettye LaVette’s “Your Turn To Cry,” Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome,” Bob Dylan’s “You Gotta Serve Somebody,” and Willie Nelson’s “Bloody Mary Morning.” An opening film narrated by area native Jason Isbell ties its illustrious past to its vibrant present with artists like the Secret Sisters and studio/recording operations like Single Lock Records, launched by Alabama’s John Paul White.
Meanwhile, Bowman’s book is the path for those who know the broad strokes of the Muscle Shoals story and who are hungry for every nuance. The writer had decades of experience and relationships with the key musicians, songwriters and producers behind all of the area’s studios. He got final interviews with giants like Jimmy Johnson and Roger Hawkins, just prior to their deaths. And as he says in his introduction: “I debated how to approach writing this book but ultimately decided at this late stage the book needed to be comprehensive and in-depth covering the glory years from 1951 to 1985 in as much detail as possible.”
“The book is really for the community of musicians, engineers and producers,” Bowman told me. “The people who made this music deserve to have their story told with the richness and dignity that their music warrants. And I've tried to do that.”
When I first visited Muscle Shoals for a special report in 2017, I was struck by how close and yet how far away it seemed from Nashville. Just two hours away, the Shoals pace of life was mellow, almost rural. The geography was peaceful and ancient. My mind asked contradictory questions. Why would anyone with musical ambitions and songs come here? And why would anyone who found themselves here ever want to leave?
