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    The Muscle Shoals Legacy of FAME
    The Muscle Shoals Legacy of FAME
    The Muscle Shoals Legacy of FAME
    Ebook191 pages1 hour

    The Muscle Shoals Legacy of FAME

    By Blake Ells and Jason Isbell

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    About this ebook

    FAME Publishing first opened in 1959 and produced hits for great musicians like Etta James, Clarence Carter and Aretha Franklin. Not long after, the city of Muscle Shoals became known as the "Hit Recording Capital of the World." FAME was the foundation that produced Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, the Nutthouse and Sundrop Sound at Single Lock Records'studios that gave a voice to artists like Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit and John Paul White. A new generation, including the Pollies and Doc Dailey & the Magnolia Devil, today carries the tradition of great music. Through extensive research, and enriched with interviews from those who lived it, local author Blake Ells chronicles the epic story that started with FAME.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe History Press
    Release dateJun 29, 2015
    ISBN9781625852953
    The Muscle Shoals Legacy of FAME
    Author

    Blake Ells

    Blake Ells works in public relations by day, and he's a music journalist by night. His work has been published at AL.com, Birmingham Post-Herald, Birmingham News, Weld for Birmingham and Birmingham magazine, among many others. Blake continues to serve the Literacy Council of Central Alabama, where he has previously served as chair. He is a proud alumnus of Auburn University.

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      Book preview

      The Muscle Shoals Legacy of FAME - Blake Ells

      sunshine.

      INTRODUCTION

      I grew up in Rogersville, Alabama. My hometown in eastern Lauderdale County still has one and a half stoplights (it’s a half because it has one actual traffic light and one of those blinking red lights that’s really just a four-way stop), and it’s about twenty-seven miles from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. When we were growing up, we weren’t really given any context about what had happened in our little community twenty and thirty years prior. Wilson Pickett’s Land of 1,000 Dances would come on the radio, and it may have provided a brief lesson, but it all seemed much farther away than twenty-seven miles. It seemed ancient, and most of the work being done at FAME by that time was publishing; publishing some of the biggest country music hits in the world, but publishing, still. It wasn’t flashy.

      Or maybe it was flashy. But people in that little corner of the world were much more jubilant about the first time a McDonald’s opened in their town than they were about Gary Baker writing John Michael Montgomery’s I Swear down the street. I Like It, I Love It was another FAME creation, penned by Mark Hall, Jeb Stuart Anderson and Steve Dukes. The Tim McGraw tune hit number one on the U.S. Hot Country Singles Chart in 1995, and it crossed over to number twenty-five on the Billboard Hot 100. But there was always a detachment for locals about what was happening between the time writers punched a clock at the studios and when the artist’s video appeared on CMT.

      Maybe it was because the community was blue collar. People worked at the Tennessee Valley Authority and Champion Paper and Reynolds Aluminum. Some drove to Huntsville to work at Redstone Arsenal. No one particularly cared to brag on himself or herself, and the community is isolated from everything. There’s no interstate. There’s no connection to any mainstream media; the nearest media market is Huntsville, which is seventy-two miles away on Highway 72. Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, Tuscumbia and Florence—it’s rural.

      Members of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. Courtesy of Jimmy Nutt.

      When I was growing up, sessions continued, but publishing was the name of the game as the studios evolved with the times. And while all of that continued, the next generation of Muscle Shoals artists who would bring it fame was discovering its place in the world. But then, that’s how it had always been. Sessions, songwriting, live music and recording—they have always existed in harmony and independent of one another in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

      I moved away in 2000. I went to college. And while I was there, high-speed Internet was becoming a thing. I found a track called Let There Be Rock by Drive-By Truckers on a site called www.mp3.com.

      Dropped acid at the Blue Oyster Cult concert, fourteen years old

      and I thought them lasers were a spider chasing me

      On our way home got pulled over, in Rogersville, Alabama

      with a half ounce of weed and a case of Sterling Big Mouth

      I didn’t have any context for that, either. But I certainly thought it was cool that my little hometown was mentioned in a rock song. I didn’t know that the guy writing those words was the son of the guy who played the bass riff on I’ll Take You There by the Staple Singers. I just related to it. This band was singing about the places that I called home.

      Shortly after I knew that this book would be a thing, I engaged in a lengthy Twitter debate with ESPN’s Wright Thompson after he had finished a viewing of Muscle Shoals. Where did the magic go? he demanded to know. Well, the magic never left. But weaving the story of sessions, songwriting and a live scene together in 140 characters would have been impossible. So I called up a bunch of people that lived it, and I tried to do it here. Almost none of those people ever bothered writing down dates, so time is approximate. But isn’t it always?

      The magnitude of the story I am trying to tell here is greater than the words that I have to tell it. Fortunately, I was given time by every generation of musicians involved within its pages. The families, the communities, the transitions—most all are represented. I tried to step away from this and let the people who lived it do the talking. Many of them lived the same story that I did; they were just much better at writing songs.

      So I have woven together their stories and experiences, three generations of Muscle Shoals musicians who made a name for the community with their sessions; who wrote some of the most memorable songs in the history of pop, country and rock-and-roll; and who later gave new life to the community by creating a scene.

      TOWN BURNED DOWN

      There weren’t many reasons to visit Florence, Alabama’s Court Street in 1991. Then, the storefront now occupied by luxury clothing store Billy Reid was Anderson’s Bookland, a local bookshop, and you could buy a scoop of orange-pineapple ice cream at the Trowbridge Drugstore’s soda fountain. Rogers Department Store stood as a reminder of the days before chain outfits, when family-owned operations still held sway. There were several jewelers, including Mefford’s, and the only place worth eating was Court Street Café, not actually located on Court Street at all, but a block away, on Seminary. The center of the Muscle Shoals arts community was a ghost of the vibrant destination it would become in the new millennium. The sessions at FAME and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio had slowed, and the music community found itself struggling to age gracefully.

      FAME had its day, and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio did, too. FAME, Rick Hall’s publishing company and studio, had seen Arthur Alexander, Clarence Carter, Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett front the legendary Swampers, the rhythm section of David Hood, Jimmy Johnson, Roger Hawkins and Barry Beckett, and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio had then seen those four men produce Wild Horses and Brown Sugar for the Rolling Stones.

      But by 1991, the landscape of the Hit Recording Capital of the World was as far from where it had come as it was from where it was going. The sessions were slowing, and there wasn’t yet a place to play. La Fonda’s, a Mexican restaurant that once stood on Highway 72 as a beacon to the third generation of Muscle Shoals musicians, hadn’t yet employed Barrel House or their successors, Iguana Party, as the house band. Billy Reid hadn’t arrived. The Internet hadn’t allowed rural artists to realize their potential. Covers ruled the night.

      Virgil Kane at Brass Lantern. Courtesy of Jenn Bryant.

      Patterson Hood at Club XIII. Courtesy of Jenn Bryant.

      For starters, there was nowhere to play, Patterson Hood, frontman of Drive-By Truckers, said of Florence, Alabama. There were no venues. Florence may have just gone wet, if it even had yet. Colbert County was wet, but the only clubs there were a couple of places that had Top 40 or country bands. At the time, I was negative about it and even angry about it because I thought, ‘There’s people doing this shit all over the world and it works. Why can’t we do it here?’

      Sure, there was Club XIII out near O’Neil Bridge and the Brass Lantern on Court Street; Callahan’s would come along later. But these venues weren’t places where a musician could play original music and make money. That’s a problematic scene for someone who’s trying to decide whether quitting his day job to play rock-and-roll music is a viable option.

      From Muscle Shoals to Florence, Sheffield to the Tennessee state line, musicians were getting work but were relegated to familiar covers. The songwriting supergroup the Shooters were touring nationally with Walt Aldridge, Gary Baker, Barry Billings, Chalmers Davis and Mike Dillon. And Adam’s House Cat, the initial collaboration between Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley that would evolve into Drive-By Truckers, was writing original music and desperately seeking a chance. But original music wasn’t welcomed.

      Mike Cooley at Club XIII. Courtesy of Jenn Bryant.

      Adam’s House Cat. Courtesy of Patrick Hood.

      Muscle Shoals had evolved from the sessions that created some of the ’60s most sincere soul to the seclusion that inspired the most substantial cuts from 1971’s Sticky Fingers to the songwriting town that led country music from its Opry roots to its modern pop sound in the ’80s. And in 1991, Muscle Shoals wasn’t yet sure what to do next.

      In 1978, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio had moved from its location at 3614 Jackson Highway to 1000 Alabama Avenue when Hood, Johnson, Hawkins and Beckett decided more space was needed and the group couldn’t purchase the original location. With intentions of expanding, they had purchased the adjacent lots, but their landlord’s refusal to sell pushed their new purchase forward.

      The building had been a naval reserve, but it had long been vacant and owned by the Sheffield Power Company.

      They weren’t using it, and it was in danger of being torn down, said David Hood. We made them a bid of $31,000.

      The thirty-five-thousand-square-foot space allowed the quartet to attract artists like Bob Dylan, John Prine, Glenn Frey and George Michael. The group had plans of putting in a third studio at the new location, as business had continued to grow throughout the early 1980s, but in 1985, the property was sold to Malaco, an independent record label based in Jackson, Mississippi.

      Barry was wanting to move to Nashville and leave the group, said David. Music was changing—it was disco or country, not the rhythm and blues or pop that we were doing. That’s when we decided to sell to Malaco. There was no way that we could break up our partnership without somebody having to buy somebody else out.

      David, Johnson and Hawkins continued to work in the building under Malaco’s ownership throughout the ’80s. The purchase was about more than the address. The main thing they wanted was our publishing company because the time there held a lot of valuable copyrights, said David. ‘Old Time Rock and Roll’—a lot of big copyrights.

      By 1991, the work at the Alabama Avenue location had begun to slow. Several blues records were still being cut, and in 1992, Widespread Panic would cut Everyday in its hallowed halls, but largely, the days that had created Brown Sugar and Wild Horses had faded.

      Jimmy Nutt (far right) with members of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. Courtesy of Jimmy Nutt.

      I gave up my office in the ’90s, around 1995, said Jimmy Johnson. "I wanted to start my own publishing company, and I couldn’t do it if I was in their building. I got

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