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Aug 16, 2023 · The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, also known as The Swampers, consisted of four men you've definitely heard — but likely never heard of. Session musicians David Hood on bass, Barry Beckett on keyboards, Jimmy Johnson on rhythm guitar, and Roger Hawkins on drums played on scores of hit records in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s and helped arrange songs for huge acts like the Rolling Stones, Aretha ...
- Amy Beeman
Roe Erister “Rick” Hall (1932-2018) is widely regarded as a principal figure in the formation of the music recording scene in Muscle Shoals, Colbert County. He co-founded Florence Alabama Music Enterprises (FAME) in 1959; then, acquiring the business in 1960, Hall established FAME Recording Studio on Wilson Dam Road, moving the FAME operations to its […]
- Home to Some of The Greatest Records in History
- Rick Hall and The Beginning of Fame Music
- The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section
- Percy Sledge: When A Man Loves A Woman
- The Muscle Shoals Sound
- Sessions with Aretha Franklin
- Enter The Allman Brothers
- Building Muscle Shoals Sound Studio
- The Rolling Stones: Sticky Fingers
- Feuds, Freebird, and The Fame Gang
In 1924, Wilson Dam was completed, destroying the hazardous shoals that gave the new town and its neighborhood its name. Life in Muscle Shoals is slow – it can feel as though time has stood still there. It’s not a big town – population some 13,000 – and yet it’s home to some of the greatest records in the history of popular music. Blues pioneer WC ...
Rick Hall grew up in a house with a dirt floor in the nearby Freedom Hills. “We just kind of grew up like animals,” he recalled. When he was still a boy, his three-year-old brother died in a tragic accident after falling into a tub of scalding water as their mother was doing the washing in the backyard. His parents’ marriage collapsed in the afterm...
When Hall returned to Muscle Shoals, it was with a determination to immerse himself in the business of making records. Backed by his new father-in-law, Hall built a studio in an old warehouse. A chance encounter with a young singer-songwriter called Arthur Alexander led to Hall’s first hit, “You Better Move On,” which made it to No.24 on Billboard’...
Percy Sledge recorded “When A Man Loves A Woman” in nearby Sheffield, Alabama, in a studio owned by Hall’s friend, local DJ Quin Ivy, backed by a number of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. When he heard it, Rick Hall recognized that it sounded like a No.1 hit. Hall called Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records in New York and struck a deal (taking a sha...
The Muscle Shoals style fused hillbilly, blues, rock’n’roll, soul, country, and gospel, to create a sound that cherry-picked the best features of each to forge something new. They close-mic’d the kick drum, and the FAME recordings pumped with heavy bass and drums. But the playing was light and loose, the songs melodic and full of stories. And, thro...
Aretha Franklin had failed to make an impact in five years recording for CBS, so after the label dropped her, Wexler snapped her up and took her to Muscle Shoals in 1967. She and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section struggled at first to find a mutual groove, but once they hit it, everything changed. The first song they recorded at FAME together was “I...
A combination of loyalty to Hall and superstitious belief in his studio brought Pickett back to Muscle Shoals in late 1968, despite Wexler’s refusal to work with Hall again. And the sessions would introduce the talents of a young guitar player called Duane Allman. After injuring his elbow in a horse-riding accident, Allman had turned to bottle-neck...
The times were very much a-changing by now, however, and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section decided that this was the right moment to tell Hall that they were going into business in direct competition with FAME. Hall had called them into his office to sign them up to an exclusive contract on the terms of his new deal with Capitol Records. He remember...
It took the best part of year for things to take off, but in early December 1969, The Rolling Stones booked into the studio to kick off what would become their Sticky Fingers album. Keith Richardsexplained that it was match made in heaven: “The sound was in my head before I even got there. And then, of course, when it actually lives up to it and be...
The feud between Hall and Wexler meant that both studios had to up their game. Over at FAME, Hall put together a new band, dubbed The Fame Gang, and recorded hit records with Joe Tex, Tom Jones, The Osmonds, Candi Staton, Bobbie Gentry, King Curtis, Little Richard, Paul Anka, Bobby Womack, and Clarence Carter. In 1973, Rick Hall was named producer ...
Apr 21, 2023 · The “Muscle Shoals” doc centers on the arc of mustachioed maestro Rick Hall and The Swampers, aka Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, the studio musicians who helped make countless hits at FAME ...
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Members: Barry Beckett: February 4, 1943 - June 10, 2009. Roger Hawkins: October 16, 1945 - May 20, 2021. David Hood: September 21, 1943 -. Jimmy Johnson: February 4, 1943 - September 5, 2019. Hailed as four of the finest studio musicians in the world, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section – made up of keyboardist Barry Beckett, drummer Roger ...
Roe Erister "Rick" Hall [1] (January 31, 1932 – January 2, 2018) [2] was an American record producer, songwriter, and musician who became known as the owner of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Jul 13, 2023 · Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (MSRS) is one of America’s most notable American recording-studio “house bands.” The quartet emerged during the golden age of “rock & soul” in the 1960s and early 1970s and played on hit records by soul recording stars such as Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett, and Aretha Franklin, as well as on country-rock songs by Glenn Frey ...