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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
- 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 ...
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He was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1985. Hall was born on January 31, 1932, to Herman and Dollie Daily Hall in Tishomingo County, Mississippi, and was raised in the Freedom Hills area of Franklin County, Alabama. He had a brother and a sister. Hall’s life was touched by a series of tragedies early on, beginning with the ...
The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section is a group of American session musicians based in the northern Alabama town of Muscle Shoals. One of the most prominent American studio house bands from the 1960s to the 1980s, these musicians, individually or as a group, have been associated with more than 500 recordings, including 75 gold and platinum hits.
- 1960s-1980s
- Muscle Shoals, Alabama, U.S.
Mar 6, 2015 · Videos by American Songwriter American Songwriter spoke with venerable FAME Studios producer Rick Hall as he readies publication of his memoir The Man From Muscle Shoals, a book that documents his ...
- Caine O'rear
Musical artist. 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.
Jan 4, 2018 · This talent built a reputation that drew more musical artists to Alabama’s quiet northwestern corner. But the members of the lauded rhythm section also wanted a stake in ownership, and FAME owner Rick Hall wasn’t interested in offering that. (Hall, known as the father of the Muscle Shoals sound, died this week at 85, after a battle with ...
