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  • MALE SPEAKER: One, two, three.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • TRAVIS WAMMACK: It's the South.

  • It's growing up poor, teaching yourself,

  • playing from the heart.

  • I don't think the sound that was

  • created in here was planned.

  • DONNIE FRITZ: The key word to me about Muscle

  • Shoals, it's a groove.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • IAN SVENONIUS: Here we are.

  • We're in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

  • Muscle Shoals is known for a lot of things.

  • It's known for Reynolds Wrap.

  • And it's known for being a swamp.

  • But it's mostly known for American music.

  • The studios Muscle Shoals Sound and Fame have produced,

  • you know, Wilson Pickett records, Percy Sledge records,

  • Rolling Stones, and everything up to Lynard Skynard, the

  • Osmond's, and the group Alabama.

  • We wanted to explore what made this region such a fertile

  • musical region.

  • We're talking to the people who have worked here, who've

  • established Muscle Shoals, put it on the map.

  • And we're going to talk to the young people who are trying to

  • make their own way.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • IAN SVENONIUS: So much music now is based on the music that

  • was made here.

  • What are the central ingredients of that sound?

  • DOC DAILEY: When I think of the Muscle Shoals sound, like,

  • from the old recording era, I think more of an R&B feel.

  • But that's kind of what I think about.

  • I think it's probably more of a recording legacy.

  • You know, we had all the great session players here and

  • studios back in the day--

  • white guys playing soul music.

  • RICK HALL: We all started out as pickers.

  • We all had our own bands and we all played gigs.

  • And the odds were against us.

  • We're recording in a town of 5,000 people where you only

  • have four good guitar players.

  • You only have three good song writers.

  • It's a dry county.

  • You can't buy booze or even beer here.

  • And the thing we have going for us in spite of all of

  • that, we were cutting hit records because we worked

  • harder, longer, and were more driven, and felt the pressure

  • to be competitive with the world.

  • DONNIE FRITZ: We were just kids and learning.

  • But it was a young business.

  • It'd only been like three or four years since Elvis and all

  • these guys from Memphis started.

  • SCOTT BOYER: Yeah.

  • IAN SVENONIUS: First of all, I want to asked how you got

  • started, how you got the job?

  • DAVID HOOD: Well, I started hanging around Fame which was

  • just down the street from the store.

  • I was working at my father's tire store.

  • And my first union scale recording session was a hit, a

  • gold record.

  • And I had to start learning how to play

  • the base after that.

  • RICK HALL: We started out with a little funky

  • demonstration studio.

  • We stapled egg cartons on the walls.

  • And that was in Florence, Alabama, that's where Fame got

  • its name, of course, Florence, Alabama Music Enterprises.

  • DAVID HOOD: This is the legendary Rick Hall who

  • produced Arthur Alexander and the first hits that were from

  • around here.

  • He would find a song or an artist and go in and record

  • that artist with that song.

  • And then he'd go shop it and try to get it

  • played on the radio.

  • RICK HALL: I went on a tour.

  • We called it the Great Vodka Tour.

  • And any black station that had a tower, I'd take them a

  • bottle of vodka, or a bottle of gin, or whatever.

  • Then we left town and we're driving down the highway.

  • And we took a swig a vodka.

  • And said, hey.

  • They're playing our record.

  • IAN SVENONIUS: Yeah.

  • RICK HALL: It also started out with black music.

  • IAN SVENONIUS: Yeah.

  • RICK HALL: And I want to make that clear.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • IAN SVENONIUS: Wilson Pickett came in.

  • This was after he was in the Falcons and was--

  • DAVID HOOD: Yes.

  • They recorded "Midnight Hour" at Stax in Memphis.

  • And it was their first big hit.

  • And Jim Stewart, who owned Stax, said, well, look, we're

  • not going to let you guys come back in here and record

  • anymore stuff.

  • I want everything to be for Stax that's recorded here.

  • And so Jerry Wexler started looking for

  • another place to record.

  • And that's when he brought Pickett.

  • What really got Muscle Shoals music happening was Jerry

  • Wexler bringing Wilson Pickett and then

  • later on, Aretha Franklin.

  • RICK HALL: It's a little strange when you are a white

  • cracker from the State of Alabama and you become known

  • as a producer who produced only blacks acts.

  • So when you get to the Rolling Stones, and Otis Redding, and

  • on and on, you start to make your mark and

  • the word gets out.

  • Wait a minute?

  • What's going on down in Muscle Shoals, Alabama?

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • IAN SVENONIUS: What makes this area so musical or whatever?

  • Or do you think it's anymore musical than any other places?

  • DOC DAILEY: Oh, it's definitely more musical than

  • other places.

  • IAN SVENONIUS: Is it the water?

  • DOC DAILEY: That's what they talk about, the singing river.

  • IAN SVENONIUS: Really?

  • The river?

  • That's interesting.

  • DOC DAILEY: Yes.

  • That's what they say.

  • There's supposedly an Indian legend that there's a lady in

  • the river that sings.

  • And you can actually hear her.

  • IAN SVENONIUS: Does she sing well?

  • DOC DAILEY: I've never heard her.

  • [LAUGHTER]

  • RICK HALL: People started migrating here from other

  • areas of the country, from California, from Los Angeles,

  • from New Orleans, and everywhere.

  • DAVID HOOD: I think that they came here because they had

  • heard a record or something, a hit that was recorded.

  • And they came because they wanted a hit too.

  • RICK HALL: So it's not where you're at, it's the

  • determination you have.

  • New York didn't want me and Los Angeles didn't want me.

  • So it was either Muscle Shoals, or nothing.

  • I just decided to plant myself here and said, look,

  • I'm going to do it.

  • I don't care if it was Wilson Pickett, or Clarence Carter,

  • or Aretha Franklin, or Mack Davis, or Elvis Presley,

  • whoever it was, if I was producing the record, the

  • record became my record.

  • And what you heard on the record was

  • what I wanted to hear.

  • TRAVIS WAMMACK: Back then, we were an exclusive for Fame.

  • And we were punching the clock from 9:00 to

  • I think 5:00 everyday.

  • And you had to be busy.

  • You had to be writing or doing something, you know.

  • IAN SVENONIUS: The Fame Rhythm Section moved over to Muscle

  • Shoals, started their own thing.

  • Did you see that as like a threat to what you were doing

  • or were you excited that this was becoming, like, growth of

  • a new music center?

  • RICK HALL: Well, I was certainly proud of the fact

  • that I felt like a teacher of a bunch of guys

  • that were making it.

  • And I was dumb enough not to know that they were to almost

  • put me out of business.

  • DAVID HOOD: The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section were the rhythm

  • section at Fame before we left and started Muscle Shoals

  • Sound Studios.

  • And so when we left, Rick was a little pissed off at us for

  • leaving him.

  • But he went right ahead and cut hit records without us.

  • RICK HALL: They was so good at what they had done, and they

  • had learned so well that they were kicking my ass.

  • DAVID HOOD: When Rick started having his success as a

  • result, me, guys I work with, all of the sudden people

  • thought that we were experts almost.

  • And so you think, well, maybe I am.

  • DONNIE FRITZ: Well, just one thing led to another.

  • And it just build up to what it became.

  • But it was those early days of young people learning as we

  • went along, you know.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • JAMIE BARRIER: The Fame, like, Ben Tanner

  • used to work in there.

  • And he let us come in at night.

  • And we wrote songs and we had killer microphones.

  • It recorded it perfect.

  • If I go to my brother's house, this real sassy record player,

  • you can, like, hear the earth being ripped apart, you know?

  • It's was just, like, I thought it was awesome.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • JAMIE BARRIER: Florence, Alabama is so--

  • it's such a corpse.

  • It's real easy to kick it.

  • Here it's a wasteland of abandoned massive buildings.

  • The potential, if you want to do it, is, like, unlimited.

  • It's just a matter of, well, I'd rather sit

  • on the couch tonight.

  • And, like, watch television or getting up and

  • doing it, you know.

  • That's like your main battle.

  • It's hard to make a living off of art anywhere in any town--

  • anywhere.

  • I worked at Subway for seven years.

  • I'm, like, I put this many hours into this job and do it

  • for myself I can make ends meet.

  • Yeah, this is the Black Owl Trading Company

  • in Florence, Alabama.

  • I mean, we record bands.

  • We have touring bands.

  • And we do screen printing in there.

  • And that's the printing wheel.

  • And this is our old heat machine.

  • I listen to reggae records all day long and screen print.

  • It's pretty cool.

  • It's been good.

  • We used to get a lot of harassment from the police.

  • But we quit having a lot of the high school bands play,

  • which sucks.

  • But most of those bands were, like, hardcore or metal.

  • Like, we weren't into the music.

  • But we would do it just to, like, just to give them the

  • place to play.

  • The way I learned to do music is like the DC discord style.

  • Putting out your own record, record it yourself for cheap,

  • put out a zine, load up the van.

  • I absolutely love that.

  • You know what I mean?

  • If that's what making it is, that's what I want.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • DOC DAILEY: And there's a lot of the older guys that'll tell

  • you a lot of good stories.

  • That's for sure.

  • But I think the industry has just changed so much that

  • right now it's the wild west as far as I can tell.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • JD MCCORKLE: In Florence there's not really, like, a

  • music venue.

  • There's bars and they have, like, a PA system set up.

  • A big hold back is a law called 49/51.

  • You can't have more revenue coming in from alcohol than

  • you do food.

  • It has to be in a 49-51% ratio.

  • JAMIE BARRIER: I'm like the only guy that, I don't care

  • about that law.

  • All you got to do is clear furniture out of the room.

  • You know what I'm saying?

  • The lousiest nights I ever have are in bars anyway.

  • That's just me.

  • The best times I have are, like, in those weird kind of

  • shows in the laundry room.

  • IAN SVENONIUS: So yeah, what's it like being in a group here?

  • DOC DAILEY: Travel a lot if you want to

  • really play, you know.

  • It's not your ideal place.

  • You know, bands try to tour through here and we can't find

  • shows for them.

  • And people are really beating down the door to come

  • through here now.

  • But you just can't fill the place on a Monday night or

  • Tuesday night.

  • People would rather go and watch someone cover a song by

  • a guy that might be playing down the street,

  • you know, the original.

  • IAN SVENONIUS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  • Yeah.

  • DAVID HOOD: We play on a Wednesday night, which in the

  • South, that's church night.

  • I'm wondered sometimes if Elvis Presley couldn't show up

  • and draw five people or something.

  • It's just the people.

  • It's not a really big scene around here like it is in a

  • larger city.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • DOC DAILEY: Everybody growing up around here, their parents

  • know some session guys.

  • And everybody grew up with guitar in

  • their house and pianos.

  • It's hard to find someone down here that

  • doesn't play a guitar.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • IAN SVENONIUS: I think of the Muscle Shoals thing as kind of

  • this meeting point of all these songs.

  • DAVID HOOD: I think so, too.

  • And I think it was the players, and engineers, and

  • people that created that sound probably more

  • than anything else.

  • SCOTT BOYER: The heart and soul that the people around

  • here play with has always been my favorite thing about music

  • from the Shoals, you know.

  • DONNIE FRITZ: How this can happen in a little bitty town

  • in North Alabama, you know.

  • SCOTT BOYER: Yeah.

  • I don't know whether to call it magic or not, but there's

  • been something going on here that

  • doesn't go on other places.

  • RICK HALL: The main thing is, it's all about music.

  • And it all starts with a song.

  • And we can't forget that.

  • [APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]

  • MALE SPEAKER: One, two, three, four.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

MALE SPEAKER: One, two, three.

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