Yesterday we started the day by going to The Muscle Shoals Recording Studio also known as the home of the Swampers.
1st let’s back track. In the late 1950’s a guy named Rick Hall starts a company called Florence Alabama Music Enterprises or the FAME studios.
He gathers a group of young( less than 24 yrs old) musicians.All are from this rural Alabama area.Were talking these guys lived on farms and lived in 1-2 room houses.When Jerry Wexler( A god like musical producer ) convinces Aretha Franklin to leave Detroit and come to rural Alabama, we’re talking farm fields outside the studio doors. She is extremely skeptical.
When she walks in and sees these lily white young college age guys,you can picture her with one foot out the door. UNTIL
They hit the first notes,soon enough she realizes the power ,rhythm, and finesse these guys play with. At that session she cuts I Never Loved A Man,The Way I Love You.
Her career takes off.
Paul Simon decides to record there because he likes the soulful sound.
He gets to the studio,the guys are hanging around he says he is glad to meet the office staff,where are the musicians? Once again the first notes and Paul has a conversion experience.
Eventually Rick tries to make the musicians take a pay cut,like 30% pay cut.
They are out of there and start their own studio called Muscle Shoals Recording Studio,their choice of building, a casket show room.
I was surprised at how small these areas are.
We’re talking hillbilly decorating.
Using styrofoam blocks to help stop the sound from bouncing off the block walls.
Using burlap cloth to deaden the ceiling reverberations and to stop the rain from leaking in the room.
When Leon Russell was recording his album Carney a cricket had gotten into the burlap and they could not get rid of it.
Leon wrote a song about the cricket,when they did the recording the chirps are in time with the song. Yes you can hear it on the record.
The above bill included writing time. This story is told in Keith Richards great autobiography “Life”. The stones were running out of time before they had to leave.Keith wanted to finish this one song.
So to get some privacy he locks himself in here
This is known as “The Keith” to us insiders.
He is there for 2 hours,writes Wild Horses ,they cut the track and off they go.
Lynard Skynard is cutting an album.They are having trouble with a song and are stuck. They leave to go to lunch,the roadie starts “noodling around” on the piano while they are out.
They return and he tries it out on them.
The song, Freebird.
Roadie becomes an immediate band member,the roadie,it so happens,was a classically trained pianist!
One of the things that Terrell the excellent guide repeated over and over,was how humble these guys remained,they were the top dogs in the cage and they insisted that it was nothing, would talk with you just like you were from next door. To be in this room,to sit at the piano that so much had been composed on, To sit in the chairs where Bob Segar, Paul Simon, Wilson Picket, Otis Redding, Lynda Ronstadt, Aretha all had sat in was unbelievable.
I’ve been to NotreDame in Paris, I’ve been to St Peters in Rome, I’ve climbed the steps Brunelleschi trod while building the dome in Florence,but this felt so much more meaningful. Music is a powerful thing we get to enjoy
It was like every story he told and every minute I was there, just kept filling me with energy.
I sincerely hope each of you gets to go there,especially Pacifico.
A great introduction is to watch the 2015 film “Muscle Shoals”.
If your trying to decide which tour to take the Muscle Shoals Recording Studio is miles better than the FAME Studio Tour
Tomorrow we meet a miracle worker
Good night
Paul
Pau's Travels 