A Trip to Muscle Shoals (Part 1 - FAME Studios)

In late September, the missus and I traveled a few hours north to Muscle Shoals, AL.  We had made the trip about five years ago, after the shutdown had eased a little bit.  My wife had been battling some health issues, so we decided to take a much-needed trip and we spent several days in North Alabama seeing some interesting sites.  Unfortunately, none of the sites we saw were in Muscle Shoals because everything was closed up tight....I'm assuming still in response to the shutdown, so we spent the night in Florence and headed toward the mountains to the east for the rest of our trip.

This trip was similar, we were in need of a few days away, but I tried to plan things a little better.  We decided to visit FAME Studios, Muscle Shoals Sounds Studio, and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, which is also in the Muscle Shoals area in Tuscumbia.  This time, I made sure everything was up and open and booked tickets, which I highly recommend if you decide to visit.  This week, we will be looking at the FAME Studios, and we'll focus on Muscle Shoals Sounds in a later post.

Ever since I read Peter Guralnick's Sweet Soul Music, I've been fascinated with FAME Records.  There was so much great music coming out of that studio that I'd heard, but there was also a ton of classic tunes that I'd never heard that have become favorites over the years, some of which were recorded at FAME, but ended up on other labels.  At the time I read the book, I was familiar with Stax Records, but I never imagined that there were other labels responsible for producing this outstanding music and FAME was one of the strongest.

Rick Hall

FAME started in 1959, when Tom Stafford, who owned a recording studio in Florence, approached Rick Hall and Billy Sherrill the opportunity to set up a music publishing company, which was known as Florence Alabama Music Enterprises, or FAME.  The studio was located above Florence's City Drug Store, owned by Stafford's father, and was adjacent to a pawn shop where musicians would buy or sell their instruments.  By 1960, Hall split from Sherrill and Stafford and retained the rights to the studio name, moving to an abandoned tobacco warehouse in Muscle Shoals.

In 1961, Hall had recorded the first hit record from the area, Arthur Alexander's "You Better Move On."  Alexander was a fine singer and songwriter whose style blended country music and soul music.  Several of his songs were recorded by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, Rick Nelson, Tina Turner, and Pearl Jam, and Al Bundy spent an entire episode of Married...With Children trying to track down one of his songs ("Anna (Go With Him)").  "You Better Move On" was released on Dot Records out of Nashville and became a hit on the soul/R&B charts, paving the way for the future FAME Studios.

Hall took the proceeds from "You Better Move On" and built a new facility on the present location of Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals.  There, Hall recorded the first track, and the first hit, at the new studio, 1963's "Steal Away," by Jimmy Hughes.  Hall had originally recorded a demo with Hughes at the tobacco warehouse in 1961, but he waited a couple of years to do a full recording with Hughes, who cut the song in one take. 

The rest, as they say, is history.  FAME Studios quickly became a huge draw for recording artists and other labels.....Atlantic and Chess to name a couple.  They recorded hits for Joe Tex ("Hold What You Got"), James & Bobby Purify ("I'm Your Puppet"), Aretha Franklin ("I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You))," Etta James ("Tell Mama"), Wilson Pickett ("Land of 1000 Dances," "Mustang Sally," "Hey Jude"), Arthur Conley ("Sweet Soul Music"), and Clarence Carter ("Slip Away," "Patches," "Snatching It Back"). 

 

FAME has recorded soul (Lou Rawls, Candi Staton, Little Richard, Spencer Wiggins), blues (Bobby "Blue" Bland, Lowell Fulson, Little Milton, Elvin Bishop), country (Mac Davis, Jerry Reed, the Gatlin Brothers, Shenandoah, the Oak Ridge Boys, T.G. Sheppard), and pop artists - Bobbie Gentry recorded "Fancy" here, Paul Anka recorded "Having My Baby," and the Osmonds recorded "One Bad Apple." 

Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham

FAME boasted an impressive group of songwriters as well, including Hall, Sherrill, Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, Donnie Fritts, Terry Thompson, and George Jackson, along with many others.  They had not one, not two, but THREE outstanding rhythm sections that played on most of the recordings without missing a beat (no pun intended).  The first group departed after a couple of years for work in Memphis and Nashville.  The second of the three rhythm sections (later better known as The Swampers) left FAME to form Muscle Shoals Sounds Studio, which produced an equally impressive number of recordings, beginning in the early 70's.  The third group was known as The FAME Gang and recorded several cool instrumentals, also collected by Ace a few years ago.  

Guitar legend Duane Allman played on a number of tracks in the mid/late 60's and he recommended recording "Hey Jude" to Pickett and Hall and played the sizzling guitar solo that paved the way for southern rock.

FAME Studios was the first stop on our road trip.  Over the past few years, I've attended several shows by Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham and have dug deep into their songbooks, thanks to Penn's self-released demo recordings and the UK label Ace's release of his FAME demos as well as compilations of tunes written by the pair, along with other composers.  I've also picked up a couple of other releases by some of the artists listed above (the James Govan set on Ace is a wonderful set by an artist who certainly deserved more than he got) and, probably the coolest collection of them all, I found a copy of The FAME Studios Story 1961-1973, which collects 75 of the best tracks recorded there, including most  of the songs previously mentioned above.  It was released on Ace's subsidiary Kent Records in 2011 and would be a fine addition to any music fan's collection.

Wilson Pickett with the 2nd FAME rhythm section

There are two tours available at the studio - the $20 tour includes both studios used and the $40 tour includes an upstairs visit to Rick Hall's office and a look at a lot of cool memorabilia that you probably won't see anywhere else.  Hall passed away in 2018, but his wife Linda still runs the studio, along with their son Rodney.  The studio continues to record artists, including Drive-By Truckers, Gregg Allman, Jason Isbell, Demi Lovato, Bettye Lavette, Alan Jackson, St. Paul & the Broken Bones, and Mike Farris, with many of the albums and singles continuing to chart.

If you're in north Alabama, I highly recommend this tour.  The tour guides were very good and very informative, and we got to meet Mr. Hall's wife Linda as she was leaving for the day.  She noticed the Dan Penn t-shirt I was wearing and told us some nice things about him.  We also met Johnny Belew of Rhythm and Belews Tours, leading one of those tours, during our visit.  

It was just a great experience all the way around and it was only the beginning of our music-packed weekend.  Below are a few pictures taken during the tour. 

A list of a few of the great tracks recorded at FAME

Rick Hall's desk

These are a few pictures from Studio 2, which we toured first.  Jordan, our guide, is pictured behind the drum set.  He did a fantastic job.

A few photos from Studio 1

A Leslie speaker...I'd never seen one before.

The studio was being used and the band took a break while we toured.

If you are a music fan and happen to be in the area, I highly recommend visiting FAME Studios.  We will be back in a couple of weeks to check out Muscle Shoals Sounds Studios.  Stay tuned.