Muscle Shoals Studios: “Land of 1000 Dances”

Muscle Shoals, Alabama, was the last place anyone wanted to go to make a record: not only was it inconvenient (the absence of direct flights from New York City or Los Angeles meant changing planes in Atlanta, Georgia, or Memphis, Tennessee), it was dry (no bars). But the determination of one man and the musicianship of several others drew customers from near and far and kept the three adjacent towns of Muscle Shoals, Florence, and Sheffield on the musical map for 40 years. Percy Sledge launched his career with “When a Man Loves a Woman” (recorded at Quinn Ivy’s studio in Sheffield), and Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, and the Staple Singers were among the many artists who recorded the first Top Ten hits of their careers in Muscle Shoals after years of trying elsewhere.

Songwriter-engineer-turned-producer Rick Hall set up Fame Studios in Florence in 1961. He recruited his session musicians from a local group—Dan Penn and the Pallbearers—who played on the studio’s first hit, Arthur Alexander’s “You Better Move On.” Atlanta-based publisher Lowery Music provided regular work, and, after Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records brought Pickett to Muscle Shoals to record “Land of 1000 Dances” in 1966, out-of-state visitors became more frequent. When the first group of session musicians moved on (first to Nashville, Tennessee, later to play with Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and others), Hall pulled together a magnificent replacement team, including Spooner Oldham on keyboards, Jimmy Johnson on guitars, David Hood on bass, and Roger Hawkins on drums. Most of this group played on Franklin’s breakthrough single, “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You),” and then left Fame to set up their own Muscle Shoals Sound Studio nearby. In contrast to the racially diverse session players of Memphis, these musicians were all white. But, steeped in gospel and rhythm and blues, they contributed to some of the most soulful records of the era.