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| From | GaryPig@aol.com |
| Subject | First Hunter, and Now THIS..... |
| Date | Mon, 21 Feb 2005 17:15:45 EST |
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Muscle Shoals Shuts Down
Alabama studio birthed Dylan, Stones, Aretha records
Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, the Alabama venue where Aretha Franklin, Bob
Dylan, Wilson Pickett, the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon all made classic
records, has closed its doors forever.
"It's a sad day in America," says producer, session musician and arranger Al
Kooper. "So many great records were made there. The musicians, engineers and
the magic of the room made it special."
Muscle Shoals Sound Studios was founded in 1969 in an old Sheffield, Alabama,
casket warehouse by musicians Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins, David Hood and
Jimmy Johnson, who doubled as its famous house band, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm
Section (a.k.a. "the Swampers," as immortalized in Skynyrd's "Sweet Home
Alabama"). Their first client was Cher, who recorded her 3614 Jackson Highway album
there, and named it after the studio's address.
Atlantic Records producer/executive Jerry Wexler was an early supporter,
booking many of the label's artists into the studio. "It seemed we could do
nothing but make good records: Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson --
Lulu came from England," says Wexler. "We had this little hideaway, this little
retreat with these really terrific musicians, these incredible white boys who
played the blues so authentically that it caused a lot of head-scratching. The
best part of my career was not the gold records or the Hall of Fame or awards
-- it was hearing the music being recorded live at that time."
After more than three decades of operation, the studio -- which moved to a
31,000 square-foot building on the banks of the Tennessee River in 1978 --
recorded its last sessions in December and shuttered on January 14th because of
declining business. The two Neve consoles have been sold to studios in Los
Angeles and Detroit, the studio owners are exploring donating memorabilia to the
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and a local film production company has purchased the
property.
"It almost brought me to tears when I had to do this," says co-owner Wolf
Stephenson, who, along with his two fellow executives of blues/gospel label
Malaco Records, purchased the studio from the Rhythm Section members in 1985. "It's
heartbreaking."
"It's a strange thing," adds Hood. "All of a sudden, the gold records are
down off the walls . . . I'm not sure I know what to think yet."
However, for artists like Bob Seger -- who, after hearing the Rhythm
Section's work on Arthur Conley's "Sweet Soul Music," recorded five albums at Muscle
Shoals -- it was not the building but the band that made the studio special.
"Muscle Shoals did the ballads like 'Main Street' much better than my band,"
Seger says. "The wonderful thing about them is the second you started playing the
song, it sounded like a record."
Another attraction was that the studio's small-town location was far away
from big-city distractions and prying eyes. "The town never impinged upon
anyone," says Wexler, recalling a day when the Rolling Stones ordered breakfast at
the local Howard Johnson's. "One little waitress said, 'Are you a group?' One of
the members said, 'Yeah, we're a group. We're Martha and the Vandellas.'"
Scottish-born rocker Mark Knopfler, who first recorded with Bob Dylan at the
studio, found the cuisine somewhat lacking. "Jerry introduced me to salted ham
and grits," he says of Wexler. "I don't understand grits. To me, they always
tasted like wet newspaper." But, for Knopfler, recording at Muscle Shoals made
it all worth it. "Laptops and home stations are fine, but it's another thing
to be in a proper recording studio full of creative people all sharing in the
same piece of music at the same time."
Hood, whose son Patterson fronts the Drive-By Truckers, maintains that all
that magic still resides in Alabama. "I don't want the closing of Muscle Shoals
Sound to make anybody think that music is no longer happening here," he says.
"It's been happening since before I started, and it's still going on today. It
was always the people."
BEVERLY KEEL
(Posted Feb 18, 2005)
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