Muscle Shoals

Insider of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio .. completely restored to 1970’s era.

What an amazing experience to have a tour of the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in NW Alabama. Who recorded here?  Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Etta James, Paul Simon, The Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel, Duane Allman, Cat Stevens, Lynyrd Skynyrd, just to name a few.

From the 1950’s through 1970’s, this small corner of Alabama became a focal point for R&B, blues, rock and roll, and country music and everything in between. A few great musicians in the 1940’s kick started a local music scene that subsequently exploded with talent. And in an era of pretty strict segregation between white and black in Alabama, the Muscle Shoals musicians often played with each other regardless of race … much due to Rick Hall who founded the Fame studio across town (which we didn’t have time to get to).

If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend watching the Muscle Shoals documentary  which is available on Netflix which goes through much of the history of this tiny community which so impacted the music world.

David Hall (base guitar) played in this corner of the studio for nearly three decades and NO-ONE else was allowed there.

Our tour guide was full of crazy stories such as Mick Jagger finishing off the lyrics for the second chorus of Wild Horses in the ‘loo’ (trust us, a tiny bathroom in the basement of the studio) or that Lynnard Skynyrd recorded their demo of Freebird at Muscle Shoals which was rejected by the record labels … only to be released with different producers a half decade later. We heard the demo track .. which was better stylistically to Dinah and I (and most of the tour group, it seems) than the version that became their largest hit. Go figure.