In the late 1960s, the small northwest Alabama town of Muscle Shoals became a magnet for many top recording stars. Attracted by a phenomenally tight and versatile house band later known as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, many black rhythm and blues singers, including Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, and others, flocked to FAME Studios to discover that the studio’s legendary funky sound was created by a quartet of white men—Jimmy Johnson, David Hood, Barry Beckett, and Roger Hawkins. “The Muscle Shoals Sound” soon was in such demand that the four musicians decided to start their own studio a few miles down the road in Sheffield, and in 1969 opened Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in an old casket warehouse. The first sessions at the new facility were for Cher’s album 3614 Jackson Highway, so named because it was the studio’s address. R.B. Greaves’ “Take a Letter Maria” was the studio’s first hit. Leon Russell dubbed them the Muscle Shoals Swampers on the back of one of his albums, and Lynyrd Skynyrd referenced “the Swampers” in the hit “Sweet Home Alabama.”

Mick Jagger twists the knobs on the console at Muscle Shoals Sound, where the Rolling Stones recorded three songs for the Sticky Fingers, including “Brown Sugar.” (click for larger version)

The Rolling Stones recorded three songs there (“Brown Sugar,” “Wild Horses,” and “You Gotta Move”) for the album Sticky Fingers while on their 1969 tour. Bands not from the U.S. had to apply for either a touring or a recording visa to be permitted to work in the country. The Stones’ first choice had reportedly been Stax Records studio in Memphis, but since Memphis had a higher profile in the recording industry, the band opted for the relative obscurity of Muscle Shoals. Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section bass player David Hood recalls that the Stones sessions were supposed to be top secret. “We worked during the day, then at night they brought in the Stones. We were supposed to keep it a secret that they were coming because they didn’t have the proper work permits to record in the United States,” says Hood. “They flew from Miami and had chartered an old Super Constellation four-motor prop plane. It was smoking and leaking oil, so half the group wouldn’t get on the plane (in Miami). So they flew in on Southern Airways, so it was kind of hard to keep it a secret.” The recording of “Wild Horses” is documented in the film Gimme Shelter. (In one memorable scene, Keith Richards smiles through rotten teeth as he proudly flashes a Minnie Pearl Fried Chicken souvenir.) The unassuming life of a small Alabama town was a perfect respite for rock stars accustomed to being mobbed by fans. One story has it that the Stones would tell curious waitresses in Muscle Shoals’ diners that they were Martha and the Vandellas. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards reportedly wrote “Wild Horses” while lounging in the grass in front of the Executive Inn in Florence (right across the river from Muscle Shoals). Hood remembers the Stones being very business-like. “When people come to a recording studio to work, they’re not doing a lot of showbiz stuff, they gotta work,” he explains. “The way [the Stones] worked up their songs, it was different from us. Whereas we were very quick and would learn a song in 30 or 40 minutes and have it recorded in an hour, they worked all night or sometimes a couple of days on one song. They pretty much knew what they wanted, but they would work a long time to get it because they weren’t polished musicians.”

	Pops and Mavis Staples confer during the recording of the Staples Singers hit “I’ll Take You There.” Pops was reportedly disappointed that he didn’t get to play guitar on the session. (click for larger version)

In 1972, Paul Simon showed up in Muscle Shoals looking for the “black musicians” who had backed up Aretha Franklin. “We worked as a rhythm section together so much that we got really tight. We were very fast,” recalls Hood. “Paul Simon rented the studio and booked us for four or five days to cut one song. And we got it on the first or second take. So that’s what led to us recording ‘Kodachrome’ and ‘Love Me Like a Rock’ and other stuff. We had all this extra time.”

	The tiny town was once a vital component of the recording industry.

Jimmy Cliff came to Muscle Shoals to record “Sitting Here in Limbo” for The Harder They Come soundtrack. “They sent him here trying to make him sound non-Jamaican,” says Hood. “This was before Bob Marley and the Jamaican thing caught hold, so they were trying to Americanize his sound.” Bob Seger cut “Old Time Rock & Roll” and “Mainstreet” at Muscle Shoals Sound. When Bob Dylan was recording there, he brought in Dire Straits guitarist Mark Knopfler to record Dylan’s gospel masterpiece Slow Train Coming. Hood said the Dylan sessions were the only ones to draw a crowd of people hanging around outside the studio. When asked if Dylan, who had just converted to Christianity at the time of Slow Train Coming, exhibited any signs of having become an evangelical Christian, Hood says, “I think more than anything else that was a way to cut a different kind of record, a different style. Jerry Wexler [Atlantic Records] is the one who brought him here. Jerry’s a very shrewd businessman, and he saw that this was a commercial thing here, Bob Dylan changing the message of his songs. He saw it as an opportunity. I’m afraid I’m taking a little of the glamour out of this stuff.”

Cher poses in front of the original studio location.

By 1978, the business had outgrown its Jackson Highway space and the studio moved into a 31,000-square-foot building. The company was sold to Malaco Records, based in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1985. Citing a lack of business, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio closed its doors in February 2005. As to the secret of the Muscle Shoals sound, Hood has a simple definition: “It was our goal not to sound like ourselves, but to sound like the band of the artist we were working with.” &