FAME Studios | |
---|---|
Location | 603 Avalon Avenue, Muscle Shoals, Alabama 35661 |
Coordinates | 34°44′42″N87°40′00″W / 34.74506°N 87.66667°W |
Official name | FAME Recording Studio |
Designated | Dec 15, 1997 [1] |
Official name | Florence, Alabama Music Enterprises (FAME) Recording Studios |
Designated | November 29, 2016 |
Reference no. | 16000397 |
FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios is a recording studio located at 603 East Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, an area of northern Alabama known as the Shoals. Though small and distant from the main recording locations of the American music industry, FAME has produced many hit records and was instrumental in what came to be known as the Muscle Shoals sound. It was started in the 1950s by Rick Hall, known as the Founder of Muscle Shoals Music. [2] The studio, owned by Hall until his death in 2018, is still actively operating. It was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on December 15, 1997, [1] and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. The 2013 award-winning documentary Muscle Shoals features Rick Hall, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (also called The Swampers), and the Muscle Shoals sound originally popularized by FAME.
In 1959, Rick Hall and Billy Sherrill accepted an offer from Tom Stafford, the owner of a recording studio, to help set up a new music publishing company in the town of Florence, Alabama, to be known as Florence Alabama Music Enterprises, or FAME. [3] [4] The studio was first located above Florence's City Drug Store. Two doors down was a pawn shop – "Uncle Sams" – where aspiring artists would buy or pawn their instruments, depending on the trajectory of their careers. The studio was moved to a former tobacco warehouse on Wilson Dam Road in Muscle Shoals in 1960, when Hall split from Sherrill and Stafford, leaving Hall with rights to the studio's name.
Hall soon recorded the first hit record from the Muscle Shoals area, Arthur Alexander's "You Better Move On" in 1961. [5] Hall took the proceeds from that recording to build the current facility, on Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals. In 1963, he recorded the first hit produced in that building, Jimmy Hughes's "Steal Away". [6]
FAME studio prospered, and by the late 1960s pop and soul musicians such as Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, and Solomon Burke had recorded there. Singer Aretha Franklin credited Hall for the "turning point" in her career when she recorded at FAME in early 1967, taking her from a struggling artist to the "Queen of Soul". [7] According to Hall, one of the reasons for FAME's success at a time of stiff competition from studios in other cities was that he overlooked the issue of race, a perspective he called "colorblind". [8] "It was a dangerous time, but the studio was a safe haven where blacks and whites could work together in musical harmony," Hall wrote in his autobiography. [9] Decades later, a publication in Malaysia referred to Hall as a "white fiddler who became an unlikely force in soul music". [10]
As the word about Muscle Shoals began to spread other artists began coming there to record. The Nashville producer Felton Jarvis brought Tommy Roe and recorded Roe's song "Everybody" in 1963. The Atlanta music publisher Bill Lowery, who had mentored Hall in his early days, sent the Tams. The Nashville publisher and producer Buddy Killen brought Joe Tex. Leonard Chess encouraged Etta James to record there, and she made her 1967 hit "Tell Mama" and the Tell Mama album at FAME. Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records brought both Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to record. The recording session with Franklin brought unexpected conflict: one of the horn players sexually harassed the singer, and her husband had him fired from the session. Later that evening Hall went over to make up with Franklin and her husband, but a fight ensued, and the recording session was canceled. Wexler swore to Hall he would never work with him again. [11]
Duane Allman, later of the Allman Brothers Band, pitched a tent and camped out in the parking lot of FAME Studios in 1968 in order to be near the recording sessions occurring there. [12] He soon befriended Rick Hall and Wilson Pickett, who was recording there. While on lunch break, Allman taught Pickett "Hey Jude"; their version of the song was recorded with Allman playing lead guitar. On hearing the session, people at Atlantic began asking who had played the guitar solos, and Hall responded with a hand-written note that read "some hippie cat who's been living in our parking lot". Shortly afterward, Allman was offered a recording contract; auditions for the Allman Brothers Band were later held at FAME Studios. Allman loved the area, and frequently returned to the Shoals for session work throughout his short life.
The session musicians who worked at the studio became known as the Muscle Shoals Horns and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (or the Swampers). In 1969, just after Hall had signed a deal with Capitol Records, the four primary Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section members (Barry Beckett (keyboards), Jimmy Johnson (guitar), Roger Hawkins (drums), and David Hood (bass), left to found a competing business, the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, originally at 3614 Jackson Highway in nearby Sheffield, Alabama. Subsequently, Hall hired the Fame Gang as the new studio band. [13] Also called the Third FAME Rhythm Section, consisted of eight musicians plus arranger-producer Mickey Buckins. This group backed up singers such as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, Bobbie Gentry, Etta James, and Candi Staton during recording sessions at FAME Studios. [14]
Aretha Franklin recorded at FAME on only one occasion, in early 1967; her hit "I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You" was recorded at that time, with the Swampers providing the accompaniment. [15] The track "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" was also recorded during that session. [16] Franklin later publicly acknowledged Rick Hall "for the turning point in her career, taking her from a struggling artist" to a major music star. [17] The entire LP might have been recorded at FAME, but after Franklin's husband Ted White started an altercation, producer Jerry Wexler decided to continue recording in New York, including "Respect", again using the Swampers for the accompaniment. [15] [18]
The studio continued to do well through the 1970s. Hall was able to convince Capitol Records to distribute FAME recordings. [19] [20] In 1971, Rick Hall was named Producer of the Year by Billboard magazine, [21] a year after having been nominated for a Grammy Award in the same category. [22]
As the hits kept coming, Hall expanded into the area of teen pop hits with the Osmonds, a vocal group from Utah, featuring the younger brother Donny Osmond. The collaboration resulted in the hit "One Bad Apple" in 1970, among others, and helped Hall to become named "Producer of the Year" in 1971. As the decade of the 70s rolled in, FAME moved back towards country music, producing hits for Mac Davis, Bobbie Gentry, Jerry Reed, and the Gatlin Brothers. [19] [23] He also worked with the songwriter and producer Robert Byrne to help a local bar band, Shenandoah, top the national Hot Country Songs chart several times in the 1980s and 1990s. [24] Hall's publishing staff of in-house songwriters wrote some of the biggest country hits in those decades. His publishing catalog included many significant items. [19] [25] In 1985, Rick Hall was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, his citation referring to him as the "Father of Muscle Shoals Music." [19]
Successful singers working at FAME included Bobbie Gentry, who recorded the album Fancy (1970), and then with the singer-songwriter Mac Davis, who topped both the Pop and Country charts with "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me" (1972). Davis recorded four gold albums at FAME, with the singles "Texas in My Rear View Mirror" and "Hooked on Music" becoming hits on both the country and pop charts. Many artists recorded with The Fame Gang such as Joe Tex, Bobby Blue Bland, Eddie Floyd, Candi Staton, Clarence Carter, [26] Little Milton, Sawyer Brown, Tony Joe White, Duane Allman, Elkie Brooks, and the Oak Ridge Boys.
Hall continued producing country hits in the 1980s, including Jerry Reed's number 1 records "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)" and "The Bird" in 1982. He also started Gus Hardin's career with the popular "After the Last Good-bye" and had a hit album with Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers, Houston to Denver (1984). Hall's productions on T.G. Sheppard's LPs include Livin' on the Edge (1985), It Still Rains in Memphis (1986), and One for the Money (1987). Top 20 singles included "Fooled Around and Fell in Love" by the Elvin Bishop Group in 1975. Top 10 singles included "In Over My Heart" and "Doncha?" by T.G. Sheppard in 1985. Top 5 singles include "Strong Heart" (1985), "One for the Money" (1987), and a number 1 single, "You're My First Lady" (1987) by T.G. Sheppard also.
Hall then returned to the way he had begun, developing new artists. A local country band that was playing in a club down the street from FAME Studios came to his attention, and he and Robert Byrne co-produced an LP with the group Shenandoah. [19] Hall made a record deal with CBS Records and the group thereafter had top 10 singles with "She Doesn't Cry Anymore" (1988) and "See If I Care" (1990), top 5 singles with "Mama Knows" (1988) and "The Moon Over Georgia" (1991), and six number 1 singles with "The Church on Cumberland Road" (1989), "Sunday in the South" (1989), "Two Dozen Roses" (1989), "Next to You, Next to Me" (1990), "Ghost in This House" (1990), and "I Got You" (1991).
In addition to FAME studios, Hall operated FAME Records, whose original roster included Clarence Carter, Candi Staton, Jimmy Hughes, Willie Hightower and the Fame Gang. The original run of the label was between 1964 and 1974, with distribution handled by Vee-Jay Records from 1964 to 1966, Atco Records from 1966 to 1967, Capitol Records from 1969 to 1972, and United Artists Records from 1972 through early 1974. In 2007, Hall reactivated the FAME Records label through a distribution deal with EMI. [27]
Rick Hall died in early 2018. In its obituary, The New Yorker concluded its coverage of Hall's career with FAME by saying, "Muscle Shoals remains remarkable not just for the music made there but for its unlikeliness as an epicenter of anything; that a tiny town in a quiet corner of Alabama became a hotbed of progressive, integrated rhythm and blues still feels inexplicable. Whatever Hall conjured there—whatever he dreamt, and made real—is essential to any recounting of American ingenuity. It is a testament to a certain kind of hope." [28] An Alabama publication commented that Hall is survived by his family "and a Muscle Shoals music legacy like no other". [29]
An article in the Anniston Star (Alabama) concludes with this epitaph, "If the world wants to know about Alabama — a state seldom publicized for anything but college football and embarrassing politics — the late Rick Hall and his legacy are worthy models to uphold". [30]
In early 2018, Rolling Stone published this evaluation: "Hall's Grammy-winning production touched nearly every genre of popular music from country to R&B, and his Fame Studio and publishing company were a breeding ground for future legends in the worlds of songwriting and session work, as well as a recording home to some of the greatest musicians and recording artists of all time." [19]
After Rick Hall died, his widow Linda Hall continued to run FAME Recording Studio. In 2023, Linda Hall was awarded a Woman In Music Award by the Muscle Shoals Music Association and the Muscle Shoals Songwriters Foundation. [31]
FAME Recording Studio continues to exist as a fully engaged recording facility in Muscle Shoals. In 2007, Bettye LaVette's Grammy-nominated CD The Scene of the Crime , produced by Patterson Hood and Drive-By Truckers, was recorded at FAME Recording Studios. The Truckers also backed Lavette on the record, with contributions from David Hood and Spooner Oldham, from the original studio house band, the Swampers.
Fame Sessions, the second album by the Nightowls, was recorded at FAME Studios in September 2015 in collaboration with David Hood and Spooner Oldham. [32]
Gregg Allman's final album, Southern Blood (2017), was recorded at FAME in March 2016. [33] Other artists who recorded at FAME in recent years include the Drive-By Truckers, Jason Isbell, Demi Lovato, and The Blind Boys of Alabama. [19] Third Day recorded their final album, Revival, at FAME in 2017. More recently, Roadside Glorious, [34] Meg Williams, Big Daddy Wilson, [35] and Australians Murray Cook and The Soul Movers, [36] Misty Blue and Lucie Tiger (2019, 2022) [37] [38] recorded at FAME Recording Studio.
Muscle Shoals is the largest city in Colbert County, Alabama, United States. It is located on the left bank of the Tennessee River in the northern part of the state and, as of the 2010 census, its population was 13,146. The estimated population in 2019 was 14,575.
I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You is the tenth studio album by American singer Aretha Franklin, released on March 10, 1967 by Atlantic Records. It was Franklin's first release under her contract with the label, following her departure from Columbia Records after nine unsuccessful jazz standard albums, and marked a commercial breakthrough for her, becoming her first top 10 album in the United States, reaching number 2 on the Billboard 200. Two singles were released to promote the album: "Respect" and "I Never Loved a Man ". The former topped the Billboard Hot 100, while latter reached the top 10.
Alabama has played a central role in the development of both blues and country music. Appalachian folk music, fiddle music, gospel, spirituals, and polka have had local scenes in parts of Alabama. The Tuskegee Institute's School of Music, especially the Tuskegee Choir, is an internationally renowned institution. There are three major modern orchestras, the Mobile Symphony, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra and the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra; the last is the oldest continuously operating professional orchestra in the state, giving its first performance in 1955.
A session musician is a musician hired to perform in a recording session or a live performance. The term sideman is also used in the case of live performances, such as accompanying a recording artist on a tour. Session musicians are usually not permanent or official members of a musical ensemble or band.
Gerald Wexler was a music journalist turned music producer, and was a major influence on American popular music from the 1950s through the 1980s. He coined the term "rhythm and blues", and was integral in signing and/or producing many of the biggest acts of the time, including Ray Charles, the Allman Brothers, Chris Connor, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, Wilson Pickett, Dire Straits, Dusty Springfield and Bob Dylan. Wexler was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and in 2017 to the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.
Southern soul is a type of soul music that emerged from the Southern United States. The music originated from a combination of styles, including blues, country, early R&B, and a strong gospel influence that emanated from the sounds of Southern black churches. Bass guitar, drums, horn section, and gospel roots vocal are important to soul groove. This rhythmic force made it a strong influence in the rise of funk music. The terms "deep soul", "country soul", "downhome soul" and "hard soul" have been used synonymously with "Southern soul".p. 18
Eddie Hinton was an American songwriter and session musician, best known for his work with soul music and R&B singers. He played lead guitar for Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section from 1969 to 1971 and after leaving the band, he was replaced by Pete Carr as lead guitarist.
"I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)" is a 1967 single released by American soul singer Aretha Franklin. Released on Atlantic Records as the first big hit of her career and the lead single from her tenth studio album of the same name, it became a defining song for Franklin, peaking at number one on the rhythm and blues charts and number nine on the pop charts. The B-side was "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man". Before this Franklin had placed only two Top 40 singles on the pop chart during her modest tenure with Columbia Records.
Dewey "Spooner" Lindon Oldham Jr. is an American songwriter and session musician. An organist, he recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, at FAME Studios as part of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section on such hit R&B songs as Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman", Wilson Pickett's "Mustang Sally", and Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved a Man ". As a songwriter, Oldham teamed with Dan Penn to write such hits as "Cry Like a Baby", "I'm Your Puppet", and "A Woman Left Lonely" and "It Tears Me Up".
The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section is a group of American session musicians based in the northern Alabama town of Muscle Shoals. One of the most prominent American studio house bands from the 1960s to the 1980s, these musicians, individually or as a group, have been associated with more than 500 recordings, including 75 gold and platinum hits. They were masters at creating a southern combination of R&B, soul and country music known as the "Muscle Shoals sound" to back up black artists, who were often in disbelief to learn that the studio musicians were white. Over the years from 1962 to 1969, there have been two successive groups under the name "Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section" and the common factor in the two was an association with Rick Hall at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals.
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio is an American recording studio in Sheffield, Alabama, formed in 1969 by four session musicians known as The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. They had left nearby FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals to create their own recording facility.
Charles Chalmers is an American saxophonist, backup vocalist, songwriter and producer. He has written several hit songs for many recording artists, and has also arranged and performed on many Grammy winning recordings. Seven of those recordings are in the Grammy Hall of Fame: Al Green's "Let's Stay Together"; Aretha Franklin's "Respect," "Chain of Fools" and "Natural Woman"; Dusty Springfield's "Son of a Preacher Man"; and Wilson Pickett's "Mustang Sally" and "Land of a Thousand Dances." He also holds an Album of the Century award for his work on Aretha Franklin's, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You.
Norbert Auvin Putnam is an American musician, studio owner and record producer who was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2019. He got his start as a bass player in the studio house band in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and from there was recruited to move to Nashville in 1965. He became a successful session player on recordings by artists including Roy Orbison, Al Hirt, Henry Mancini, Dan Fogelberg, Linda Ronstadt, J. J. Cale, Tony Joe White, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Michael Card, Ian & Sylvia and Bobby Goldsboro. Putnam published a memoir in 2017 entitled Music Lessons Vol. 1: a Musical Memoir, in which he chronicled recording sessions with Elvis Presley and other artists.
WLAY is an AM radio station serving the Florence/Muscle Shoals, Alabama, market and is also heard on a translator at 104.7 on the FM band; it is licensed to the city of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. WLAY is owned by Mike Self and Parker Griffith, through licensee Singing River Media Group, LLC.
Roe Erister "Rick" Hall was an American record producer, songwriter, and musician who became known as the owner of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. As the "Father of Muscle Shoals Music", he was influential in recording and promoting both country and soul music, and in helping develop the careers of such musicians as Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Duane Allman and Etta James.
Jesse Willard "Pete" Carr was an American guitarist. Carr contributed to successful recordings by Joan Baez, Luther Ingram, Bob Seger, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, Joe Cocker, Boz Scaggs, Percy Sledge, The Staple Singers, Rod Stewart, Barbra Streisand, Wilson Pickett, Hank Williams, Jr., and many others, from the 1970s onward.
"Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" is a song written by Chips Moman and Dan Penn, and made famous by Aretha Franklin. Her version was released on February 10, 1967. Rolling Stone listed it as number 476 in their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
George Henry Jackson was an American blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll/rock and soul singer-songwriter. His prominence was as a prolific and skilled songwriter: he wrote or co-wrote many hit songs for other musicians, including "Down Home Blues", "One Bad Apple", "Old Time Rock and Roll" and "The Only Way Is Up". As a southern soul singer he recorded fifteen singles between 1963 and 1985, with some success.
Muscle Shoals is a 2013 American documentary film about FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and the nearby Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Directed by Greg "Freddy" Camalier, the film was released by Magnolia Pictures on September 27, 2013. It features numerous recording artists as well as the staff and musicians associated with the studios.
"Tell Mama" is a song written by Clarence Carter, Marcus Daniel and Wilbur Terrell. It is best known in its 1967 recording by Etta James. An earlier version of the song was first recorded in 1966 by Carter, as "Tell Daddy".
Recognized as the "Father of Muscle Shoals Music," maverick producer, publisher, songwriter, musician and studio owner Rick Hall founded FAME Recording Studios and produced the Muscle Shoals music industry's first national hits.
FAME Recording Studio's name is actually an acronym for 'Florence Alabama Music Enterprises.'
The FAME Gang even did an album on themselves... The Fame Gang isn't just a title for whatever musicians happened to be available on a given day.
Atlantic picked her up and in early 1967 sent her to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals
deal with EMI ... combined new material by FAME artists with reissues of classic recordings from Muscle Shoals' Southern soul heyday..
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)