Magic is the word that comes to mind for me
when I think of Muscle Shoals.
It's about alchemy, it's about turning metal,
the iron in the ground, the rust, into gold.
You just have to listen.
And you will be transported.
You will be changed.
You're gonna hear some of the greatest voices
that ever were.
One, two, three!
One, two, three.
Ow!
Uh!
All right!
Uh!
♪ Got to know how to Pony
♪ Like Bony Moronie
♪ Mash Potato
♪ Do the Alligator
♪ Put your hand on your hips, yeah ♪
♪ Let your backbone slip
♪ Do the Watusi
♪ Like my little Lucy
Ow!
Uh!
You know, I feel all right.
Feel pretty good, y'all.
♪ Na, na-na na-na, na-na na-na, na-na na-na na-na ♪
♪ Na-na na-na
Come on, y'all, let's say it one more time.
♪ Na, na-na na-na, na-na na-na, na-na na-na na-na ♪
♪ Na-na na-na
Ohh!
♪ Dancin' in the alley
♪ With Long Tall Sally
♪ Twistin' with Lucy
♪ Doin' the Watusi
♪ Roll over on your back
♪ I like it like that
♪ Ohh, help me
We started to hear this sound coming out.
There was an amazing feel.
Kind of, uh, magnetic, I suppose in a way, sound wise.
And then after a while, this word, "Muscle Shoals"
comes into the picture, and you put two and two together
and that was when I said, "If we get the chance,
we got to go down there," you know.
People now still ask me, "What is it about
Muscle Shoals?"
It's just a little village on the Alabama border.
Why does that music come out of there?
It's an enigma.
How did so much music take place
in such an undescript little town?
There was just something about that place,
something that still to this day nobody can explain.
At different points in time, on this planet,
there are certain places
where there is a field of energy.
At this certain point in time for this number of years,
there was Muscle Shoals.
It's a unique thing, rooms and record-making
like that, it doesn't happen very often.
It's usually somebody like Rick Hall that's like
a type of maniac.
With the drive and the foresight to do it, you know,
and he's a tough guy.
This area here is where my roots are.
And it's helped me develop into whatever I am today.
My father was a sawmiller
and we lived way out in the Freedom Hills.
No houses, no neighbors.
No kids to play with.
The floor in our house was dirt.
The heater was made out of an oil drum.
We slept on straw beds made out of straw
that we pulled up in the fields.
We had no bathing facilities, no toilets, nothing.
And we just kind of grew up like animals.
That made me a little bitter.
Somewhat driven.
I wanted to be special.
I wanted to be somebody.
♪ Can you slip away, slip away ♪
♪ Slip away, yeah
♪ Oh, I need you so
The first record I cut in this studio
was a record called "Steal Away" by Jimmy Hughes.
Brand new building.
And I was hoping it had the magic.
I didn't know.
So I brought my band in, and I went up
in the control room and sat down.
Okay, all set?
I turned on the microphones and nervously hit
the talk-back button to the musicians
and said with a slight crackle in my voice, "Rolling."
One, two, one, two, three, four.
When they kicked off "Steal Away,"
I sat behind the console and wept.
I just had huge chill bumps come up on my arms.
And the hair on the back of my neck actually stood up.
And of course, this was the birth
of the Muscle Shoals sound.
♪ I've got to see you
♪ Somehow
♪ Not tomorrow
♪ Right now
♪ I know it's late, whoa, I can't wait ♪
♪ So come on and steal away ♪
I've heard entertainers and producers tell me
that we got some kind of sound here
that they can't get anywhere else.
They have to come here.
It's that oh, deep down into your stomach,
coming up out of your gut,
coming up out of your heart.
There's that Muscle Shoals sound.
♪ I won't tell
♪ Anybody else
♪ I'll keep it to myself ♪
♪ I know it's late, whoa, I can't wait ♪
♪ So come on and steal away ♪
That sound made it through to even Ireland
and Britain.
And we felt the blood in that.
We felt the... the sort of pulse of it.
And we wanted some, you know?
You gotta understand that Muscle Shoals
had its own kind of R&B.
Different from Memphis, different from Detroit,
different from New York, different from L.A.
How did it happen in this little town
of 8,000 people, to start this whole style
of music?
It always seems to come out of the river.
You know, even in Liverpool,
you know, the Mersey sound.
And then of course, Mississippi.
And here you have the Tennessee River.
It's like the songs come out of the mud.
We're at a place called Ishatae.
It means it's a special place, a holy place.
It's a place of music.
And it's a place of people.
I've been working on it for 32 years.
There's over eight million pounds of stones here.
It's a memorial to my great-great-grandmother.
She was an American Indian, and her people were Euchee.
My grandmother's people called this river
that we call the Tennessee today, they called it
Nunnuhsae, the river that sings.
They believed a young woman lived in the river,
sang songs to 'em, and protected 'em.
In the year 1839, my great-great-grandmother
was removed from right here in Muscle Shoals.
She was taken to the Indian Nations,
what is now present-day Muskogee, Oklahoma.
When Grandmother got out there to Oklahoma,
she said there were no songs.
She went and listened to all the streams she could find
and there were no songs.
They couldn't sing, they couldn't dance.
They couldn't hold their ceremonies.
And they got to be very sad people.
So, she started to come back home.
She walked all the way back.
It took her roughly five years.
She had to come back to this river.
The river that sings.
The great dams have softened the woman in the river's songs,
but if you go to very quiet places and listen,
you can still hear her songs.
I know; I hear her songs nearly every day.
When I was a young man, starting out in the music business,
Billy Sherrill and I, who were writing partners,
got a phone call from a guy that wanted
to start a publishing company with us,
and had the sum of $500 to spend on us,
which we thought was a gold mine.
So, Tom Stafford was a dream come true.
We went in business and we had a little bitty studio
over Tom's father's drugstore.
We got a few cuts, made a few bucks,
and one day, I was called in to a meeting with Billy and Tom
and they advised me that they were not happy
with the way things were going and thought
that I was a little too much of a workaholic.
And said that they wanted to have fun
while they were having hit records,
and that I was just too adamant
and too, uh, strong-willed
and too pushy.
So, they decided to... to let me go.
So, I obviously went home, began to lick my wounds,
and was very bitter.
During this time, I worked at a place called
Reynolds Metals Company in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
And I married my first wife, Faye Marie, there.
She and I had been married about 18 months
and we went to Hamilton to see Benny Martin in concert.
It was about sundown, and I met a car
who was traveling very fast.
I swerved to go around that car.
I hit some loose gravels on the side of the road
and went into a spin, a tailspin.
The car turned end over end a couple, three times,
and landed on its top.
I didn't know if she was out or in, but couldn't find her
in the car, it was total darkness.
I began to yell for her and couldn't hear any noise,
except I could hear gasoline running out
of the gas tank into the car somewhere.
And I thought, of course, it's gonna be my death
because the car's gonna catch fire
and I can't get out.
I got out of the car and searched around
in kudzu vines up to here.
Finally, some people stopped with a flashlight
and we found her.
I nursed her on the way to Hamilton Hospital.
About two o'clock in the morning,
the doctor came to me and said, "Your wife has passed on."
And, of course, I freaked out.
I became a drunk, a vagabond.
A tramp.
That changed my whole life.
It was hard times and all I had to cling to
was my music.
I slept in my car.
I ate in my car.
And I wrote songs in my car.
But I continued playing music and it was the only love I had
at that time, and, so...
I joined a little local band in Hamilton.
From that time on, for five years,
I wrote songs, played music,
and chased the women.
♪ Somebody loan me a dime ♪
♪ I need to call my old time, used to be ♪
All this gravitated towards, what am I gonna do
with the rest of my life and I decided
to come back to Muscle Shoals,
but this time I came back with a vengeance.
I came back with a determination that I was gonna
kick some ass and take some names.
And I was going to make it in the music business.
And so I set up shop in a little candy and tobacco warehouse.
I closed the doors, I hid my car.
I didn't talk to girls, I didn't make dates,
I didn't do anything except write songs
and I was totally obsessed with the business.
And so shortly after that, I ran into Arthur Alexander,
who was a local bellhop at the Sheffield Hotel.
And he played me a song and said, "What do you think?"
And I said, "I think it's a hit."
So he said, "What are we gonna do about it?"
And I said, "We're gonna cut it."
He said, "When," I said, "Tomorrow."
I brought my band in.
Norbert Putnam, David Briggs,
Jerry Carrigan, Peanut Montgomery,
and Terry Thompson were the first rhythm section
to be in the studio and to cut a hit record.
Now, you gotta realize Rick Hall is this older man.
We're all 18, 19 years old.
Rick's what, 28, 29?
He had the vision for the recording.
Rick made records with a group of teenage kids, okay,
that became hit records, world-class records.
♪ You asked me to give up the hand of the girl I love ♪
♪ You tell me I'm not the man she's worthy of ♪
The very first record, "You Better Move On"
by Arthur Alexander that I produced,
I had anything to do with was a hit.
Not the second or third, but the first session we cut
was a hit record.
I know Rick was determined to cut that hit
and he did it, but if he hadn't,
I'm of the opinion that none of this
Muscle Shoals movement would have ever happened.
♪ That's up to her
♪ Yes, and the Lord above
♪ You better move on
Rest of the world started looking at Muscle Shoals.
Thank you very much.
We're gonna do a slow one now, it's called, uh,
"You Better Move On."
It was the only thing we did like that.
And the girls really adored this song.
It was a big hit for us in England.
It was our number-one record.
♪ If you ask me to give up the hand ♪
♪ Of the girl I love
I think the Beatles beat us to Arthur Alexander
by, like, a couple of weeks.
You know, they cut "Anna" and I think we cut
"Better Move On" maybe a month later.
There's, uh, a love of Arthur Alexander.
♪ You ask me to give up the only love ♪
♪ I've ever had
At that time, we had no idea where this was recorded,
but it's interesting to know
one of the first things that we cut was
a Muscle Shoals production, you know.
♪ Better move on
This original Muscle Shoals rhythm section
opened for the Beatles in 1964,
their first American concert.
And, of course, a year later, in '65,
we all go to Nashville.
The guys went on to become great pickers and producers
and learned from experience here at FAME,
man, we can do it.
When they left, there was nobody else.
We were the only game in town for him to get.
They took the ball that we started rolling,
and they rolled it and made it bigger.
Individually, I never really thought we were great players.
But together, we were great players.
We had the magic together.
We liked playing funky.
All funky was was that we didn't know
how to make it smooth.
We're rock 'n' roll players, okay?
You just didn't expect them to be as funky
or as greasy as they were.
♪ I know a place
♪ Ain't nobody cryin'
The grooves that we set up came from
rhythm and blues music.
I remember when Paul Simon called Stax Records,
talked to Al Bell.
And said, "Hey, man, I want those same black players"
that played on 'I'll Take You There.'"
He said, "That can happen, but these guys"
are mighty pale."
♪ Let me take you there
♪ I'll take you there
♪ You got to, got to, gotta let me ♪
A lot of people could not believe
that my whole band was white guys that played
behind me.
People have arrived at Muscle Shoals
expecting to meet these black dudes,
and they're a bunch of white guys
that look like they worked in the supermarket
around the corner.
Muscle Shoals rhythm section: David Hood, bass player.
Jimmy Johnson, guitar.
Roger Hawkins, drums.
Barry Beckett, keyboard player.
Later on, became known as the Swampers.
A strong rhythm section made the difference
when you went in the studio every day with the same pickers
and the same players, and they became a team,
and it was hard to beat that.
We began to bring in songwriters and musicians,
anybody that wanted to be in the music business.
I guess during high school, I started going over
to FAME studio.
That was like a melting pot for songwriters, musicians.
I was, as a teenager, really impressed with all that.
I came up here and I'm just a kid, really.
And all these people here were kids, too.
I mean, nobody knew anything.
We're just doing our best to learn how to make records
and learn how to write songs and learn how to play music.
Most of these guys around here, including myself,
are country people.
We come from the country.
Arthur Alexander, Jimmy Hughes,
they were the pioneers as far as the artist goes
down here, Percy Sledge.
These are just local people.
I'm from a small town called Leighton, right outside
of Muscle Shoals.
I was a little guy working in the field,
choppin' cotton, singing to the older people
in the field that always said that one day,
my voice would be heard all over the world,
but I never thought that would happen.
Percy worked at the local hospital.
I was a orderly working with the sick people.
I'd sing a song for 'em, you know,
and they'd go to sleep.
I got such a big kick out of that, you know,
and I could see my patient layin' up there,
smilin', you know, and feelin' better.
So one day I was invited to sing at the Elks Club
here in Sheffield.
And it just so happened Quin Ivy,
who was a disc jockey at WLAY,
and he heard me sing this song.
He loved the melody and the feel.
He said, "Percy Sledge, have you ever been interested"
in cuttin' a record?"
I remember the day I got the call.
"Will you come do keyboards on this recording session?
Be the first recording this artist has ever done."
When I came in to the studio,
I was shakin' like a leaf.
I was scared.
♪ When a man loves a woman ♪
♪ Can't keep his mind on nothin' else ♪
♪ He'll trade the world for the good thing he's found ♪
Every time that he sang the song,
he had different levels for different parts
of the song.
And everything had to be in your wrist.
Bring the level up and down.
All I had was a voice, I didn't know anything
about no singing, you know.
Somehow, I got one down, and Percy was on time with me
with a great vocal.
♪ He'd give up all his comforts ♪
♪ And sleep out in the rain ♪
♪ If she said that's the way it ought to be ♪
All this was just so new to me and these guys
made me feel like hey, man,
you can do it, you've got it, you know.
I used to call them my family.
Donna Thatcher, all of them, you know.
My first wonderful experience was singing on
"When a Man Loves a Woman" with Percy Sledge
and you'd never know when you're making history.
♪ Baby, please don't treat me bad ♪
Quin called me one Sunday afternoon
and said, "Do you know of a place we can get a deal?"
And I said, "I think so," and I picked up the phone
and called Jerry Wexler in New York.
Jerry Wexler was probably the biggest record company guru
in the world.
It was a man named Rick Hall who had a studio
in Muscle Shoals.
I said, "You told me if I've heard something"
I thought was a big hit
"to call you, and I'm callin' you."
Play a little bit of this thing here.
And I heard some music coming from there,
and it was fabulous.
What do you think?
We pressed and distributed the record,
and that was a big hit.
♪ When a man loves a woman ♪
That began a great relationship between Jerry Wexler,
Atlantic Records, and Rick Hall.
And of course, the record's still one of the most
classic records in the business.
♪ If she's played him for a fool ♪
♪ He's the last one to know ♪
Same melody that I sang when I'm in the field.
I just wails out in the woods
and let the echo come back to me.
♪ When a man loves a woman ♪
♪ He can do her no wrong ♪
I, George C. Wallace...
During that era of recording basically all-black acts,
you gotta remember that George Wallace
was standing in the schoolhouse door
at the University of Alabama,
making sure that no black people came to school there.
And I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow,
and segregation forever.
This was a politics that could not see
past the color of your skin.
It's the kind of thing that I know people
of this era, they wouldn't want to believe what it used to be.
I think of all the times when we used to take a break
from the studio to go out and to eat.
I was somewhat frightened from time to time
when we'd go and buy dinner for half a dozen black people.
That's where you saw, like, what are you...
what are y'all doin' sitting there?
Even though the civil rights movement was already
in effect, it still hadn't dawned on people
that this is the new era.
I have a dream that one day,
down in Alabama with its vicious racists,
one day right there in Alabama,
little black boys and black girls
will be able to join hands with little white boys
and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
When I was a young boy,
it was always, uh, if I met a white boy,
I had to say, "This is Mr. Robert
or, uh, Mr. Jimmy."
But... but in the studio, we got away from that,
it was Jimmy, it was Robert, it was Clarence, you know.
Go that way.
♪ On the go
Or something like, you know.
Do it one more time.
You just work together, you never thought about
who was white and who was black.
You thought about the common thing
and it was the music.
We were color blind.
There was never any situation that came up
in the studio here ever
about, "You're black and I'm white."
And you think about the South.
They didn't believe that black and white people
could live together.
And here are vinyl records
that prove that not only can they live together,
you might not know who's black and who's white.
At the time, this was revolutionary stuff.
Music played a big part in changing the thoughts
of people, especially in the South, about race.
By us being in Muscle Shoals and puttin'
music together,
I think it went a long ways to help people understand
that we all were just humans.
My stock went sky-high with Wexler after
the Percy Sledge single went number one worldwide,
and he said, "Rick, I have a little bit of a dispute"
with Jim Stewart at Stax and he don't want me to cut
"any more records over at his studio."
The welcoming mat for me at Memphis was cold.
So I got the idea of calling Rick Hall
and saying, "Hey, can I bring Wilson Pickett down here"
and, uh, make some records with you guys?"
Which we did.
I gets off the plane, southern airlines,
and here, this long, tall white man,
we call 'em peckerwoods.
I met Wilson Pickett, picked him up at the airport.
He looked like, to me, a dangerous man.
He walked up like he'd known me for 500 years.
"Hey, Wilson, come on, come on.
We gon' cut some fuckin' records."
Why, we gon' really cut some records.
Come on, Wilson, come on," I said, "Wait, wait,"
I'm nervous, you know what I mean?
Now what this white man know about producin'
a Wilson Pickett?
And on the way to the studio,
I'll look at him and he'll look at me,
and I could see it in his eyes, he was thinkin',
"What am I doin' with this cracker
down here in Alabama?"
We went through the cotton patch,
people still pickin' cotton.
I said, "Is that what I think it is?"
"Yeah, Wilson, they're still picking cotton down here."
You can see his studio from the cotton patch.
Pickett had a very quick temper.
I was there to make it work, period.
You know what I mean?
On session, if he didn't like what was goin' on
and didn't like the attitude,
he's just liable to whip the drummer.
Say, "Come out, son, I'm gonna beat your ass."
I was nervous, I was sittin' behind the drums
and I was gettin' things together, like drummers do,
checkin' things.
Our band was super nervous the first time we worked
for Jerry Wexler.
We had this feeling that if we couldn't play
what he asked us to play, we'd probably be fired
on the spot.
I was apprehensive, very leery,
because it was entirely different
from what we had been doing in New York,
which was recording with written arrangements,
arrangers, and studio players who read the charts.
We would get in the studio and would add a little bit
of this, a little bit of that,
and then we'll go to lunch, come back,
and we didn't like that, take it away,
you know, that kind of stuff.
We would sit there and we'd make that record together.
Those guys are sittin' there in the studio,
and just find the groove, you know?
And I'd be right there with 'em, singing along
and we'd all work it out together.
Rick Hall, he stood there every minute.
Rick Hall was his own engineer.
He built the studio.
He knew all the electrical wiring in there.
And that drummer they had was fantastic.
He was a funky drummer, but he wasn't
wearing himself out all over the place.
He was just... he was just there.
We was cookin' away on the thing
and Wexler was in the control room.
He said, "Baby, it's working."
Hey, baby, it's funky."
Rick Hall had a rhythm section of exceptional players.
This was very inspirational to me.
Jerry came out at the end of the first day,
we had just cut "Land of 1,000 Dances,"
and he walks out in front of Roger,
and Roger's ears had never heard anything like this.
He said, "Roger."
I said, "Yes, sir?"
He said, "Roger, you're a great drummer."
And all of a sudden, it just-
I just kind of relaxed and became a great drummer,
just like he said I was.
After my first night in that studio with them,
I was convinced that that could be a recording home for me.
♪ Mustang Sally
We cut "Mustang Sally" all that, "Funky Broadway,"
"The Land of 1,000 Whole Dances."
Boy, these dirty slickers chewin' the...
"How do you like that, Wilson?"
Pickett and I were soul brothers, we were.
We was nitty gritty.
Down in the cold nitty gritty.
♪ Oh, guess I have to put your flat feet on the ground now ♪
Everything was just roses with me, with Jerry Wexler.
Jerry took a liking to us
from the very beginning.
There's just something that leaps out of a record,
I call it the sonority of the record.
It's the way the sound of the record impacts
on the ear, instantly.
And to me, that's the magic ingredient
in a phonograph record.
♪ Oh, I got to put your flat feet on the ground ♪
The Rolling Stones had it, the Beatles had it,
and they had it, and so from then on,
Muscle Shoals became the place that I preferred to go
and loved to go.
I grew up north of Florence.
It really wasn't a town,
just a dirt road.
The only way to get to Florence, at that time,
we had no car.
My mom and I would walk
from the dirt road down to the highway
to catch a bus to go into Florence,
which was five miles away.
I was born in Sheffield, Alabama,
and graduated from Sheffield High School.
While in high school, I would see
Hollis Dixon and the Keynotes.
Was the first rock 'n' roll band around here,
and I just fell in love with that.
I thought, "I've gotta learn how to do that."
You got Roger Hawkins in a group called
The Del Rays.
Jimmy Johnson was playing guitar.
I remember hearing the Del Rays
when I was going to University of Alabama.
And I remember, I could not get into
the fraternity house.
So I had to stay outside and listen to it.
I mean, the ground was rumbling, okay?
It was such a great band.
We met each other when we started playing
at the Tuscumbia National Guard Armory
at the square dance.
Half the night was rock 'n' roll,
and then after that it was all square dance.
We made $10 each for that.
After Wilson Pickett, I became Jerry's right hand man.
And so he said, "I'm thinkin' about signing a new act",
her name is Aretha Franklin.
She's on CBS Records and it's not happening,
they can't sell records on her.
♪ I'm only one step ahead of heartbreak ♪
I had heard her real smooth records
on Columbia.
You couldn't really get your teeth into 'em.
♪ One step is all I have to take ♪
These lush arrangements that she was doing at CBS,
which weren't successful either.
No one knew what to do with her,
she had this great voice,
but lots of people have a great voice.
I've still got to find out who and what I really am.
I don't know yet.
I'm trying to find the answer.
I wasn't exactly hoping that she wouldn't have
any hits on Columbia Records,
but the way it went, they dropped her after five years.
A week later we were in my office in New York,
we signed her up.
He said, "You know, I've got this great little studio"
down in Muscle Shoals,
and these cats... these cats are really greasy.
"You gonna love it."
♪
She walks in,
right over there.
♪
And she's got this aura around her pretty thick.
I mean, the girl was special.
I remember watchin' the guys bein' good southern boys,
and they'd carry on with anything
except looking or dealing with her.
♪
So she walked right over to the piano.
She sat there a moment.
And then she just hit this unknown chord, I would say.
♪
Didn't anybody have to say, "We're about to cut."
We did what we called head sessions at that time,
and there was no real music written for it.
The musicians would just listen to what it was I was doing,
and then they would decide what they were gonna do around that.
I think we heard a little demo of this song,
"Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You."
To me it sounded pretty much like junk.
I'm thinkin', "That's the song they gonna cut?"
There was discussions.
Jerry Wexler and Rick.
There was a little confusion and there was a little turmoil.
Everybody was a little uptight.
We can't find a groove, a beat, a place to start.
They were... just had all these gears workin',
but finally it just came to a...
And suddenly it was really quiet.
They had a song, they had an artist,
but nobody knew what to do.
Not even all these geniuses.
But out of that quietness came Spooner with...
♪
And I said, "Hey, Spooner's got it!
That's it."
Aretha jumped right on it.
♪ You're a no good heartbreaker ♪
♪ You're a liar and you're a cheat ♪
It was cut within 15 to 20 minutes.
You didn't have to ask, "What do you think?"
Everybody knew it was a hit.
I think everything came together for Aretha in Muscle Shoals.
They got Aretha to record a much more funky kind of style
in Muscle Shoals.
It was really the essence of her.
♪ 'Cause I ain't never
♪ I ain't never
♪ I ain't never, no, no ♪
♪ Loved a man the way that I I love you ♪
Coming to Muscle Shoals was the turning point.
That's where I recorded "I Never Loved a Man,"
which became my first million-selling record.
So absolutely it was a milestone
and the turning point in my career.
♪ Oh oh oh
♪ Yeah
♪ I ain't never loved a man
We cut "I Never Loved a Man," which people to this day
still regard as being maybe her most soulful
and really funkiest record.
♪ Well, this is what I'm gonna do about it ♪
That's one of those songs,
the ones that give you the chills,
the ones that give you the goose bumps,
the ones that you're like,
"I wish I sang a record like that."
♪
We had a whole week planned to cut tracks, a whole week,
but at the end of the session
we found out that there was a problem.
There was a ruckus.
One of the horn players,
and Aretha's then husband, Ted White,
got into it.
This new horn player started saying things like,
"Aretha, baby," and it was just enough
that Ted White got offended.
They'd been drinkin' from the same jug,
and now this camaraderie and great palship
turned into some kind of alcoholic hostility.
Ted comes into the control room with Wexler and I and says,
"I want the trumpet player fired."
I looked at Wexler and I said, "What do you think?"
He said, "Go fire him."
So I went and fired him.
That later caused a big argument and caused the session to end.
I got a hold of the bottle of vodka
and I took a couple... three drinks of it.
And I said, "Wexler, I'm gonna go over to the hotel"
and get with Ted and them and we'll work this thing out."
He said, "No, I don't want you to go."
And I said, "Yeah, well, I'm not gonna start any trouble,"
I said, "I'll go over and work it out."
We'll become buddies
"and I'll work everything out."
He said, "No, Rick, don't go, please don't go."
So anyhow, I had had a couple more drinks
and I went over then.
♪
Banged on Ted and Aretha's door
and Ted came to the door.
And he started pointing his finger in my face and so forth.
And we fought and fought and fought.
He was trying to throw me over the balcony
and I was trying to throw him.
It was downtown, and we was up
on about the fourth floor.
♪
My former husband never came back that night
and I decided that I was leaving.
I had never been to Muscle Shoals before,
or away from home, really, by myself.
And so I just said, "I'm going to the airport."
And when I got to the airport, I saw him with the bell captain.
I said, "Whoa, this son of a gun was gonna leave me down here."
Unbelievable.
♪
They left town the next day, early.
So Wexler came and said to me,
"I will never set foot in this studio as long as I live again.
I will bury you."
And I said, "You can't bury me."
He said, "Why can't I?"
I said, "Because you're too old.
I'll be around after you're gone."
♪
So the next day I showed up and on the board it says,
"Session Cancelled."
And I thought, "Oh, man, it's over, we've had it."
But a few days later Jerry Wexler calls
and asks if we can go to New York
and finish the album there.
He didn't have to ask us twice.
♪
On that album was "R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Respect."
♪ What you want
♪ Baby I got
To be a part of something like that
is unbelievable.
It was milestone stuff.
♪ Is for a little respect when you come home ♪
- ♪ Just a little bit - ♪ Hey, baby
- ♪ When you get home - ♪ Just a little bit
- ♪ Mister - ♪ Just a little bit
The Swampers went on and recorded with Aretha
on many hit records.
"Sweet, Sweet Baby," "Natural Woman,"
"Think," "The House that Jack Built,"
"Call Me," "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,"
"Chain of Fools," and so many, many others.
Of course it worked out incredibly.
And it's been one of the anomalies, I think,
of the era that Aretha's greatest work
came with a studio full of Caucasian musicians.
How do you figure it?
This is the Queen of Soul acknowledged.
Here we have Roger Hawkins,
and David Hood, Jimmy Johnson,
Barry Beckett, Spooner Oldham
coming out with probably the deepest
and most intense R&B of the era.
♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to me ♪
♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T take care T-C-B ♪
♪ Oh a little respect
♪ Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me ♪
♪ Whoa, babe, a little respect ♪
♪ Just a little bit
♪ I get tired Keep on tryin' ♪
♪ You're running out of fools and I ain't lyin' ♪
So after my dispute with Wexler,
he took Aretha away.
And on my part, I felt like I had really screwed up,
so I went to Chicago and I spoke to Leonard Chess
'cause he said, "I wonder what I gotta do
to get you to do some sides for Chess Records."
I said, "Who do you want me to do?"
He said, "I'd like you to do Etta James."
♪
When I looked at him, I says, "God, Rick Hall."
So this is fame, recording studios,
and I'm in Alabama and now this is gonna be,
you know, the real thing here.
"I'm gonna get some of the Alabama mud,"
you know, all of that kind of stuff.
Etta James is probably one of my favorite chicks of all time.
Leonard said, "You know, Rick, I built my company on her back."
When you think she's singing as good as she can sing,
"if you'll kick her ass and wind her up,"
he said, "She can rattle the shingles on this studio."
♪ You thought you hadn't found a good girl ♪
♪ One to love you and give you the world ♪
Rick Hall was actually the first white man
that I had seen that had that kind of soul,
that was an engineer and was soulful, you know?
We recorded a Clarence Carter song.
With Clarence it was, "Tell Daddy,"
but with Etta it was, "Tell Mama."
She didn't want to do the song
because I think she had a problem
with somebody suggesting to her
that she was gonna take care of some man.
I would be so hardheaded and, you know, just,
"Don't tell me nothin'," you know?
She had a temper like a lion.
I said, "If you'll do it for an hour",
and it's not happening, we'll garbage it,
"we'll throw it in the garbage."
I finally realized
everything that he used to badger me about,
he was always right.
♪ Tell mama all about it ♪
♪ Tell mama what you need ♪
♪ Tell mama
And, of course, the record was to become a big, big hit on her.
Everybody said that that song raised her from the grave,
you know, and brought her back to prominence.
Each time a person went to Muscle Shoals,
they came out of there with a hit record.
You had to know that there was something magic
in Muscle Shoals.
The spirit of Muscle Shoals
permeates not only the city itself, physically,
but I think the people who came through there.
The place has a soul.
♪
W.C. Handy was from the Muscle Shoals area
and everyone that knows about the blues
is familiar with W.C. Handy.
♪
Well, he's one of the great popularizers of the blues.
Before it was a kind of gutbucket music
that didn't have a lot of respect.
He kind of legitimized the music.
♪
All the bands were playing the same thing,
but no one had written it down.
Well, he was the first one to write it down.
That made him Father of the Blues
and made this area famous.
♪
Sam Phillips was also from the Muscle Shoals area.
And Sam was kind of my tutor and I kind of looked upon him
as being the guy I wanted to be.
♪
Sam Phillips came out of there.
I mean, didn't he invent rock and roll or something?
My dad, Sam Phillips, was the first to record Elvis,
Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison,
but a lot of people don't realize
that he only worked specifically with black artists
in the very beginning.
Well, the basic feeling I had for black artists
of course originated when I was very young
on a farm in Alabama.
I felt a certain spirituality about the black man's music.
And hearin' it in the cotton fields,
that made one hell of an impression on me.
Mr. Phillips heard people singing in the fields
and heard trains rumbling through
and the river roaring around the bend
down here in the shoals.
It's a subconscious rhythm that gets in your head.
There's like a groove, there's a pocket
that sticks in your gut.
It's connected all of us.
♪
Helen Keller was from Muscle Shoals,
and it was just always amazing to me
the things she was able to accomplish
being blind and deaf.
♪
Helen Keller was deaf, completely mute,
completely blind.
And her only way of communicating with the world
is with gestures.
You can still go to her house and see the well
where she learned her first word,
which was "water."
There's obviously an incredible connection
to water here.
So you can see why that would be the first word
that Helen Keller learned, "water."
There's such a power in this place,
and you feel it whether you can hear it and see it
or not.
♪
I'm a great believer that landscape
is always very important in music,
and somehow music can reflect landscapes.
♪ Something told me it was over ♪
♪
♪ Yeah
♪ When I saw you and her talking ♪
People ask me always, "What is the Muscle Shoals sound?"
You had a lot of black musicians
playing with a lot of white musicians,
and we all got a different way of playing,
but it blends so well together.
There was this coming together of styles.
And there was some hillbilly background there,
there's some black music.
We were open minded to be any genre.
♪ Ooh
♪ I would rather I would rather go blind, boy ♪
♪
♪ Than to see you walk away from me, child ♪
♪
♪ Hoo
The Muscle Shoals sound, I think,
has a very heavy bass and drum featured in the sound.
And it's just... that was what sounded right to us.
"Turn up the bass, turn up the drums."
This was, at the time, cutting edge technology.
The fact that a drum kit could be close-mic'd
meant that they could turn up the bass drum.
That's what created that blacker sound, that African sound,
that allowed you to be sweet on the topsoil
but knowing that deep down in the ground
there was some fierceness.
♪ Ooh
♪ I was just I was just ♪
♪ I was just sittin' here thinkin' ♪
♪ Ooh
♪ Of your kiss and your warm embrace yeah ♪
Woo, come on, there.
Woo! Woo!
♪
When I was a young boy,
my mother was washing clothes
out in the yard with a wash pot.
And the pot had boiling hot water in it.
My brother, who was three years old,
was playing in the backyard with my first cousin,
and they were pulling on a stick.
My brother ran backwards
and fell into the pot of scalding water.
♪
So my mother took him in her arms
and went screaming across the field
hunting my father.
He came running and they took him to the doctor
in Red Bay, Alabama.
And they took his clothes off
and all of his skin came off
inside of his clothes.
♪
He died three days later.
♪
That was the start of the decline
between my father's and my mother's relationship.
♪
He kind of blamed her for the accident,
and she probably blamed him for not being at home.
♪
She left us and said,
"I'll never live with you again,"
and, "Forget about me."
♪
She moved in with Aunt Ess who ran a red-light district.
♪
So my father asked people what she was doing up here.
And they said, "Well, Herman",
do you know what the other girls are doing?"
And he said, "Yes, I do."
And they said, "Dolly is doing the same thing."
♪
It was earth shattering for me.
♪
Even after all these years and being away from her
and not spending much time with her in my life,
not a day goes by that I don't really miss my mother.
♪
More acoustic guitar.
♪
♪ I ain't easy to love
♪
♪ Scars have made me black and blue ♪
♪
♪ But I feel a lot less broken ♪
Okay, all right, hold on.
There's too much happening.
I just need the intro and everybody needs to cool it
a little bit and back off.
If everybody comes in from the top,
where are you gonna go from there?
If you get a chance or two to cut a record,
produce a record and get a budget to do it with
and you don't have a hit, you will never get another call.
So I was always aware of that.
I always felt that every record,
my life depended on it.
Time is like, "time."
It's like you're whispering that part.
All right, you know, I can always do mine over.
I know we can, honey, but I'd like to do it this way.
All right.
Rick is so meticulous.
Oh, it's just a joy and pain to work with Rick.
'Cause he won't stop until he gets what he wants.
If it takes three days on one song,
Rick's gonna get what he wants.
We're doing just what we just got through doing.
We're doing the same thing over again,
and I just want to perfect it a little better.
We've changed a couple of things, so you gotta listen.
Rick was a very demanding boss.
He would take a thousand takes of something
till he was satisfied.
And sometimes he would not know
what he was looking for,
but he would keep working until he got it.
I'm talking about... it's too bright.
Oh, okay, I thought you were... wanted it to be bright.
Well, I did want it bright until I heard it,
when you hear it with the track it's a whole different thing.
You gotta listen to it in perspective.
That was very frustrating and hard on the musicians
because you think, "Well, I already did that."
Nobody ever worked in the music business
without getting their ass kicked.
If they did, they're out on the street somewhere
pushin' a wheelbarrow of concrete.
He was kind of like a task master,
and I don't fault him for that
because he is an imperfect perfectionist.
That's what made him great though.
♪ Oh, please forgive me, darlin' ♪
♪
♪ I ain't easy to love
♪
Duane Allman, of course, came into Muscle Shoals
and wanted a gig.
So he put up his pup tent on my parking lot
at the studio and found me.
I gave him his shot.
When Duane showed up,
he was probably one of the first guys
with long hair and kind of the hippie look,
but what really made him stand out was
that he was a wonderful guitar player.
♪
I had never heard a slide guitar
played like Duane Allman could play it.
♪
Duane had been in Los Angeles,
had a group called The Hourglass
with his brother Gregg.
They signed us on this big contract,
and they wouldn't let us play anywhere.
I think the first year we were there
we played like three concerts.
So he finally said, "Hey, I've had it with this place."
I'm leavin'."
And he wound up in Muscle Shoals.
But right before he left,
I talked him into going horseback riding with me
'cause we weren't doing anything.
Finally went out there and I said,
"Listen, we go from the barn out to the field.
We gotta cross a paved road."
I said, "The horse is shod." He says, "What?"
"It's got shoes on, you know?"
And if he slips, he'll bust both of yous' butts,
"so don't give him any reigns."
And guess what happened?
And he hit right here.
He couldn't play.
And he wouldn't let me in his house for about six weeks.
And, I mean, that was... that was terrible
'cause, I mean, you know, growin' up without a father,
he was somewhat of a father figure to me
even though he was only a year and 18 days older.
So it came his birthday, November the 20th,
and I went out and bought the first Taj Mahal record
and a bottle of Coricidin pills.
He had this cold and he had his arm in a sling,
he was pissed off at the world,
and I did what I could do.
I put it down in front of his door,
I had it wrapped up and everything.
And I knocked on the door and ran.
♪
I guess about two and a half hours later
my phone rings and it's him.
He says, "Get over here, baybrah, quick!"
And baybrah, he called me that, "baby brother,"
endearing handle he had for me.
♪
He said, "Man, check this out."
He had been listening to Jesse Ed Davis
play Taj Mahal and he's playing slide.
♪
He said, "Man, I dumped out all of them pills",
and I washed the label off the bottle."
He said, "Check this out."
And he's got his hand still in the sling
and he's going, "do-do-n-do", you know,
and he's just already killin' it, you know?
♪
I've still got that bottle, by the way, somehow.
When Duane came here,
he was on the Wilson Pickett session that we did.
There was always a slight problem when we would go out
all of us white boys with a black artist
that we would get looks, okay?
But there was nothin' as bad as going out
with a long-haired hippie with us white boys.
They couldn't stand that, right?
And so both of them stayed back.
So, they went on lunch break
and my brother went up to Wilson and he said,
"Man, why don't you cut 'Hey Jude, '
you know, the Beatles song?"
And at that point I was mostly trying to create
an original career Wilson Pickett, right?
My songs.
Pickett and I, in unison, both said,
"Look, are you crazy?
We're gonna cover the Beatles?"
And of course Duane said, "Exactly."
While we were gone, Duane changed our whole session.
♪ Just remember to let her under your skin ♪
When you get to the vamp,
it goes into just an unbelievable groove.
♪ Ow
♪ Ah
♪ Ahhh
♪ Oh oh ooh
♪ Hey Jude
♪ Ahh
Duane Allman was playing such great guitar fields
that somethin' happened in that vamp.
♪ Ahh hey
And all of a sudden, there was southern rock.
♪ Gonna be all right
♪
That was the beginnings of The Allman Brothers Band.
Jaimoe met my brother first.
The two of them got together.
When I met Duane, he had a cabin he lived in
down on the river in Muscle Shoals.
And it was like... well, it was a nice place down there.
In his spare time, he would do a lot of fishin'.
Muscle Shoals seemed to be
the place for him to be at that time.
He would do sessions.
And I would sit over with them at practice.
And when he would get through the session,
he'd roll his amplifier over there
and the two of us would play.
And then when Berry Oakley came down,
boy, the three of us had never played music like that.
But that was pretty much the base of what turned out to be
The Allman Brothers Band.
♪
Duane said, "Well, Rick, this is the kind of music"
that's coming in, this is gonna be big again.
"The kids are really liking this stuff."
And I said, "Yeah, yeah, don't breathe on me, Duane",
back off."
♪
I never believed him and I told Phil Walden,
"I don't understand this."
They're sleeping in the studio all day
under quilts and things,
and I wake up Duane and he says,
"Man, you know, the stars and the moon
are not quite lined up right."
I'm not into all that.
He said, "Well, hang in there, man."
Turn on the machines and let 'em run
"and eventually you're gonna make a billion dollars."
♪
I said, "Ah, I can't do that, it's not me."
So I missed the boat on that one.
♪
Time, old time.
♪
Things change it, you know.
I never will forget when Jimi Hendrix
played behind me on Broadway.
He was playing the band with King Curtis.
And I told King, "I think I'm gonna steal
that guitar player you got."
He said, "Percy Sledge, that guy there"
is gonna be so big in the next year or two,"
he said, "I can't keep him"
and you won't be able to keep him either."
When Jimi came out with his style of music,
well, our style of music kind of slacked back.
♪
Time always changes organizations
and things that you're doin' in life.
♪
Things happened in our world that changed everything.
We decided to become entrepreneurs
and become studio owners.
So we had to tell Rick,
who was our mentor and friend and who had gave us our chance.
We elected Roger to go break the news to him.
I had gone to LA to try to make a new deal with Capitol Records.
We made a great deal and things were really exciting,
and I came back and had a meeting with the Swampers.
We were supposed to come up and sign the contract
and be exclusive to Rick.
Rick's office is upstairs
and we're just kind of looking at each other like,
"Oh, my God, we gotta go up those stairs."
♪
Up the stairs we go, knock on the door.
Everybody's quiet.
I began to tell them of this great new deal
we've made with Capitol.
I'm lookin' at them like, "Come on, guys, help me."
And they're just like...
One of the guys stopped me and said,
"We've already made a deal with Jerry Wexler"
and he is going to build us a studio across town.
"We'll be leaving here, going with him."
♪
And when Roger dropped that bomb in that office,
we were expecting a huge explosion.
♪
I felt like the whole bottom of my life had fell out.
It's like we have thrown shit on his dreams.
Do you remember what he said?
He said, "You're never gonna make it."
♪
It was war.
Total war.
♪
♪ Oh ooh oh, baby
♪
♪ There's gonna be judgment in the morning ♪
When we bought the studio, we were very nervous
about whether or not we would have any hits.
And you have to have to hits to keep recording.
Jerry came to record at our place, and he brought Cher in,
and that was our first client.
Nothin' happened, it wasn't any good.
♪
Six months went by, seven months,
almost eight months.
I think we would have killed for the hit record.
We always wanted to own a studio and it was like,
"What the hell have we done?"
♪
And then all of a sudden the English rock and roll guys
started wantin' to come to Muscle Shoals.
When we went to record in Muscle Shoals,
it was a really lightning visit.
You know, we just went in there, set up,
and, you know, played our stuff for a couple of days.
The sound was in my head before I even got there.
And then, of course,
when that actually lives up to it and beyond,
you know, then you're in rock and roll heaven, man.
♪ You got to move
♪ You got to move, child
♪ You got to move
♪
♪ Oh, when the Lord gets ready ♪
♪ You got to move
The first thing we did was a blues tune,
"You've Gotta Move."
We're down in Alabama, you know, in Muscle Shoals,
we've gotta cut some Fred McDowell stuff.
If ever I'm gonna do it, it's gotta be here, you know,
and we're probably soaking up
a little Indian maiden, too, you know?
♪ Get ready
♪ You got to move
We don't come from here, but we know quite a bit
about the deep south.
From here.
Their producer did not show.
And it wound up I became the engineer.
And I was thinkin', "Oh, man, can you believe this?" You know?
Because right when they come in, you know, you're...
Yeah, but that's there, it doesn't come in till the solo.
No, I know, I know.
But I must point something out here,
that nobody was drinkin' and nobody was druggin'.
Well...
♪ You got to move
I think we were drinking quite a lot.
I'm sure there were lots of drinking
and smoking marijuana and so on.
Well, you know, I mean,
you put it on a scale of what, you know?
That was recording in those days,
that was part of it.
But otherwise it was a lot of serious work as well.
And once we knew the room was tuned to us
and we were tuned to the room, then it became, you know,
"Right, let's get as much done here as we possibly can,"
you know?
♪
Keith had this tune "Wild Horses,"
but I don't think that was really finished.
He had the chorus, but that was about it.
So that was all written on the spot.
It was just an idea
and it had to go to the bathroom for a little while
just to sort of figure it out.
And then say, "Okay, I'm ready,"
back in, and then take, you know?
♪ Childhood living
♪ Is easy to do
♪ The things you wanted
Muscle Shoals Studio is in this rather interesting place.
Being there does inspire you to do it slightly differently.
"Wild Horses" is a sort of country song,
and I remember we used Jim Dickinson,
he played tack piano.
♪ A sin and a lie
♪ I have my freedom
♪ But I don't have much time ♪
♪ Wild horses
♪ Couldn't drag me away
♪ Wild, wild horses
♪ We'll ride them someday
I thought it was one of the easiest
and rockingest sessions that we'd ever done.
I don't think we'd been quite so prolific ever.
I mean, we cut three or four tracks in two days,
and that, for the Stones, is going some...
We left on a high with "Brown Sugar."
We knew we had one of the best things we'd ever done.
The thing about "Brown Sugar," it had this sound,
it was quite distorted.
It was pretty funky, you know.
That was the whole idea of it.
I always wanted to go back there and cut more,
then shit happened, so we ended up in France
in a basement doing "Exile on Main St." there,
but otherwise, "Exile" would probably have been cut
in Muscle Shoals,
but politically, it wasn't possible.
I wasn't allowed in the country at the time.
So, there's that, you know.
♪ Brown sugar
♪ How come you taste so good ♪
♪ Brown sugar
♪ Just like a young girl should ♪
Those sessions were as vital to me
as any I ever done.
I mean, all this other stuff,
"Beggars Banquet" and the other stuff we did,
"Gimme Shelter," "Street Fighting Man,"
"Jumpin' Jack Flash," you know,
but I've always wondered
that if we'd have cut them in Muscle Shoals,
if they might not have been a little bit funkier.
♪
♪ Drums beatin', cold English blood runs hot ♪
♪ Lady of the house wonderin' where it's gonna stop ♪
♪ House boy knows that he's doing all right ♪
♪ You shoulda heard him just around midnight ♪
So, I got this great new deal with Capitol Records,
but I've had this feud with Wexler,
and he's taking my musicians
and going across town and going to put me
out of business, so he says.
I imagine Rick was pissed.
Hey, I got this deal,
and I don't have a rhythm section.
But if Jerry thinks these are the only guys
left in the world that you can cut hit records on,
then he's mistaken because I believed
that I could cut hit records with any group of musicians.
We began to call every musician we knew
and put them under contract.
So, that's why he calls me, get me up there real quick,
and he said, "Do you know a bass player?"
I said, "I know a great bass player."
So, I started playing, and he said,
"Do you know of any other rhythm guys?"
I said, "Yeah, Freeman Brown,"
who became one of the best fat back drummers
for Muscle Shoals.
He said, "And I also need a horn section,"
and I said, "Yeah, there's some guys"
that I met out of Nashville."
Rick Hall wanted to put a band together
and called it the "Fame Gang,"
and I ended up being part of that.
For me to surround myself with the strongest people I could
made me a better producer.
Now, here's what we're going to do, we're going to let him
play back the tape four or five times
in succession, I want to work with the horns.
This is a sad song,
you know, so don't jazz it up too much...
and take away from the lyrics
so it sounds like a dance record.
The truth is after Barry Beckett
and Jimmy Johnson, Roger Hawkins, David Hood
left and bought their own studio,
we come in here with this new rhythm section
who was not a real studio band yet,
but 1971, Rick Hall's the producer of the year.
He didn't have that with the other guys.
I started over again,
and I believed I was as good as anybody.
Here's Candi Staton
to sing her big, big hit on FAME.
At FAME, we experienced a lot of great artists,
starting with Candi Staton.
We started to explode.
The world was coming to Muscle Shoals.
♪ You may think I'm silly ♪
♪ To love a man twice my age ♪
♪ But I know from experience, girls ♪
♪ Sometime, it pays
I did Bobbie Gentry for Capitol Records,
I did King Curtis, I did Lou Rawls.
Little Richard, Willie Hightower,
Mac Davis, Joe Tex.
♪ I'd rather be an old man's sweetheart ♪
♪ Than to be a young man's fool ♪
And we cut all those records when Donny Osmond,
the Osmond Brothers, in 1971,
I think they sold something in the neighborhood
of 23 million records in one year.
Joe Simon, the group Alabama,
Paul Anka, and Tom Jones.
Clarence Carter, Wilson Pickett, Bobby Womack.
I had one of the biggest record companies
in the world behind me,
I was getting twice the quality rate
that I was getting from Atlantic and Chess.
So I was shitting in high cotton.
♪ I'd rather be an old man's sweetheart ♪
♪ Than to be a young man's fool ♪
♪ Don't want to be your fool ♪
We were forming a production company
in about '69 or '70,
and our friend, Alan Walden,
found this band in Jacksonville called Lynyrd Skynyrd.
I was a sucker to want to cut that band immediately,
so we signed them.
When I first joined Lynyrd Skynyrd,
Ronnie had always talked about the guys in Muscle Shoals.
Apparently they had gone up there and recorded
an entire album with Jimmy Johnson producing.
They had no money,
and I remember they would come up here
and they'd check in a truck stop
where they'd get in fights with the truckers
'cause their long hair, and basically,
all they had to eat was peanut butter sandwiches
the whole time,
but I loved this band.
I didn't know if it'd be a hit,
but I'll tell you one thing,
if you listen to those songs,
some of the best rock and roll songs
I've ever heard,
especially one.
At the time we were cutting "Free Bird,"
we took a little lunch break,
we walk in, the engineer had started playing the tape.
Billy Powell, who's the roadie,
he was sitting there playing this concert piano
that was so unbelievable
that we walked in just in, like... awe,
with our mouth open.
And I look at Ronnie and he looks at me,
and I say, "I gotta go and record with that."
I don't know about you."
And he said, "You got it."
We put him on the record, and then he became
a band member within a few months.
He was a concert pianist,
and nobody knew it, not anybody.
I think he thought they wouldn't like that,
you know, that he had studied,
but what a great thing he added to their records.
But there was something different about this band.
I mean, on this album, I had a nine-minute single,
and I'm gonna go and try to sell it to a record company
that's never had a single over three and a half minutes.
I mean, I got problems.
♪ If I leave here tomorrow ♪
♪ Would you still remember me ♪
But there started to be a lot of interest,
and they said, "We want you to cut it down
to 3:45 on this one."
I said, "Nope, can't do it."
And I knew that if I did that,
I'd destroy the integrity of the band.
I said, "Go listen to 'em live",
and then you'll know what to do."
♪ If I stay here with you now ♪
♪ Things just couldn't be the same ♪
Not one A&R department would go listen to 'em,
so it wound up, I lost a band.
♪
And here, I had all these great cuts,
I cut the first "Free Bird," "Simple Man,"
I mean, all this stuff, you know?
And I wasted almost two years of my life,
and it's very depressing for me,
and I'm sure it was for them.
♪ And this bird you cannot change ♪
♪ Oh
But the Skynyrd boys had one thing
in their favor going for them:
that guy, Alan Walden, that I talked to about,
he got 'em on a Who tour.
World tour with The Who.
When they came off of that Who tour,
they were a hit band.
♪ Lord, I can't change
♪ Won't you fly high
♪ Free bird, yeah
♪
And then the crash happened.
And Gary and Allen got well enough from the crash,
they come to me and say, "We want 11 songs
of your 17 to be the next album,"
and it was called, "First and... Last."
My father raised me, he cooked the meals,
he got us off to school.
I spent hours and hours
in the woods with him cutting timber.
He preached to me constantly,
"You got to be the best at whatever you do,"
and good is not good enough,
you've got to be the best in the world,
"not just the best in this county."
He had worked hard, and I'd worked hard
with him all of our lives,
and so I wanted to do something
to make life easier for him,
so I bought him a new John Deere tractor.
He'd always wanted a tractor.
We never could afford a tractor.
♪
During this time,
my dad was plying on the little tractor
about a quarter of a mile from our house.
My stepmother went out to look for my father,
and she saw the tractor wheels turned up in the air,
and she knew something bad had happened.
He was pinned under the tractor.
He had tried to get away and had pawed in the ground
trying to free himself.
Of course, after his death,
I went into a deep stupor.
I mean, it's just overwhelming.
I was playing in Texas,
and Rick Hall called me and told me
he had a song he wanted me to come up there and do.
♪ I was born and raised down in Alabama ♪
♪ On a farm way back up in the woods ♪
♪ I was so ragged that folks used to call me Patches ♪
♪ Papa used to tease me about it ♪
♪ Of course, deep down inside, he was hurt ♪
♪ 'Cause he'd done all he could ♪
When Rick played the song to me,
I said, "We're going the wrong direction."
He didn't like the song
because he thought it was a downer
for his people, the black people.
♪ My papa was a great old man ♪
"My papa was a great old man,"
I can see him with a shovel in his hand.
Education he never had,
"but he did wonders when times got bad."
♪ The little money from the crops he raised ♪
And it was my story about me and my father.
♪ Oh, life had kicked him down to the ground ♪
♪ When he tried to get up, life would kick him back down ♪
♪ One day Papa called me to his dying bed ♪
♪ Put his hands on my shoulders and in tears he said ♪
♪ He said, Patches, I'm depending on you, son ♪
♪ To pull the family through ♪
♪ My son, it's all left up to you ♪
All the things went through my mind
of how he killed himself working for his son
and had lived vicariously through me
thinking, "I couldn't make it",
but maybe my son, Rick, can make it."
♪ Sometimes I felt that I couldn't go on ♪
♪ I wanted to leave, just run away from home ♪
♪ But I would remember what my daddy said ♪
♪ With tears in his eyes on his dying bed ♪
So, I was so taken by the story
that I wanted to do a special production on it with strings,
and I wanted to go to L.A. and do it, and I did.
♪ ...To do the rest
I was a believer in Rick Hall knowing what to do,
and if he said that was a good song,
okay, let's sing the song.
♪ Patches, I'm depending on you, son ♪
♪ To pull the family through ♪
When it came out,
it was going up the charts in a hurry.
That was a number one record.
♪ Patches, I'm depending on you, son ♪
♪ I tried to do my best ♪
♪ It's up to you to do the rest ♪
♪
The artists who come here,
they come to get away from it all.
They can rest,
stay away from the telephone,
hustle and bustle, and people bugging them
regarding autographs or what have you.
Nobody knows them here, in other words.
People like to go to places
that had a kind of magical kind of vibe about them,
but they also liked to get out of New York
or out of L.A. or out of London sometimes
to do these sessions.
I mean, that was really the first of its kind
that attracted music people from all over the world.
Sure, people go to New York to record.
You know, big deal.
You know, go to Muscle Shoals where
you can actually get lunch at a meat and three
and really experience the Southern way of life.
I mean, there's nothing like it.
When I went to Muscle Shoals to record,
for me, it was more like going to my village
in Somerton in Jamaica.
I did actually feel I'm at home.
♪ Sitting here in limbo ♪
♪ But I know it won't be long ♪
Jimmy had a very definite Jamaican songwriting style,
and this was pre-Bob Marley,
so nobody was really hip to the Jamaican sound that much.
Here I am, going there
with a different brand of feeling,
and they were readily adaptable to it.
When an artist would come in,
what our job was to us
is to become their band.
They were able to change who they were
depending on the artist that walked in the door.
That was the true genius of it.
♪ I can't say what life will show me ♪
♪ But I know what I've seen ♪
♪ I can't say where life will leave me ♪
♪ But I know where I've been ♪
♪ Tried my hand at love and friendship ♪
♪ But all that is past and gone ♪
♪ This little boy is moving on ♪
The song, "Sitting in Limbo,"
was such a fresh piece of music
that you couldn't help but notice it.
♪ Sitting in limbo
And so, definitely the Swampers,
all white guys, played their role
in bringing reggae to the forefront of the public.
♪ Sitting in limbo, limbo, limbo ♪
It was after those sessions
that Chris Blackwell had the idea
to link them up with Steve Winwood.
When we were going through our formative years,
I started hearing this Southern soul music,
and of course, I didn't really have any concept
of Muscle Shoals or the musicians
or their background
when I was first hearing this music,
I just knew that the music had something very special for me,
so when we actually got to work with them,
it was an amazing experience for us.
♪ Sometimes I feel so uninspired ♪
Recording with Traffic was a very strange thing.
It was... to me, it was strange.
Of course, Traffic weren't a mainstream band at all.
We would try and take elements
of rock, jazz, folk music,
all sorts of different ethnic music.
Our own particular name for it was Headless Horseman music.
♪ But don't let it get you down ♪
They didn't go about recording the way that we were used to.
At that time, I was trying to be real precise.
Traffic was the exact opposite.
It sounds terrible, let's play it anyway.
It might not ever sound good, but let's play it.
It wasn't an immediate, easy marriage.
But as time went on, I started,
I guess you might say, opening up a little bit.
I was forced to learn how to jam again.
The song that stands out for me off that album
is "(Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired."
What Muscle Shoals did to that song
was truly spectacular, they brought
these rhythmic elements and harmonic elements
that we could never have reached.
♪
And then, Chris Blackwell says,
"Well, we'd like for you guys
to go on the road with us."
And so, we'd go out and play with Traffic
at these big venues and 20,000 people.
We were just thrilled that they agreed,
but of course, they'd actually never
been on the road with anyone.
There were times when Jim and I and Chris
would get together and sort of worry,
say, "Are we corrupting these guys' minds?"
and that their music possibly came out
of some sort of innocence.
We suffered a certain amount of guilt for that.
Musicians are pretty noted for the gypsy life,
moving around and playing a different venue every night,
but we really liked our family life.
♪
When I first started in music, I had visions of New York
and Los Angeles and travel, different places,
and the more I've done that, the more I've realized
that this is the best place.
It is my home and I love it here.
We had many opportunities to move our operation.
We thought, "People would come to us."
Why would we have to go to them
"when they'll come to us?"
♪ Sometimes even now
♪ When I'm feeling lonely and beat ♪
♪ I drift back in time and I find my feet ♪
♪ Down on Mainstreet
I'm gonna tell you, working with Bob Seger
was just magnificent, it really was.
He was the kind of guy that he had no ego.
♪ Down on Mainstreet
And "Mainstreet" is one of my really favorite cuts.
Seger really put his heart in that one.
Most of the people in Detroit and the Muscle Shoals people
thought they were talking about the Main Street
of their town.
We had a ten-year run with him
that we were at least doing half the album
each time he put out an album.
♪
The studio just started taking a life of its own.
Stars fell on Alabama,
and everybody who was anybody
came to record at that studio.
♪ When I think back on all the crap ♪
♪ I learned in high school ♪
♪ It's a wonder I can think at all ♪
When we really got moving in the '70s,
we were doing like, 50 albums a year.
It was one of the best rooms I've ever worked in.
The sound was like the perfect sound.
It was the sound that you'd been going for
everywhere else, but couldn't get,
and that's why it became the place
where everybody wanted to record.
♪ I got a Nikon camera
♪ I love to take a photograph ♪
♪ So Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away ♪
We were very fortunate to get to work
with a lot of the big stars.
Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Boz Scaggs, Staple Singers.
Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker.
I mean, I just named you a list.
Johnnie Taylor.
Glenn Frey.
Leon Russell.
Willie Nelson.
Levon Helm.
Donnie Fritts.
Carlos Santana.
John Prine.
Millie Jackson.
R.B. Greaves.
JJ Cale.
Dire Straits.
Simon and Garfunkel.
♪ Mama, don't take my Kodachrome ♪
♪ Mama, don't take my Kodachrome away ♪
Still amazes me today that all that music
was played by us guys,
a lot of the music was hits.
You look back, you see the discography,
we're as amazed as anybody.
♪
My whole life has been based on...
a lot of rejection,
and to be honest with you, I think rejection
played a big role in my life because
I thrived on it.
I wanted to prove the world was wrong and I was right.
I was rejected by my mother.
I was rejected by schoolmates
because I was poverty-stricken.
As I grew older, I was rejected
by Atlantic Records with Jerry Wexler.
I don't think I've ever been more angry
than I was at Jerry Wexler
and the Swampers who left me at that time.
It was bitter.
But that all passes with time.
Those things change.
♪
My respect for Rick Hall is never-ending.
He was our mentor.
He gave all of us an opportunity
that we would have never gotten without him.
We all got our start working with Rick Hall.
Rick is really the founder
of the music business in Muscle Shoals.
These are guys that I love with all my heart,
and we'd worked together for years,
who wanted, like I did,
to become special in the music business.
♪
Because they played on so many of these wonderful hit records,
they will take their place
in the history of American music.
That's the great thing about recording.
From there on, you're immortal
because it's in the grooves, right?
Everything that everybody's done here,
it came from their heart,
and that's what makes Muscle Shoals so powerful.
What music built there is not something
that you can see with your eye.
In fact, if you look at the recording studios,
they were humble shells,
but what they contained was an empire
that crossed race and creed, ethnicity.
It was revolutionary.
I'm honored to step in the place of people
who I wish I could have met.
You know, there's still a piece of Etta here,
there's still a piece of Aretha here,
there's a piece of everybody
who walked through these doors.
There's a perfect storm here.
Everybody needs to know all the different nuances
that went into making this thing happen
and all the stars aligning
and exploding the way it did.
I'm just so proud to be from this area
and to see everything that is to come
out of this incredible singing river.
I am honored.
♪
♪ Well, I'm pressing on
♪ Yeah, I'm pressing on
♪ And I'm pressing on
♪ To the higher calling of my Lord ♪
♪ Can't you see that I'm pressing on ♪
♪ I'm pressing on
♪ To the higher calling of my Lord ♪
♪ Shake the dust off your feet ♪
♪ Don't look back
♪ Nothing gonna hold you down ♪
♪ There's nothing you lack ♪
♪ Temptation's not an easy thing ♪
♪ Adam gave the devil reigns ♪
♪ And because he sinned, I got no choice ♪
♪ It runs in my veins
♪ But I gotta keep pressing on ♪
♪ On and on and on and on ♪
♪ I gotta keep pressing on ♪
♪ I'm gonna keep pressing, pressing on ♪
♪ To the higher, higher calling of my Lord ♪
♪ Yeah
♪ I gotta go higher
♪ On and on and on and on ♪
♪ I gotta go higher
♪ I'm gonna go higher
♪ To the higher
♪ To the higher calling of my Lord ♪
♪ I know somebody, somebody feels what I'm saying ♪
♪ Somebody knows what I'm going through ♪
♪ Who knows I want to go higher ♪
♪ I know you want to keep pressing on, yeah ♪
♪ To the highest calling of the Lord ♪
♪
Turn it up.
Ronnie had always talked about the guys in Muscle Shoals,
then when we wrote "Sweet Home Alabama,"
the last verse says,
"Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers."
I went, "Ronnie, what is that, Swampers?"
He goes, "Oh, that's... that's Jimmy and Roger"
and the guys at Muscle Shoals."
♪ Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers ♪
♪ And they've been known to pick a song or two ♪
We were given that name by Denny Cordell
who was the producer with Leon Russell.
I think he just thought it sounded good,
'cause Muscle Shoals has a lot of water here.
You gotta have a name.
Swampers is a good nickname.
♪ Sweet home Alabama
♪ Lord, I'm coming home to you ♪
There's two guitar solos in that song,
one short one and one very long one,
and they both came to me in a dream,
absolutely note for note, all the transition points,
the fingering, the chord voicings.
I woke up out of the dream, picked up the guitar,
and it was done.
♪ Here I come
♪ Alabama
♪
♪ Home
♪ Alabama home
♪ Alabama
♪
♪ Big wheels keep on turning ♪
♪ Carry me home to see my kin ♪
♪ Singing songs about the Southland ♪
♪ I miss Alabamy once again ♪
♪ And I think it's a sin, yes ♪
♪
♪ Well, I heard Mr. Young sing about her ♪
♪ Well, I heard ole Neil put her down ♪
♪ Well, I hope Neil Young will remember ♪
♪ A Southern man don't need him around anyhow ♪
♪ Sweet home Alabama
♪ Where the skies are so blue ♪
♪ Sweet home Alabama
♪ Lord, I'm coming home to you ♪
♪
♪ In Birmingham, they love the governor ♪
♪ Boo, boo, boo
♪ Now we all did what we could do ♪
♪ Now Watergate does not bother me ♪
♪ Does your conscience bother you ♪
♪ Tell the truth
♪ Sweet home Alabama
♪ Where the skies are so blue ♪
♪ Sweet home Alabama
♪ Lord, I'm coming home to you ♪
♪ Here I come
♪ Alabama
♪
♪ Home
♪ Alabama home
♪ Alabama
♪
♪ Now, Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers ♪
♪ And they've been known to pick a song or two ♪
♪ Lord, they get me off so much ♪
♪ They pick me up when I'm feeling blue ♪
♪ Now how about you
♪ Sweet home Alabama
♪ Where the skies are so blue ♪
♪ Sweet home Alabama
♪ Lord, I'm coming home to you ♪
♪ Sweet home Alabama
♪ Oh, sweet home
♪ Where the skies are so blue ♪
♪ And the governor's true
♪ Sweet home Alabama
♪ Lord, I'm coming home to you ♪
♪ Sweet home Alabama
♪ Oh, sweet home
♪ Where the skies are so blue ♪
♪ And the governor's true
When you hear musicians,
five or six of 'em in a room,
and you hear the imperfections,
that's the human element.
If a guy falls off of the stool
who's playing the drums, I really don't give a shit,
as long as he don't miss a beat.
He can get back up and climb back up,
and most people, including myself,
think that's great.
That's the human element, there's faults.
So, the imperfections gives it the human element,
which I believe is what we need today more of,
and that's how you make magic and great records.
Amen.
That's my sermon for the day, by the way.
♪