If you draw a line between present day Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee, then bisect it with a tangent heading south-southeast, Muscle Shoals is at a point equidistant from those two cities, but across the state line of Alabama. It's a small town of about 13,000 people, most of whom are descendants of farmers, and the land around there ranges from rolling hills to swamps. In short, it's the kind of place you can live and forget about the hustle and bustle of city life while bonding with the land, hunting, fishing, farming, and living in idyllic solitude. If that kind of life sounds good to you, Muscle Shoals is paradise.
But there's one very, very odd thing about Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It produced more rock & roll hit records than any American city outside of New York, Nashville, and Los Angeles, and I'm not sure about Nashville. By some freak occurrence, described by some as "a perfect storm of rock & roll," a tiny studio in Muscle Shoals began producing hits early on in the rock & roll era. The producer and engineer in MS was Rick Hall of Fame Recording Studios. His musicians on call acquired a nickname "The Swampers," easily the equivalent to L.A.'s "The Wrecking Crew" in their omnipresence and influence on the Billboard Charts of American and British pop music of the 1960s, 70s, and even continuing to the present day. In 1969 the Swampers split from Rick Hall's Fame Studios and formed "The Muscle Shoals Sound" studio across town, also starting in a tiny, nondescript building, but with a client list that defied reason.
FAME Studios:
The clients and hit lists of these studios are a veritable Who's Who of pop music, ranging from Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding, to Simon & Garfunkle, The Rolling Stones, Leonard Skynyrd, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, The Allman Brothers, George Michael, Carrie Underwood, Cher, Cat Stevens, Julian Lennon, and more. On the surface it just doesn't make sense. A kid grown up in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, would think it normal to have to choose between being a farmer, a truck driver, or a studio musician. Such a kid would be surprised to visit other towns 10 times the size of his or her hometown and find no recording studio anywhere, or perhaps a studio or two, but catering to locals and never producing a song heard by anyone but their friends and families.
So how did it happen in Muscle Shoals? That was the topic of a recent, decent documentary by that name, which has been mentioned in these pages before. I watched it on NetFlix. It's fascinating, even if it's not the best bit of filmmaking in the world. It's not a bad film, either; it's just that the topic was mainly appealing to me because I had to know the answer to "how'd that happen?" In the end, one has to conclude that it was a combination of timing and tenacity. Rick Hall was determined to be a recording engineer. It's all he wanted from the time he first witnessed someone doing that. And when he started, one needed little more than a tape machine, some microphones, and a room. I think he attributed his success to a single, significant connection who gave him the break he needed. Somewhere in the movie he said that if it hadn't happened, there would be no studio.
That kind of thing fascinates me. Anyone who looks back on their lives will see a string of events that were driven by such connections, tenacity, or even dumb luck. Most of the pivotal events in my career happened because of a chance phone call, a connection made at a party I almost didn't go to, even a weird connection in which my ex-wife began dating a prominent sax player who heard my tapes and flew out to meet me. We jammed for days, and he invited me to play at some important events.
As musicians, we practice for years and years with no clear idea of where it's leading us. I like to say that you practice 10,000 hours for a ticket to the lottery. Then, if your ticket is drawn, you get a chance to show what you learned. From that point, it's a mixture of talent and tenacity, but there are a lot of fine artists whose tickets just never got drawn. Some people have amazing talent, and they love to practice and play, but when it comes to putting that talent in front of people who can help them become successful musicians, they don't even know the first step to take. Some don't know that Nashville and Los Angeles are where people go to make record deals. And that gets back to what is so amazing about Muscle Shoals. Because of the determination of one person, Rick Hall, a lot of local people got a chance to witness the very core of the music industry convening in their little burg, and it was a one-in-a-million chance. I spent the first ten years of my musical life trying to figure out where these things happened.
If you are just starting out in this business, I recommend watching some documentaries to learn about the way things used to happen. Then if you have determination, you will adapt the patterns you see forming around those people lives to your own circumstances and to the present day, and solve the problems of "what steps do I take?" one by one, rejecting rejection and constantly moving yourself toward what you love to do.
Another documentary I saw recently was called "Inventing David Geffen," which I rented at iTunes. I think it's also worth watching for the same reason. You can picture yourself in his shoes, just not accepting defeat, managing a stable of the greatest racehorses of the pop music industry, and later actors, film productions, even becoming influential to politicians. Joni Mitchell wrote "Free Man in Paris" about Geffen, which I suppose is common knowledge, but the documentary humanized him a bit more. I didn't like Geffen for a personal reason: my manager in the 1990s and early 2000s had once asked him about my using Digital Performer, to which he replied "if your guy is using anything but Pro Tools, he's an idiot and you need to fire him." Thankfully, she had a head of her own and was able to comprehend what I demonstrated for her, so I was able to continue using Digital Performer, but I never forgave Geffen for being such a {censored} about something of which he had only 2nd hand or 3rd hand knowledge. After watching the documentary, my opinions of Geffen were more or less confirmed, but the contexts of his circumstances were illuminated, and I found myself understanding him much better. (Still doesn't make him right about DP vs. Pro Tools)
And yet another documentary: "Who is Harry Nilsson?" He was a pop singer in the 1970s. Chances are you've heard at least one of his three #1 hits. I even know a relative of his who is a successful songwriter. But what I learned about Harry astounded me. He was The Beatles' "favorite group." They all hung out with him and seemed to consider him a best friend, as did many other famous pop stars of the age. There seemed to be a consensus, at least back then, that Harry Nilsson was the greatest singer on the planet.
It doesn't really matter whether you agree, or whether you respect these people or not. They were determined to be successful, and they did it. I always learn something from people like that. I also always wonder if I'd have heard of them if one or two of those early connections didn't work out just-so.
Well, now you know what I did while I recently was sick and didn't feel like doing much more than sitting up. I just thought I'd take what I learned and pass it on.
Shooshie
