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Post subject: Muscle Shoals
Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 10:50 am
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My wife and I watched this movie on DVD last night. I highly recommend it, had no idea how much music came out of there and for so many years. Amazed that just about everyone recorded there at one time or another.


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Post subject: Re: Muscle Shoals
Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 11:15 am
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The only thing I know about Muscle Shoals is they got the swampers.

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Post subject: Re: Muscle Shoals
Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 5:26 pm
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And they've been known to pick a song or two...

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Post subject: Re: Muscle Shoals
Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 6:16 pm
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Post subject: Re: Muscle Shoals
Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 6:51 pm
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Post subject: Re: Muscle Shoals
Posted: Tue Apr 15, 2014 11:05 pm
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Muscle Shoals Sound is right up there with Hitsville, Stax, Sun, Gold Star and Sound City in my book. When you talk about "The Muscle Shoals Sound" itself you are talking about three different studios and two groups of players but one of those two groups played under two names. The studios are FAME STUDIOS and two different homes for MUSCLE SHOALS SOUND STUDIO. The groups are The Swampers, The Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section (both groups are exactly the same guys) and the Muscle Shoals Horns. The Muscle Shoals horns didn't come along until the early 1970's though long after the character of "The Muscle Shoals Sound" itself had been cast.

Like Sun and Hitsville the original MSS building is a very humble and unassuming looking building where some stellar recordings were made. It was actually a casket warehouse before becoming MSS. The first session August 19 of 1969 at MSS was "Take A Letter Maria" by R.B. Greaves which became a number 2 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and a certified million seller single. The Greaves hit was a great start but it was the Stones "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses" which cemented it into the consciousness of musicians worldwide.

The popularity of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio as a southeastern USA studio destination is because of many other factors. Like Sun and Sound City the big studio and the control area where the mixing is done each have unique acoustics not found anywhere else. Then there are the two Neve consoles that replaced the original UA consoles, the Ampex tape machines and the house rhythm section. Officially "The Swampers" at FAME Studios became "The Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section" after leaving Fame Studios. The Swampers was a hard name to shake. Nobody recorded a song mentioning Neve channel strips, Ampex recorders or The Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section though. Thus the house rhythm section gets lots of credit for it no matter what you call them.

In 1969 Barry Beckett on keys, Roger Hawkins on drums, Jimmy Johnson on guitar and David Hood on Fender Bass all left Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals and started their own Muscle Shoals Sound Studio business plus founded their own publishing company. The name itself is sort of a misnomer since the original MSS is technically located in nearby Sheffield, Alabama and not actually in Muscle Shoals proper. It is said to be the first studio and music publishing house owned outright by the studio's house rhythm section (and probably the first to be built in a former casket warehouse too.) It is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Fame Studios is not but is listed on the official list of Alabama Landmarks & Historic Places.

The original console at MSS was a Universal Audio 610 and they don't have much headroom which you can tell on one part of "Wild Horses" when Mick's vocal distorts more than just a little bit. After the Stones session the new Neve consoles arrived. There is a simplistic magic in the EQ breaks on the Rupert Neve designed and hand-built in the UK channel strips in a Neve console. Beyond the way the EQ is split up they have headroom far surpassing any other channel strips ever made by man including Joe Meek's. Motown built their own stuff except for the Ampex tape recorders and microphones. Hitsville could sound clean or dirty depending a bit upon the producer and engineer but the clarity of Hitsville depended the most on the exact preamps being used during multiple progressive upgrades to cleaner and cleaner preamps. All these studios without exception used Ampex tape recorders.

(SIDEBAR! Two little known facts that all analog studio history freaks should know about Ampex recorders: 1. Bing Crosby was not only Ampex's first big customer buying serial numbered machines #1 and #2, but also a big Ampex sales force with his Crosby Enterprises being the longtime western distributor for Ampex products. Without Mr. Crosby Ampex might never have gotten off the ground. 2. Les Paul had a great deal of input with the Ampex design engineers in creation of their first multi-track machine. Mr. Paul invented the single machine "over-dubbing" recording process by modifying an existing Ampex mono machine in reverse engineering fashion by adding an additional playback head just ahead of the erase head. Mr. Paul's mod worked but the original track had to be destroyed in the re-recording process. He took his idea to Ampex for a multi-track machine that synchronized multiple tracks uniformly without destroying the original track. Les Paul is the reason Ampex set out to perfect the synchronized multi-track recording process. Les Paul then bought the very first Ampex multi-track recorder himself.)

The original building for Muscle Shoals Studio is still there in Sheffield in the same configuration it was in when abandoned in 1979 for their new larger location. The reason it is in original shape is the local businessman who owned it thought it needed to be kept that way and he maintained it exactly as MSS left it. That is one responsible businessman. It is owned now by the Muscle Shoals Music Foundation and the long range plan is turn it into a museum, sort of like Hitsville.

In 2009 the Black Keys recorded "Brothers" which is a Grammy winning album in that same old original MSS building by temporarily reinstalling recording equipment owned by the producer Mark Neill. Mark Neill previously was a noted analog home recording hobbyist/enthusiast/guru that happened to have a lot of old analog gear installed on a mobile recording truck and a cut down Universal Audio 610 analog console just like the original used on the Stones 3 day long session. Mr. Neill is probably the most unlikely Grammy winning producer in Grammy history. It just goes to show you home recording enthusiasts and analog freaks that anything is possible! In fairness, I should point out that Neill used a Radar hard drive recorder, not an Ampex multi-track machine for the Black Keys sessions at MSS. He has a Studer multi-track recorder but left it in CA. The big Studers have notoriously finicky power requirements and Mr. Neill opted instead to go analog to digital. He still captured the unique acoustics in that place.

(SPOOKY SIDEBAR: The "Brothers" sessions for the Black Keys started August 19, 2009. That was 40 years to the DAY after the "Take A Letter Maria" session happened in the same room! Whether by accident or by design, wow that is eerie.)

The monster Neve console that anchored the big room at Sound City is now the property of Dave Grohl and it still lives and breathes in slightly cut down form at his STUDIO 606 in Northridge, Ca. The Sound City Neve was a focal point in the film "Sound City" which is also recommended viewing for music freaks. While the "Sound City" film made it sound like Sound City had the only Neve console on the planet, they most certainly did not. It was perhaps one of the larger ones on the west coast in the USA though. Neve consoles were used in most top studios in the USA from the 60's till today. In fact the combination of Neve consoles and Ampex recorders was pretty much in every respectable studio at one time by the 1970's or they could not compete. While he got the Neve console from Sound City, I do not know where the gigantic 2 inch Ampex recorders from Sound City went for sure, but I don't think Dave Grohl got one. They were probably about shot anyway. They ran day and night for a quarter century at least. Grohl's Studio 606 is using a slightly more modern and much more compact Studer/Revox. (Studers are no Ampex. Comparing a Volvo to a Corvette is an apt analogy.) I think Studio 606 is probably in reality recording analog to digital anyway and the Studer reel to reel machine is more for show than anything else. 2 inch tape itself is next to impossible to get anymore and it doesn't age well making the Ampex MM series machines so many people love a difficult if not impossible animal to feed. It just makes more sense to go to digital today, but there is something about those Ampex MM series 2 inch recorders that was also pretty magical. Sort of a pity you can't feed them anymore, but nobody is making recording tape for them anymore. And what stuff is out there is aged.

The buildings where The Muscle Shoals Sound happened:

FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) STUDIO still owned by one of the three original 1959 founders, Rick Hall. The other two founders were legendary Nashville producer/writer Billy Sherrill and Tom Stafford. Stafford and Sherill bailed out in the early 1960's. Tons of hits were recorded here from Arthur Alexander, to Bobby Gentry to Mac Davis to the Osmonds to Shenandoah. This building is the third home of FAME, they started upstairs over a drug store, moved to a tobacco warehouse, Rick Hall took 100% ownership then recorded Arthur Alexander's hit "You Better Move On" and took the proceeds to build their permanent home in 1963.

Image

MUSCLE SHOALS STUDIO (The original 1969 to 1979)

Image

MUSCLE SHOALS STUDIO (1979 to 1985)

Image

This second location was sold in 1985 to Malaco Records who also got publishing and distribution rights to the entire MSS music catalog which was owned by The Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section. Jackson, MS based Malaco closed it in 2005 selling off the gear including the Neve consoles and sold the building to Cypress Moon Studios, a film production company who still occupies it. Malaco still owns the rights to all the MSS recordings and publishing.


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Post subject: Re: Muscle Shoals
Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2014 4:52 am
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brotherdave wrote:
Muscle Shoals Sound is right up there with Hitsville, Stax, Sun, Gold Star and Sound City in my book. When you talk about "The Muscle Shoals Sound" itself you are talking about three different studios and two groups of players but one of those two groups played under two names. The studios are FAME STUDIOS and two different homes for MUSCLE SHOALS SOUND STUDIO. The groups are The Swampers, The Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section (both groups are exactly the same guys) and the Muscle Shoals Horns. The Muscle Shoals horns didn't come along until the early 1970's though long after the character of "The Muscle Shoals Sound" itself had been cast.

Like Sun and Hitsville the original MSS building is a very humble and unassuming looking building where some stellar recordings were made. It was actually a casket warehouse before becoming MSS. The first session August 19 of 1969 at MSS was "Take A Letter Maria" by R.B. Greaves which became a number 2 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and a certified million seller single. The Greaves hit was a great start but it was the Stones "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses" which cemented it into the consciousness of musicians worldwide.

The popularity of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio as a southeastern USA studio destination is because of many other factors. Like Sun and Sound City the big studio and the control area where the mixing is done each have unique acoustics not found anywhere else. Then there are the two Neve consoles that replaced the original UA consoles, the Ampex tape machines and the house rhythm section. Officially "The Swampers" at FAME Studios became "The Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section" after leaving Fame Studios. The Swampers was a hard name to shake. Nobody recorded a song mentioning Neve channel strips, Ampex recorders or The Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section though. Thus the house rhythm section gets lots of credit for it no matter what you call them.

In 1969 Barry Beckett on keys, Roger Hawkins on drums, Jimmy Johnson on guitar and David Hood on Fender Bass all left Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals and started their own Muscle Shoals Sound Studio business plus founded their own publishing company. The name itself is sort of a misnomer since the original MSS is technically located in nearby Sheffield, Alabama and not actually in Muscle Shoals proper. It is said to be the first studio and music publishing house owned outright by the studio's house rhythm section (and probably the first to be built in a former casket warehouse too.) It is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Fame Studios is not but is listed on the official list of Alabama Landmarks & Historic Places.

The original console at MSS was a Universal Audio 610 and they don't have much headroom which you can tell on one part of "Wild Horses" when Mick's vocal distorts more than just a little bit. After the Stones session the new Neve consoles arrived. There is a simplistic magic in the EQ breaks on the Rupert Neve designed and hand-built in the UK channel strips in a Neve console. Beyond the way the EQ is split up they have headroom far surpassing any other channel strips ever made by man including Joe Meek's. Motown built their own stuff except for the Ampex tape recorders and microphones. Hitsville could sound clean or dirty depending a bit upon the producer and engineer but the clarity of Hitsville depended the most on the exact preamps being used during multiple progressive upgrades to cleaner and cleaner preamps. All these studios without exception used Ampex tape recorders.

(SIDEBAR! Two little known facts that all analog studio history freaks should know about Ampex recorders: 1. Bing Crosby was not only Ampex's first big customer buying serial numbered machines #1 and #2, but also a big Ampex sales force with his Crosby Enterprises being the longtime western distributor for Ampex products. Without Mr. Crosby Ampex might never have gotten off the ground. 2. Les Paul had a great deal of input with the Ampex design engineers in creation of their first multi-track machine. Mr. Paul invented the single machine "over-dubbing" recording process by modifying an existing Ampex mono machine in reverse engineering fashion by adding an additional playback head just ahead of the erase head. Mr. Paul's mod worked but the original track had to be destroyed in the re-recording process. He took his idea to Ampex for a multi-track machine that synchronized multiple tracks uniformly without destroying the original track. Les Paul is the reason Ampex set out to perfect the synchronized multi-track recording process. Les Paul then bought the very first Ampex multi-track recorder himself.)

The original building for Muscle Shoals Studio is still there in Sheffield in the same configuration it was in when abandoned in 1979 for their new larger location. The reason it is in original shape is the local businessman who owned it thought it needed to be kept that way and he maintained it exactly as MSS left it. That is one responsible businessman. It is owned now by the Muscle Shoals Music Foundation and the long range plan is turn it into a museum, sort of like Hitsville.

In 2009 the Black Keys recorded "Brothers" which is a Grammy winning album in that same old original MSS building by temporarily reinstalling recording equipment owned by the producer Mark Neill. Mark Neill previously was a noted analog home recording hobbyist/enthusiast/guru that happened to have a lot of old analog gear installed on a mobile recording truck and a cut down Universal Audio 610 analog console just like the original used on the Stones 3 day long session. Mr. Neill is probably the most unlikely Grammy winning producer in Grammy history. It just goes to show you home recording enthusiasts and analog freaks that anything is possible! In fairness, I should point out that Neill used a Radar hard drive recorder, not an Ampex multi-track machine for the Black Keys sessions at MSS. He has a Studer multi-track recorder but left it in CA. The big Studers have notoriously finicky power requirements and Mr. Neill opted instead to go analog to digital. He still captured the unique acoustics in that place.

(SPOOKY SIDEBAR: The "Brothers" sessions for the Black Keys started August 19, 2009. That was 40 years to the DAY after the "Take A Letter Maria" session happened in the same room! Whether by accident or by design, wow that is eerie.)

The monster Neve console that anchored the big room at Sound City is now the property of Dave Grohl and it still lives and breathes in slightly cut down form at his STUDIO 606 in Northridge, Ca. The Sound City Neve was a focal point in the film "Sound City" which is also recommended viewing for music freaks. While the "Sound City" film made it sound like Sound City had the only Neve console on the planet, they most certainly did not. It was perhaps one of the larger ones on the west coast in the USA though. Neve consoles were used in most top studios in the USA from the 60's till today. In fact the combination of Neve consoles and Ampex recorders was pretty much in every respectable studio at one time by the 1970's or they could not compete. While he got the Neve console from Sound City, I do not know where the gigantic 2 inch Ampex recorders from Sound City went for sure, but I don't think Dave Grohl got one. They were probably about shot anyway. They ran day and night for a quarter century at least. Grohl's Studio 606 is using a slightly more modern and much more compact Studer/Revox. (Studers are no Ampex. Comparing a Volvo to a Corvette is an apt analogy.) I think Studio 606 is probably in reality recording analog to digital anyway and the Studer reel to reel machine is more for show than anything else. 2 inch tape itself is next to impossible to get anymore and it doesn't age well making the Ampex MM series machines so many people love a difficult if not impossible animal to feed. It just makes more sense to go to digital today, but there is something about those Ampex MM series 2 inch recorders that was also pretty magical. Sort of a pity you can't feed them anymore, but nobody is making recording tape for them anymore. And what stuff is out there is aged.

The buildings where The Muscle Shoals Sound happened:

FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) STUDIO still owned by one of the three original 1959 founders, Rick Hall. The other two founders were legendary Nashville producer/writer Billy Sherrill and Tom Stafford. Stafford and Sherill bailed out in the early 1960's. Tons of hits were recorded here from Arthur Alexander, to Bobby Gentry to Mac Davis to the Osmonds to Shenandoah. This building is the third home of FAME, they started upstairs over a drug store, moved to a tobacco warehouse, Rick Hall took 100% ownership then recorded Arthur Alexander's hit "You Better Move On" and took the proceeds to build their permanent home in 1963.

Image

MUSCLE SHOALS STUDIO (The original 1969 to 1979)

Image

MUSCLE SHOALS STUDIO (1979 to 1985)

Image

This second location was sold in 1985 to Malaco Records who also got publishing and distribution rights to the entire MSS music catalog which was owned by The Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section. Jackson, MS based Malaco closed it in 2005 selling off the gear including the Neve consoles and sold the building to Cypress Moon Studios, a film production company who still occupies it. Malaco still owns the rights to all the MSS recordings and publishing.


Excellent post, even though no mention of my old buddy,
Eddie Hinton. :?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Hinton

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Post subject: Re: Muscle Shoals
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2014 1:51 pm
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Miami Mike wrote:
...no mention of my old buddy,
Eddie Hinton. :?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Hinton


Mr. Hinton was not one of the four musician owners of MSS but did play for a period with them including 2 years at FAME and the first 2 years at MSS. Other members came and went also with the core four owners of MSS a constant. Your old buddy was a heck of a session player. Did you ever see the film about him? I didn't.

I'm sure somewhere there is a list of everyone who played at Fame and MSS but I've never ran across it. Will probably be something like that at the MSS museum if the foundation gets it up and running.


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Post subject: Re: Muscle Shoals
Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2014 7:24 am
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brotherdave wrote:
Your old buddy was a heck of a session player. Did you ever see the film about him? I didn't.


No, I didn't. I believe his family stopped it because it didn't really portray him well.

http://www.geocities.jp/hideki_wtnb/eddiecontents.html

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Post subject: Re: Muscle Shoals
Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2014 8:11 pm
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Just finished watching Independent Lens on PBS, Muscle Shoals was the subject for the entire 2 hours. Well worth watching imho.


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Post subject: Re: Muscle Shoals
Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2014 11:36 am
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I too saw this last night very good It is nice when you see stories on Jerry Wexler Producer Rick Hall, David Hood, Roger Hawkins, Jimmy Johnson, Barry Beckett and Spooner Oldham (The Swappers ) and all the session players that became stars themselves. If you get a chance it is well worth watching. It was so good that I did not plug my guitar in an amp just played it unplugged for the 2 hours
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