Muscle Shoals was a city with a population of approximately 6,000 people in the 1960s, where Black and White communities lived uneasily together during the period of racial segregation in the cotton belt of rural Alabama. The town is located on the south bank of the Tennessee River, alongside Sheffield and Tuscumbia. On the north bank of the river, opposite Muscle Shoals, stands Florence. Together they make up the Quad Cities. The whole area is known as The Shoals.
The Quad Cities (Map: National Parks)
The city of Muscle Shoals was founded in 1923, on land where once the Cherokee people hunted. They gave the Tennessee River a beautiful name, that was a forecast of things to come. They called it the singing river.
The origin of the name Muscle Shoals is not clear, but it may well be a reference to the location on the river where the water was shallow and mussels could be collected. To the south was an area where cotton grew well, and this was the basis of its early development. By the 1960s there was also one big industrial site, Reynolds Aluminium Corporation, which provided many local jobs.
The wider area was also becoming well-known within the music industry. Picture in your mind a triangle shape, formed by Memphis at one corner, with Nashville on another, and Muscle Shoals on the third. The Soul of Memphis met the Country music of Nashville in this sleepy corner of northern Alabama, and the sound of Muscle Shoals was born. The fusion of R&B, Country and Soul that emerged from the studios in the Shoals completed the third element of a powerful and dynamic trio. The music that was created here could not be duplicated on the East or West coast in any form whatsoever!
Sam Phillips, who founded Sun Records in Memphis, was born in The Shoals. He worked for a while at a local radio station WLAY (AM), which played a mixture of “white” and “black” music and pointed the way for the two styles to cross-pollinate. Local black singers such as Arthur Alexander and James Carr were influenced by the Country music from Nashville, while white musicians were able to incorporate elements of Blues and Gospel into their work.
Florence, just across the river from Muscle Shoals, was the birthplace of W.C. Handy, who formalised the songs that he heard on the cotton plantations. The town is often referred to as the “birthplace of the Blues”, as a result. In honour of Handy, an annual festival takes place in The Shoals every year, featuring Blues, Jazz, Gospel, R&B, Rock and Country music. The W. C. Handy Music Festival is a fitting tribute not just to him but also to all the singers, musicians and technicians who put Muscle Shoals on the music map.
Like a lot of American tales, the story starts with a dream. Rick Hall met Sam Phillips and decided to follow in his footsteps, dreaming of becoming a successful songwriter and record producer. Who knows, he could even set up a recording studio and a record label! It is hard to imagine that the efforts of one man could give rise to two successful studios in a little-known corner of North Alabama with no obvious links to the music industry, but that is what Rick Hall achieved.
FAME Studios (Ralph Daily: Wikimedia Commons)
