![]() We measured every studio we ever worked with against that studio, because we just thought, man, this is the greatest place in the world. That was sort of neat, interesting.ĭavid Hood: When we started working there at FAME, by that time it was a successful studio. And "Land of a Thousand Dances," those were sort of up-tempo danceable kind of things. Those who heard it and bought it know there are things like "Mustang Sally" from Wilson Pickett out of there. Spooner Oldham: It was a combination of good engineers and good players, and hopefully good songs that made it special for us. Sometimes if there was a missed note or something like that, you wouldn't do anything about it, you'd let it go. And so fixing things in those days was a whole lot harder than it is nowadays. "Up Tight, Good Man" - Laura Lee The Swampers at FAME 1964-1969 In December, 1964, the first FAME rhythm section left for Nashville, and the guys who would become known as "The Swampers" moved in: Jimmy Johnson (guitar), Junior Lowe (guitar), David Hood (bass, father of Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers), Roger Hawkins (drums), Spooner Oldham (keyboards).ĭavid Hood: In 1967 Rick was just going multi track. This is how they broke one of the first hits out of that area. They started driving around Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia, stopping off at radio stations handing out Mighty Sam records along with complementary booze. I think it was Spooner's uncle who had a used car dealership and he and Dan borrowed an old station wagon one week and drove up to Tennessee and filled it up with liquor. Johnny Townsend: Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham had written a song for the artist Mighty Sam and they had some records pressed up to try to get some airplay. We got to spend a whole lot of time with them. ![]() There were no decent hotels here so they had to stay at our house when they came. Clarence Carter and Candi Staton and those people were all at our house when I was a kid. Rodney Hall (general manager at FAME, son of Rick Hall): I think the first black man I ever saw was Wilson Pickett. It was a kind of community environment you can't get in the big recording centers. In the Shoals, if you needed a hired gun to come in and knock out some part for your song, whether it be guitar, bass, drums, horns or whatever, you just pick up the phone and call one of your friends to come over and lay it down for you. I liked to get the musicians together and spend hours, even days working things out and getting them like WE wanted them, not the way some song factory's idea of how things were supposed to be done. It was more cookie cutter type recording and I was never into that. They just did things a different way there. Johnny Townsend of Sanford-Townsend Band: I never really liked recording in Nashville. But that's the way that started, just a small room with stucco, with hard surfaces that really echo. And then they went on to different kinds of echo stuff, electronic echoes. Many folks had different variations thereof. And then you'd place a little speaker and a microphone in there. It was essentially a concrete block wall, or four walls with stucco on it. Spooner Oldham: The studio itself had this interesting echo chamber at the time. So when he built that studio he based the dimensions and the echo chamber, which was our live chamber, on what was at the RCA Studio in Nashville. Rick had gone up there and gotten measurements, dimensions of the building, because that was such a successful studio, and at the time Rick was aspiring to get work done in Nashville. I spend a minimum of three hours per song.ĭavid Hood (bass player at FAME and Muscle Shoals Sound Studios): The FAME Studio, Studio A, was patterned after RCA Victor, the studio in Nashville. I can't believe anybody can cut four hit records in three hours. Rick Hall (told to Barney Hoskyns): When we started out, Nashville paid union scale and you were in trouble if you didn't get four sides in three hours. So we knew from that that some different sound waves were going out there to catch the ears of English folks. ![]() Spooner Oldham (keyboard player at FAME, later recorded with Bob Dylan and Neil Young): We did a hit recording, "You Better Move On," by Arthur Alexander, and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones started covering the songs which Arthur had written. Their first hit was a song by Florence native Arthur Alexander called "You Better Move On." Alexander is the answer to the trivia question: Whose songs were recorded by The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and The Rolling Stones? "Hold What You've Got" - Joe Tex FAME Studios 603 East Avalon Avenue, Muscle Shoals, Alabama Rick Hall started FAME studios (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) in 1959 in Florence, Alabama, and moved the operation to Muscle Shoals in 1961. Songs Recorded at FAME with their First Rhythm Section
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