The History of Muscle Shoals, Alabama’s FAME Recording Studio
When Tom Stafford, Billy Sherrill and Rick Hall founded Florence Alabama Music Enterprises in 1959, they likely had no idea the role the studio they built over the City Drug Store would play in the future of music. Within a couple of years, Hall had split from Sherill and Stafford. The first hit single produced by FAME Studios, “You Better Move On” by Arthur Alexander, was soon released and what would become known as the “Muscle Shoals sound” was born.
The studio moved to its current location in Muscle Shoals in 1963 and was soon producing records by major soul artists such as Percy Sledge and Aretha Franklin. The studio musicians at the studio became known in their own right and included respected musicians like Barry Beckett, Jimmy Johnson and Duane Allman, a young man soon to make a name for himself as a member of pioneering Southern rockers The Allman Brothers Band.
The studio soon would start delving into pop music in addition to the soul sessions that were being laid down at the studio. Styles began to blend and songs would cross over from one genre to another, scoring on both the pop and R&B charts. The perfect example of this was “Hey Jude”, a Beatles song covered by Wilson Pickett at the insistence of Duane Allman. The Pickett version, featuring a blistering slide guitar solo from Allman, would hit both charts before the Beatles’ original version had even cooled off.
Over the years, FAME has turned its attention more to country artists and been very successful there. Recent artists who have captured the Muscle Shoals sound to add a little something special to their recordings include Drive-By Truckers, Jamey Johnson and Bettye Lavette, who recorded the Grammy nominated “Scene of the Crime” album in FAME’s Studio A.