HowardR
From:
N.Y.C.-Fire Island-Asheville
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Posted 24 Feb 2005 4:30 pm |
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I thought this may be of interest.....
The legendary Muscle Shoals Sound studios have closed down for good. I have so much music recorded there on vinyl records it is unreal. Those cats were the best, the Swampers, Muscle Shoals Horns, Duane Allman, et al. I know a lot of those Muscle Shoals cats that are still around, Pete Carr-who provided that main riff from Bob Seger's "Main Street" and many other records recorded there, Russell Gulley, John Wyker, David Hood, etc. Said Dick Cooper, who in recent times was road manager for Drive By Truckers,
"I've been helping close MSS up, and it has been about the saddest thing I've ever done. We moved the consoles out a couple of weeks ago, and tonight we're packing a truck with stuff heading to Jackson...as I understand it, a lot of photos and other items will probably show up on ebay."
From the wires;
MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. It's a studio where Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett and other big name stars recorded their music.
The Muscle Shoals Sound Studio has been shut down. Cypress Moon Productions, a film company, has bought the building that also was the recording home of Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon.
The Muscle Shoals-based studio opened in 1969 -- and held its last recording session this past December. The studio is closing because it isn't getting as much business as it used to.
A spokesman said the studio will be renovated to accomodate film and video projects. Cypress already has started production in Selma for its first feature film, "When I Find the Ocean."
The movie stars actor Louis Gossett and country singer Naomi Judd.
"It's a sad day in America," says producer, session musician and arranger Al Kooper. "So many great records were made there. The musicians, engineers and the magic of the room made it special."
Muscle Shoals Sound Studios was founded in 1969 in an old Sheffield, Alabama, casket warehouse by musicians Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins, David Hood and Jimmy Johnson, who doubled as its famous house band, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (a.k.a. "the Swampers," as immortalized in Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama"). Their first client was Cher, who recorded her 3614 Jackson Highway album there, and named it after the studio's address.
Atlantic Records producer/executive Jerry Wexler was an early supporter, booking many of the label's artists into the studio. "It seemed we could do nothing but make good records: Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson -- Lulu came from England," says Wexler. "We had this little hideaway, this little retreat with these really terrific musicians, these incredible white boys who played the blues so authentically that it caused a lot of head-scratching. The best part of my career was not the gold records or the Hall of Fame or awards -- it was hearing the music being recorded live at that time."
After more than three decades of operation, the studio -- which moved to a 31,000 square-foot building on the banks of the Tennessee River in 1978 -- recorded its last sessions in December and shuttered on January 14th because of declining business. The two Neve consoles have been sold to studios in Los Angeles and Detroit, the studio owners are exploring donating memorabilia to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and a local film production company has purchased the property.
"It almost brought me to tears when I had to do this," says co-owner Wolf Stephenson, who, along with his two fellow executives of blues/gospel label Malaco Records, purchased the studio from the Rhythm Section members in 1985. "It's heartbreaking."
"It's a strange thing," adds Hood. "All of a sudden, the gold records are down off the walls . . . I'm not sure I know what to think yet."
However, for artists like Bob Seger -- who, after hearing the Rhythm Section's work on Arthur Conley's "Sweet Soul Music," recorded five albums at Muscle Shoals -- it was not the building but the band that made the studio special. "Muscle Shoals did the ballads like 'Main Street' much better than my band," Seger says. "The wonderful thing about them is the second you started playing the song, it sounded like a record."
Another attraction was that the studio's small-town location was far away from big-city distractions and prying eyes. "The town never impinged upon anyone," says Wexler, recalling a day when the Rolling Stones ordered breakfast at the local Howard Johnson's. "One little waitress said, 'Are you a group?' One of the members said, 'Yeah, we're a group. We're Martha and the Vandellas.'"
Scottish-born rocker Mark Knopfler, who first recorded with Bob Dylan at the studio, found the cuisine somewhat lacking. "Jerry introduced me to salted ham and grits," he says of Wexler. "I don't understand grits. To me, they always tasted like wet newspaper." But, for Knopfler, recording at Muscle Shoals made it all worth it. "Laptops and home stations are fine, but it's another thing to be in a proper recording studio full of creative people all sharing in the same piece of music at the same time."
Hood, whose son Patterson fronts the Drive-By Truckers, maintains that all that magic still resides in Alabama. "I don't want the closing of Muscle Shoals Sound to make anybody think that music is no longer happening here," he says. "It's been happening since before I started, and it's still going on today. It was always the people."
[This message was edited by HowardR on 24 February 2005 at 04:30 PM.] |
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Bobbe Seymour
From:
Hendersonville TN USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 1 Mar 2005 2:49 pm
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I have done many sessions at MSS in the last 20 years, seemed to have many friends there. What a strange vibe this place had. But lots of great room for tracking, not a lot of outboard gear though, but all my mixing was done in Nashville anyway. Nashville didn't have the great space for recording or even for parking that MSS had.
My new adult contempt CD was done partly there, the Atlanta string section, and the Jim Hoke horn section were done in one of the very large "live" rooms. Most of the percussion, steel drums along with the main rhythm section were recorded in the main room. This CD has been in the making for over two years now and is finally done. Thirty eight musicians, (and four drummers).
I always enjoyed working there as a musician, except when the producers didn't know what they were doing, but that wasn't the studios fault.
A shame I won't get to do more projects there, I'll miss the money too!
bobbe |
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