Saw this link at Franklin Bruno's nice blog:
Famed Muscle Shoals studio folds
Dylan, Aretha, Rolling Stones recorded there
Billboard
Updated: 7:25 p.m. ET Feb. 25, 2005
Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Sheffield, Ala. -- where the Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bob Seger and others recorded classic songs -- has closed.
The studio, owned since 1985 by Jackson, Miss.-based Malaco Records, held its last recording session in December. A film production company is in the final stages of purchasing the building.
Musicians Jimmy Johnson, David Hood, Barry Beckett and Roger Hawkins, known collectively as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, founded Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in 1969.
The gritty yet polished rock/R&B groove of the highly sought-after Rhythm Section was known as “the Muscle Shoals sound.” A Rolling Stones session at the building is featured in the film “Gimme Shelter,” which documented parts of the band’s 1969 U.S. tour.
In 1978, the facility moved to a 31,000-square-foot building. The two-room studio was used extensively by Malaco Records artists, says Malaco principal Wolf Stephenson, but the last four years saw a leaner Malaco roster and a sharp decline in outside projects.
“When computer and hard-disk recording really got cheap and better at the same time,” Stephenson says, “it just knocked the socks off a lot of studios, (Muscle Shoals) included. It was just a very difficult thing to compete with.”
Muscle Shoals was put up for sale on Internet auction site eBay in 2004. The asking price of $650,000, which included the building, property and equipment, did not yield serious offers, Stephenson says. The studio’s two Neve consoles have been sold to studios in Detroit and Los Angeles.
“It was quite emotionally painful to do this,” Stephenson says. “There are very few studios left in the world that have the charisma and mystique and notoriety that this place had.”
© 2005 Billboard
― Steve-K (Steve K), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 06:24 (twenty years ago)
Not to go all meta, but there was a thread on this a week or so ago, (
RIP Muscle Shoals Sound Studio) on which I re-posted this list, from one of the old "Rough Guide" threads:
Here's a stab at a Muscle Shoals one, as requested by someone. I've mostly gone for hits, which seems to be kind of the point, and I've tried to hint at the way things went after 1977, but this one ends in '77, like everything else.
1. Arthur Alexander: You?d Better Move On
2. Wilson Pickett: Mustang Sally
3. Aretha Franklin: Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
4. James Carr: Dark End Of The Street
5. Don Varner: Tear Stained Face
6. Candi Staton: Evidence
7. Clarence Carter: Willie And Laura Mae Jones
8. Percy Sledge: Cover Me
9. Irma Thomas: A Woman Will Do Wrong
10. James & Bobby Purify: I?m Your Puppet
11. Solomon Burke: Proud Mary
12. Rolling Stones: Wild Horses
13. Swamp Dogg: Sam Stone
14. Willie Nelson: I?m Falling In Love Again (How Will I Know)
15. Luther Ingram: If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don?t Wanna Be Right)
16. Jonnie Taylor: It?s September
17. Art Garfunkel: Crying In My Sleep
18. Staple Singers: If You?re Ready (Come Go With Me)
(I have all of these records except one, in case we're still supposed ot be sharing that kind of information).
-- Tim (hopkinsti...), January 21st, 2004.
A big post-'77 hit to add: "Giving It Up For Your Love" - Delbert McClinton.
― briania (briania), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 06:43 (twenty years ago)