The "Secret" Sessions

Well, not quite. A few curious tidbits of information have yet to escape the Tennessee River swamplands.

The original Muscle Shoals Sound Studios ("Burlap Palace"), converted to a pro audio store after the move to larger quarters. Control room and iso booth still in place at time of photo in 1980.

For example, did you know that Boz Scaggs, before cutting his classic Atlantic solo debut (featuring Duane Allman on slide) came to Muscle Shoals posing as a reporter for The Rolling Stone? Also little known: Before hooking up with Keith Godchaux, ex-Grateful Dead vocalist Donna Godchaux (nee Thatcher) worked as a secretary and sometime backup vocalist at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios.

Most Jimmy Cliff fans would assume "Sitting in Limbo" from The Harder They Come soundtrack was recorded in Kingston. Nope. Like other "secret" Shoals sessions, it was never officially credited on liner notes because Cliff was not properly papered to "work" (i.e. record) while visiting the USA.

These and other revelations emerged from hours of conversation with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section: Barry Beckett, Jimmy Johnson, Roger Hawkins and David Hood. Although these four played on the vast majority of Muscle Shoals hits from 1967 through 1980, they were actually the second generation of hit-record pickers. It all began nearly five years before, with Rick Hall and Fame Studios.

Hall started the original Fame in a couple of small rooms over a downtown drugstore. In 1961, he discovered a singing bellhop in a local hotel, and brought him into the makeshift studio with a rhythm section culled from a local band called Dan Penn and the Pallbearers, and cut "You'd Better Move On." It was a minor hit the following year. But momentum built slowly, as he cut more hits with Jimmy Hughes and Tommy Roe before the original rhythm section—bassist Norbert Putnam, keyboardist David Briggs and drummer Jerry Carrigan-were lured away by more lucrative session rates in Nashville.

MSRS: The Next Generation

Their departure opened the way for a second generation of pickers to coalesce around Hall's studio. This new blood, which eventually included the core quartet of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, became the propelling force behind a succession of hits by Wilson Pickett ("Land of 1000 Dances" and "Mustang Sally"), Arthur Conley ("Sweet Soul Music") and Percy Sledge ("When a Man Loves a Woman"). But it was the Aretha Franklin sessions that finally brought fame to Muscle Shoals'and got the rhythm section out of town.

Although Aretha's only trip to Alabama produced two of her most memorable recordings ("I Never Loved a Man" and "Do Right Woman"), some frictions involving members of her entourage made the experience upsetting. Wexler, not wanting to break up the winning combination, decided to bring the rhythm section to New York.

"The Swampers" in 1980. L to R: Roger Hawkins, Jimmy Johnson, Barry Beckett, David Hood.

"I was really kind of scared by the whole trip," says Roger Hawkins. "I was just a kid at the time, from the rural South, and here I was going to play in a studio on Broadway with Aretha Franklin. I was barely twenty at the time, and I had butterflies in my stomach."

Jimmy Johnson found the experience both rewarding and intimidating. "Every time we went up to New York, I thought it would be the last time. But we were crossing our fingers, eyes, legs and toes hoping it wouldn't be."

It was a challenge for Alabama players. Accustomed to spontaneous "head arrangements", they suddenly had to contend with a sophisticated, uptown approach.

"Arif Mardin was working with Jerry and [engineer] Tom Dowd on most of those session," recalls Johnson. "He was so much more aware in musical terms. It also got complicated because he had just come from Turkey and didn't speak very good English, while we, being Southern, were trying to figure things out by reading his lips."

Somehow, the messages got through. For the next two years, the Muscle Shoals musicians were traveling regularly to New York and later Miami for sessions with King Curtis and Solomon Burke as well as Aretha. It was the close ties to Atlantic that gave them the courage to make a bold move in 1968: they bought their own studio.