The Muscle Shoals region of Alabama is synonymous with music. Artists ranging from Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Paul Simon, and the Rolling Stones have traveled to the Shoals to create music. APR’s Joe Moody has reported extensively on Fame Studio, but they’re not the only guys in town. There’s also the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.
“Welcome to Muscle Shoal Sound, according to Keith Richards, you're in rock and roll Heaven.”
That's how tour guide Toni Brooks welcomes visitors to Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Her colleague Terell Benton starts his tours a little differently.
“Welcome to 36 14 Jackson Highway, or as the Swampers called it, the Burlap Palace,” he said.
The studio is the only tour stop in the small cinder block building on Jackson Highway. Standing in the center of the room next to the piano that played on hits such as Paul Simon’s Kodachrome, Brooks tells the history of the building before the Swampers left Fame Studios in the spring of 1969 and built the Burlap Palace.
“The building was built in 1948 as a casket showroom. Come on, casket, showroom. You’ve got to laugh about that,” Brooks tells her latest tour group. “By the time they got here in ‘69, Mr. Fred Beavis had the building. Mr. Beavis is the man that created the control room. He had a son interested in music. He had a church choir that he liked to record, so he put in a control room.”
Brooks tells the stories of each of the local back-up band The Swampers and plays songs recorded where the tour is standing. If you don’t know about the Swampers, and you’re a fan of the Alabama Crimson Tide, you’ve probably heard about them. One of Brooks' favorite studio stories is how the Rolling Stones illegally recorded some of their biggest hits right there. The Stones had a Visa to tour the U.S. in 1969, but not a Visa to record, so Atlantic Records Vice President Jerry Wexler sent them to Muscle Shoals.
“Wexler said, well, who's going to know? I'm going to take you to Sheffield, Alabama. Trust me. No one will know you're there,” she recalled.
“When they landed here in 1969, they landed in a dry county. There wasn't a whole lot to do here in 1969. So they did three songs in three days: Wild Horses, Brown Sugar, and You Got to Move all on this album here, Sticky Fingers,” Brooks continued.
Holding up the Sticky Fingers album, Brooks makes a confession.
“I have a problem. I love the Rolling Stones. I've seen them eighteen times and followed them to Europe and Canada. My husband has seen them twenty one times. We love to tell people we have no children. All of our money went to Mick and Keith, and it's getting worse as the years go by,” she said.
Since the Rolling Stones engineer didn’t come to Muscle Shoals, Brooks says Swamper Jimmy Johnson jumped in to produce the songs.
“They were working on Brown Sugar, and he had Keith Richards in the closet because you had the bathroom or the closet,” said Brooks. “He said Keith was in there on 10. His amplifier was as loud as it would go, which was way too loud. Imagine the sound. They said if you were in the parking lot when the Stones were here and rehearsing, you could watch the building move. That's how loud it was. Jimmy said he looked out and Mick Jagger was getting into it. He thought it was the greatest thing he'd ever heard. Jimmy's working these controls, but I'm hearing Keith Richards in the closet, and you will from now on, that is what you're going to hear. This is Brown Sugar.
After the tours are over, Brooks and studio curator Terrel Benton sit in the studio with APR and tell tour stories. They say some people walk into the building knowing the history of the building. Others don’t.
“They'll pull into the parking lot and they don't even know where they are. I mean, they'll say, they'll come in and What is this place? We just saw it. We just thought we would stop,” said Brooks.
“We thought it'd be bigger,” added Benton.
“Yeah, we thought it would be bigger. That is the first thing I know I've heard out there in the lobby. Well, how could you have a guided tour in there?
“Rod Stewart calls it a tiny little room with the colored lights,” said Benton. “I think people are freaked out that a star as big as Bob Seger did all his records. They figured he'd be in New York or Detroit. No, it was Sheffield, Alabama.”
The release of the documentary Muscles Shoals in 2013 brought new awareness. Dr. Dre of Beats Electronics saw the documentary and donated one million dollars to help restore this building. The Muscle Shoals Music Foundation also started in 2013 to keep the studio open and recording. Brooks thanks each tour and tells them today they are the ones who are keeping the studio open.
“We are a nonprofit, so when you spend anything to get in the tours or buy a t-shirt, all that money goes back into the foundation to keep the doors open.”
The Muscle Shoals Music Foundation presents Mac McAnally on Thursday, November 30 for its annual fundraiser for the Muscle Shoals Sounds Studio to keep the doors open and the music alive.
