Town with a sound

With all the tributes being paid to Aretha Franklin and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ed King in the wake of their deaths, it’s a good time to take a look at Muscle Shoals, an excellent 2013 documentary that explores the small town that helped both the Queen of Soul and the Southern rocker find their sound.

Talking about Muscle Shoals, Ala., Bono says, “That sound made it through to Ireland and to Britain and we felt the blood in that. We felt the sort of pulse of it and we wanted some, you know.” And, of course, Franklin and King were just two of the many, many singers and bands who benefited from the influence of the local songwriters, producers, and session musicians whose style became synonymous with that region.

Though Franklin’s vocal talent was undeniable in her early years with Columbia Records, she’d been musically miscast and had failed after nine studio albums to achieve commercial success. It wasn’t until she worked with Muscle Shoals’ soon-to-be legendary producer Rick Hall in his soon-to-be famous run-down studio that Franklin finally broke through.

The recording session was short and contentious, but it resulted in Franklin’s first bona fide hit—“I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)”—and ultimately what is widely recognized as her most accomplished album that included songs “Respect” and “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man.” The rest is R&B history.

Aretha Franklin Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

The film’s themes span far beyond music, though. Muscle Shoals, in its reflections on its little corner of the civil rights era, offers a message of hope and a model of reconciliation for our own era.

Some of the most amusing moments in the film come from the wrong assumptions many made early on about Hall’s in-house rhythm section known as “the Swampers” that backed up the mostly black artists. Recalls one Swamper, “I remember when Paul Simon called Stax Records … and said, ‘I want the same black backup band I heard on “I’ll Take You There.”’ [Al Bell] said, ‘That can happen but these guys are mighty pale.’”

Similarly, Percy Sledge shares, “A lot of people couldn’t believe that my whole band was white guys that played behind me.”He credits Hall and the Swampers with giving him confidence as a young, inexperienced singer, adding,“I used to call them my family.” Legendary soul singer Wilson Pickett and bluesman Clarence Carter describe similar experiences during their time recording in Muscle Shoals.

In the decades that followed, the reputation of Rick Hall and the Swampers grew so international that everyone from Bob Dylan to Bob Seger was clamoring to work with them. They played formative roles in the careers of Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers Band, and the birth of Southern rock (though I hope I won’t offend any British rock fans when I say the quality of the singing takes a considerable drop once we move from Aretha, Wilson Pickett, and Percy Sledge to the Rolling Stones).

Aretha Franklin Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

My one complaint about Muscle Shoals, beyond a bit of language that should have earned it a PG-13 rather than a PG rating, is that it leaves on the cutting-room floor elements that would have proved most interesting to Bible believers. Like how success after a series of tragedies and struggles ultimately led Hall to a deep Christian faith, something he wrote about in his 2015 biography. Likewise, the movie doesn’t mention the contemporary Christian or gospel albums recorded at his studio.

But what’s there is so uplifting it’s still well worth your time. Unlike most music-related documentaries, this isn’t a salacious account of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll masquerading as a cautionary tale. It’s just the story of some small-town guys who loved music so much they made the whole world notice their excellence, giving proof to the Biblical observation (Proverbs 22:29) that a man skilled in his work won’t stay obscure for long—even if he never leaves Alabama.