Land of A Thousand Sessions: The Complete Muscle Shoals Story 1951-1985

The Muscle Shoals story is one of the most unlikely tales in the history of American popular music. Through dogged determination, maniacal intensity and indomitable will power, producer Rick Hall kick started a hit-making music industry that by any reasonable logic should have never happened. A tiny hamlet in northwest Alabama, Muscle Shoals was part of an area known as the Quad Cities that included three other small towns, Sheffield, Florence and Tuscumbia. Effectively in the middle of nowhere, the Quad Cites skewed 90% white and 10% black. Generally deploying largely white rhythm sections, black vocalists and integrated horns, Fame, Quinvy and Muscle Shoals Sound studios became soul music powerhouses recordings dozens of genre defining hits such as Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman,” Wilson Pickett’s “Land of a Thousand Dances,” Etta James’ “Tell Mama,” Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You),” Clarence Carter’s “Patches,” the Staple Singers’ “I’ll Take You There,” Luther Ingram’s “If Loving You Is Wrong,” Bobby Womack’s “Across 110th Street” and Millie Jackson’s “Caught Up” opus. In the 1970s Muscle Shoals grew to include nine studios and expanded into rock and pop, producing an extraordinary number of Top Ten smashes including the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar,” Bobbie Gentry’s “Fancy,” the Osmonds’ “One Bad Apple,” Joe Cocker’s “High Time We Went,” Leon Russell’s “Tightrope,” Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome,” Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night,” Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” and reggae star Jimmy Cliff’s “Sitting in Limbo.” In the late 1970s and early 1980s Muscle Shoals pivoted yet again, becoming a magnet for country artists, the result being such classic recordings as Willie Nelson’s Phases and Stages, Hank Williams Jr.’ “Family Tradition”, Mac Davis’ “Baby, Don’t Get Hooked on Me,” Jerry Reed’s “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft),” T. G. Sheppard’s “Strong Heart” and Shenandoah’s “Two Dozen Roses.” Known as the “Hit Recording Capital of the World,” the saga of Muscle Shoals is a story that deserves an in-depth treatment that tells the story of the musicians, producers and engineers that created some of the most important records in American music history. View Less