Uptown and Country and the Bluegrass Block will not be seen tonight so that we may present the following special presentation. People out here have such beautiful everything. Lakes, river, blue water, trees, beautiful flowers.
There's no special wind blowing across Muscle Shoals. There's no special star shining on Muscle Shoals. I don't know, there's just something to her.
I suppose if you really went back as far as you can go, you'd have to think about Dexter Johnson, who is the uncle of Jimmy Johnson presently with Muscle Shoals Sound. Dexter had a little old studio out in his backyard. Sue Richards did some early recording back then. This would have been in the latter part of the 50s, I believe.
I don't want to date anybody, but it was way back there. And then after him, I think you've got to give some credit to... Woody Richardson over in Lexington, he had a studio up there that came along about that time.
And certainly you've got to give credit to people like James Joyner, who wrote the first hit tune that was ever recorded, produced from this area, A Falling Star, sung by Senator Bobby Denton in his first time around. It later became a hit record. Bobby Denton was the first.
He came to me from Cherokee. I don't know how he found out about me that I was interested in music and was playing around with the music part. And I recall going out to one of my buses with a guitar and singing some songs for Bobby, and he selected Fallen Star and another tune. He got the guitar and we sit down in that bus and he sang a falling star to me.
We were looking for a song to record and he asked me if I thought that that song would possibly be alright. and I told him that I thought it was a great song. And so we, of course, at that time, Muscle Shoals didn't have any recording facilities at all.
W.L.A. Wise was a local record company. radio station that had a recorder that they recorded programs on and commercials and played back. It was about the only recording facilities that exist.
We got a group together and I think we had two microphones and we didn't have a full-time engineer. The DJ on the air playing records, the engineer, going to tape the cutting of the songs. We recorded the two songs there in the studio while the DJ was carrying on the air program. And we recorded a falling star.
I was on my way home from taking a ball team to play one night somewhere. And after leaving the boys at school, from there to my home, I witnessed a star falling, a beautiful star coming across the sky late at night. And this is where I got the inspiration. wrote the song. It didn't take very long to write it.
It was just an inspired type thing. From there, I began to perform the song at a friend's patio restaurant out on Shoal Creek. And he took interest in the song and began to question me about it, who wrote it. And I guess he encouraged me to do something with the song.
And when Bobby Denton came along and liked the song, we recorded him. And from his version, Jimmy... Jimmy Newman heard the song, recorded it, and of course he made history from then. His was released in 1957. And to date we've sold approximately three million records by various artists. No one particular artist has sold a million, but we've moved a lot of the records.
Over the years. I'm very proud of it. It's a standard now.
Paul, James Yoner, Billy Sherrill, Tom Stafford, those fellas all had a studio over in Florence, Alabama, in the early part of the 60s, and it was up over the old drum. store in Florence, Alabama. If you remember how they used to carton eggs back years ago, they had the cardboard partition between the layers of eggs, like there was a dozen eggs in a layer.
These things were real good for acoustics and I remember when we started that thing I would go around all the supermarkets and gather up these big cartons and and with a staple gun we covered the walls and the ceilings to make our studio acoustics and and and had blisters on my hands from from all the stapling but we had we had a real makeshift studio there and Rick and me and there was a friend of mine named Tom Stafford in Florence. Tom is a, he's passed away now, but he's, he was a songwriter and we had worked together since I was probably 13, 14 years old. He had a lot of excellent ideas.
I think Tom was ahead of his time in songwriting. Today he could be a real, real hit. But We started that little organization over there and we called it, in the very beginning, we called it Bobby Denton Music. And it was publishing and we were affiliated with BMI and just didn't know anything about it.
We didn't know anybody to place things with or anything. But we were trying to develop a group and we had a black group. I've forgotten their official name, but we were having, we were trying to get demo records made of them. And we had...
bought a we had gone to Nashville and bought about a $300 recorder that we thought was excellent but we had a difference in opinion about the group there was one person in the group that seemed to stand out and he would have been possibly all right if he could have the other people that cooperated with him and we had conflicts and so we decided to disband. Rick Hall decided to stay. and said he would give it a year and if he didn't have any luck that he would leave. They had called it Florence Alabama Music Enterprises over in Florence and when they busted up and Rick came over here he changed the name of his studio to Fame, F-A-M-E, which is the first letters of Florence Alabama Music Enterprises. Well, as a producer, the first hit record I ever had as a record producer was on a black artist by the name of Arthur Alexander.
And the tune was called You Better Move On. It was a big hit record. And Arthur was a bellhop at the time. in one of the old hotels in Sheffield. And we just kind of...
He wrote the song and played it for me, and I thought it was a hit. So I went in and spent my own money in my little funky studio there. and the old tobacco warehouse and worked and worked and worked night after night and we put it together and piecemealed it together like we wanted it played it for all the labels in nashville and all the cbs's and capitals and so forth nobody liked it so finally we played it to this jockey but noel ball who was program director our music director in a radio station in nashville but he thought it was a hit and send it to randy wood who owned dot records and they made that was my first deal as a record producer and First hit recording.
But it was a big record, very big record. Top tier. without those things still you beg me to set her free but my friend that will never be better move on after that I was so excited about the fact that I had cut a hit record on a black artist and I seemed I thought I had found the uh The secret of getting into the music business, because I wasn't having that much success in Nashville, I'd had some success as a writer, but not a lot. I'd had a hit record on George Jones, and I'd had a hit record on Brenda Lee, who was hot at the time, that I wrote.
But after I cut this hit record on this black act, Arthur Alexander, I went out immediately and started looking for other black acts, obviously. I signed up an artist. From Robin's Rubber Company, a black act by the name of Jimmy Hughes.
And that was my second production that I ever produced. And it was a hit also, a big hit. It was on VJ Records. So, two out of two. I figured it wasn't that bad, you know, so I was betting a thousand.
So I became more aware of my talents, I thought, as a producer, and started putting a little less emphasis on writing and playing. began to get to make some pretty good bucks at that time and I started making all these investments back into the recording facilities built myself a new studio the studio I'm in now with that money and kept putting everything back into the hopper all the proceeds from these hit records I was having as a producer I put it right back into new equipment new studios new consoles and recorders etc But the first guy to really come to the muscles of the shoulders and gave me the most help was Bill Lowry from Atlanta, Georgia. Bill's still in Atlanta, Georgia and an old friend of mine.
But Bill, if there's such a thing I think is getting us off to a good start, Bill was the first to help because he brought Ray Stevens. He brought Tommy Rowe. He brought the Tams.
all of which we had hit records on. He brought Jerry Reed, he brought Joe South. So he was the first contributor to the Muscle Shoals music. Jerry was quite helpful in the development. Looking back, I think he probably contributed more.
...faster, because he was part owner of Atlantic Records and he had... I've got more money to work with, a bigger company and better distribution. And he was a record company, so when he pushed the button, things happened. So when he did come in, he brought me acts like Aretha Franklin. If you want a do-right, home-dance woman, you've got to be a do-right.
Guess you better slow your Mustang down. He was quite proud of what he was coming up with in Muscle Shoals. He started spending a lot of time, a lot of energies, and a lot of money, and we became sort of his base of operations out of the South. Wilson Pickett was a great artist.
He was hot as a firecracker, and Jerry had him over at Stax Records with Jim Stewart and the people there. And me. And he'd had some sort of a falling out with Jim Stewart and his people because they had Stacks label.
...successful with Otis Redding and with Sam and Dave and had their own thing pretty well locked in and they were using Atlantic as Atlantic owned the label or distributed the label for them but they become almost independent in their own right. They were almost too powerful for Atlantic to control. So there's some sort of dispute about the studio facilities with regard to the fact that Jerry couldn't use the studio because they had their artist in there and he needed a place to record.
So he came to me and I guess I became The follow-up successor that Stacks and their organization in Memphis had been until that point. Wilson had had a hit record or two. He had had with Stacks, Jerry and Stacks.
a hit record called 6-3-4-5-7-8-9 and he'd had a thing called Midnight Hour and I think Harris was to be his third hit record so the first hit record I And then we cut several big hit records, Funky Broadway, Mustang Sally, Hey Jude. Hey Jude, don't make it bad Take a sad song and make it better Hey Jude, don't make it bad Wilson was a very hard, tough, energetic human being who had grown up in Prattville, Alabama and was living in New York at the time. And he'd had the taste of success, so he was very tough to work with.
I liked him and he liked me. We were good friends, but he was he was stern and had a tremendous temper. And he just wouldn't do to play games with, you know.
He had to be business with him. And he was a businessman, a good businessman. But he could be a strong-willed man and a violent man if you got him upset.
And we had some incidents that was unpleasant from time to time in the studio. So Jerry was so impressed with our work with Wilson that he brought in Aretha. And Aretha, of course, was a very quiet lady, never said anything, always had her songs down, never saw her use a lyric sheet.
She had her songs learned from start to finish and played the piano on all her tunes. And if she did a song 50 times, she'd do it exactly the same way 50 times. There was no weak versions of it. She always did it.
good or better than the last cut and we cut two sides when she first came in And didn't think we had a hit. We didn't think we had anything. We were all depressed at the end of the day. Jerry was depressed.
I was depressed. She was depressed. The writers were depressed. Chip Smallman, who is also a big record producer now and a good friend of mine, and Dan Penn, the writers. They were the writers on one of the tunes.
But it was a two-sided number one record. And we were so tired. We really didn't know how good it was until we analyzed it later.
And Jerry called me back from New York and says, Man, we have got an absolute smash. two smashes. So we cut two sides that day and both were number one records.
Clarence was always a joy to work with. He was one of my dear friends, a brilliant man. He was a blind man of course, from birth, but he had a degree in music.
He read Braille very well. Most of his records were cut by me. Uh...
whispering the lyrics in his ear and he would sing them into the microphone. He seemed to be able to get a better feel that way than he could to read them off braille. Of course he'd lose his paper, he'd hold braille on his leg and to feel it, you know, because he couldn't just hold it up on a piece of paper and read it. And it was kind of tough to read and sing at the same time.
But Clarence was a joy to work with. He's a very, he was extremely talented. extremely helpful and extremely level-headed and just an extraordinary person a good human being and so all of them were wilson wasn't aretha was but clarence was a very humble man and a good hard-working man and was always fun and always laughing and always kept everybody up in the studio and it was a joy to work with and our first hit on him was uh was a while coming we had we had had two or three tries before we finally struck pay dirt with him. Once we started happening we each record got a little bigger than the last when we gained a little more momentum and finally Patches Wynne Ivy lives about three doors down the street from me and Quinn in the early days had a record store here and Quinn was with WLAY radio. He and David Johnson both worked at the same time at WLAY.
I guess I got started back in 65 when I got into radio as a disc jockey and was working with Quinn Ivey. And Quinn, soon after that, built a recording studio down in Sheffield and started recording weddings and demos and gospel groups and came across Percy Sledge and Cut When a Man Loves a Woman and I shortly went to work with Quinn. and got out of radio and got into the music business and started just engineering and doing a little bit of promotion anything i could do to learn and uh worked with quinn from 68 till 73 and then i bought the studio from quinn and started doing my own productions and operating studio It just happened I had the clear blue sky with me. You know like when I was in high school, mostly all of my classmates and guys that was knowing me during that time, like doing high school proms and stuff like that, singing. They all predicted me to be a singer in my future, you know.
But during that time, I just, I didn't have singing on my mind. I was mostly into what you may have said, baseball. I wanted to play baseball so bad, and I was good at it too. But, and plus, when I did What a Man Loves a Woman, I had just left the baseball field.
I had my spikes on and short pants. And I pulled my shoes off and I did barefooting. I didn't have no shoes on or nothing. And so Quinn calls me up and asked me, say, hey man, look at here. You feel like singing?
You want to come cut the, When a Man Loves a Woman, I said. when I just got through practicing baseball, you know. He said, well, come on, you know. So I goes over there with a red clay all the way up to my mouth. But, What a Man Loves a Woman was a song that was, it's a song that come along every once in a while.
It was, you take people like Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra. Frank Sinatra did this thing, Stranger Than Night. It's a fantastic song.
But when a man loves a woman, you know, it's just something that don't very often happen with artists. I see when a man loves a woman was me. It excited me. It really excited me. But I didn't know for sure whether I could do it or not.
Because see, I had never been approached by nothing like that. On record, you know. And so, we goes over there. and we got a couple of microphones, a little small studio, you know, and boy we cut some hell of a songs in there. But anyway, we have something like an eight track.
Marlon is over here playing the guitar. He tears this microphone down and gives it to Gina. And he does this, you know.
And so I'm standing there barefoot, short pants on. And Percy, come a little closer. Closer to the mic. It's open.
Wheels away. That's it. That's it.
We got a monster. We got a hit. You know like, I said what in the world is they talking about you know?
Because see I never, I had never experienced nothing about having a hit record. And when Quinn them started acting the way he was acting during that day when we got through with When a Man Loves a Woman. woman.
It was a shock to me because I didn't know what they were talking about. So about a few weeks later, when I go back to the studio, we all sitting around talking business. Then they explained to me we got a million seller, you know. And so they shipped the record to Atlantic Records and they let Atlantic Records listen to the song and Atlantic Records was crazy about it. But the only thing that was wrong with the session was that I was so into the song until I went ex...
pronouncing my words clear enough. So they sent a track back and told Quinn that if you can get Percy Sledge to pronounce his words more clear, I think you guys have a giant. So we cut it over.
This time. it wasn't barefooted. So we cut it over, you know, and we shipped it back and they called us back and told Quinn and everybody congratulations. We really think that you guys got a multi-million seller.
And so two weeks later, we was on the charts, you know. Of course that that's history, the rest of that when a man loves a woman. The all-time hit record of all time. from here.
I was playing in Cape Town, South Africa. Alright, that's when I hit the big band. 27 pieces. Big concert. Here I go sliding across the stage, you know.
And see, I had this gimmick thing with the mic. See, I take the mic and I flip and I be looking this way, and on my drummer, the mic hits my hand, see? Right on my music, my drum beat, everything. strictly professional. All right, so one night I go out there, we done did the show, I mean we done did the whole tour for 17 weeks.
This the last show we gonna do and then we coming back home. Big success. I take the microphone, I flip it up and it comes down and I reach for it, rub it, falls straight down and the old lady's laugh.
She said, is this what you looking for? And you could hear it all. You could hear it all over the damn theater, man. Everybody got so quiet.
And then another thing, when I played the University of Auburn, Alabama, I never... I will forget this. These are my good times. Okay, I'm flying out of Atlanta. Oh, it's stormy.
So I had to charter a plane because the other planes are. All right, so I get there two hours late. The plane's just jam-packed. Packed.
So I walks in with my little bag in my hand. I walk to the door. My brother up on the stage, that's William, he said, ladies and gentlemen, please, he's coming. He charged a plane out of Atlanta.
He will be here. soon ladies and gentlemen please quiet down ladies and gentlemen he's coming so i walked through the door ladies and gentlemen they is right now they come through the door right now and everybody got quiet and somebody way back in the back said bring the big fat black nigga on When everything got quiet, quiet as a mouse. You could hear a mouse running on cotton, you know. Well, bring the big fat black nigga on there.
And the place went up. Boy, you talk about a show that night we put on a show. I could tell you so much about my career man, it'll crack your side. Yeah, I finally got used to when a man loves a woman.
It took me about a year. But see, I sung that song with so much meaning for my whole life. That's the reason why it took me a while to catch on to it. You know, see other people like it so much.
And then I started using what they thought about it in my mind. I mixed that with what I had done, and I understood it, and I liked it too. I liked the musicians that did it with me, and Quinn Ivey, the producer.
I liked the whole story of that song. Matter of fact, I think the reason why I liked it... this song so much is it's so true number one and plus it's it's me you know it's me all them hard days working in the field making my mama smile i see all this through this one song and then all my other songs it's just Sprout to that one song, When a man loves a woman. I went to work for Rick in 62. You know, usual capacity, secretary, janitor, flunky, you know, the usual go for this and go for that type jobs. I was going to college and working in a band called Del Rey's at the time.
Actually, the band had already started and I wasn't playing in it. But then Jimmy Evans, the drummer that was working with them at the time, He stopped playing with them and I think it was about 1960 or 1961. I'm not really sure of all these dates, but Jimmy and I were looking toward the studio and studio work even as far back as then because... Jimmy's uncle, Dexter Johnson, had taken us to Memphis to see High Studio, where Willie Mitchell recorded Al Green and all those records that they made. But this was before Al Green started making hits.
I was about 14 and Jimmy was about 16 and Dexter took us to the studio up in Memphis and we were just real impressed with it and decided then that that's what we wanted to do. They let us sleep in the studio that night and of course after the people left We couldn't get any sleep at all. I woke up in the middle of the night about 2 o'clock in the morning or 3 o'clock in the morning.
And I look up and the control room was upstairs and the light was on up there. And I got up and I went up there and Jimmy was sitting behind me. console he was looking at it and we were just he was amazed too at the studio and so we spent a lot of time in there early that morning looking at the the console and looking at the studio and the tape machines and we were just looking at each other a lot saying well this is for us do we like this My family was planning a career for me in the tire business. My father had a tire store, and that's what I did in high school.
I worked at the tire store in the afternoons, and I got married very young, and so I went to work at the tire store at the same time I was playing in this rock and roll band. And it would make my father so mad when I'd leave to go play the gigs. And I think finally when I started recording in 1966, He saw the writing on the wall. I could make more money, you know, in an afternoon recording than I could make all week at the tire store. And I loved the music thing, but I wouldn't give up on the tire thing until finally I said, Look, I want to play.
I don't want to be a tire person. It took me a whole year to just learn how to play as a member of a band instead of an individual out of a nightclub group. With three other musicians, you know, it took me a while to settle in to make the band move as a band or help the band move as a band instead of, you know, three other guys looking at this individual piano player over here playing his own thing, you know. And one day it clicked.
I said, oh, so that's the way you do it. And in those days. Jimmy Johnson and Roger Hawkins and David Hood and Barry Beckett were the rhythm section for fame.
We're talking about the early part of the 60s. A great experience for me. He gave me an opportunity to get in this business.
As a professional, I was playing in a band and we rented a studio to do a recording. And he got word to me that he wanted to hire me to work for him. At the beginning, it was a part-time.
I was thrilled, I must say. I was, it was one of the type, I wanted to do that type of work, but I didn't know how to get in it. And it's, I was like completely honored and thrilled that I was given the chance. And Rick Hall is considered the father of Muscle Shoes music as we know it today. Well, he really and truly, there were other hit records before Rick.
And, and after, and at the same time as Rick. But Rick had the most organized, he had the recording studio set up and publishing company, and he had the first, I think, really good contacts with the major labels. And I think he just let everybody else see, he set an example for everybody else.
For one thing, he let everybody else see what was required. I mean, I had never, I didn't know what a record producer was until I saw it. Rick Hall and he taught me what a record producer was not by telling me but by me watching him work and also I realized through him the importance of having a relationship with people in radio and the people that make record companies and he just like he's like a professor the muscle shows music scene to me because I've definitely learned most of what I know from him well everything was working good with Rick we're like working with Rick but it came down to a point that we had to think about our future Working with Rick, I highly respect him as a producer, but he had some producers coming in there that we didn't respect as much because they didn't know as much about producing as say Rick did or as Jerry Wexler did.
And we had the feeling we could do it ourselves. And so in 69 we struck out on our own. And when they did, they needed some financial help. And it's my understanding that Jerry Wexler came into the picture again and possibly lent them some money.
They came about two blocks from the studio here, up on the hill on Jackson Highway, right across from the cemetery, and started their studio in what was an old abandoned coffin warehouse. is gonna be so but we gonna make She rocked me like the rock, oh baby, you're gonna love me. She loved me, loved me, loved me, loved me, loved me like a rock.
She loved me, loved me, loved me, loved me, loved me like a rock. She loved me, loved me, loved me, loved me like a rock. Somebody help me.
I'll take you there Hit me up I'll take you there I got an eye on the camera I love to take a photograph So mama don't take my cold from the way It was unfortunate that I lost them, but I think the reason for my losing them as I get older and look back on it is the fact that I didn't share with them, that I could have kept them had I involved them in an ownership or a partnership. basis and too late I learned that you know. I learned how to be a studio musician.
I started the course anyway working for Rick and he was really rough on all the new guys at first. some really makes him i think he puts them through extra rough times not really rough but he picks on them a little bit but i think it's healthy because i think it makes them realize that you have to be better than you are to do i mean when you start working with people who record in hollywood and nashville and new york they expect to work with a professional and i think rick taught me quick that more was expected you know than what i was and i have the a world of respect for Rick for everything, for going it alone when he did against everybody else's advice and trying to do something here. And I think he's very talented.
I won't say that he was the most fun person I ever had to work for, but he made me work, and I like, that was good for me, and I really appreciate it. I'm a pretty tough taskmaster. I think most of the guys will tell you that.
I thought I was the... the first sergeant or the old, the guy who's, you know, slave driver, you might say. I've been called slave driver. I never thought of myself as being that, but I guess I could be termed that. And that was because I was so desperate and because I wanted it so bad that I probably pushed a little harder at times than I should have.
But it paid off, so I'm not going to apologize for it. I just hope that the chance he gave me, I made up for it and how hard I worked for him. Last night as I got home, about a half past ten, there was a woman I thought I knew in the arms of another man.
I kept my cool, I ain't no fool. Let me tell you what happened then. I packed some clothes and I walked out.
And I ain't going back again. So take a letter, Maria. The first girl record to come out of there, Arby Greaves'Take a Letter, Maria, was a... a real high point, I think, for me and all of us, because in any given studio, there's always this sort of spiritual fear that you can't record a hit in this studio. I don't know what it is, but you have to break that barrier.
And when Takem Letemaria took off and became a million-seller, it was like, hey. hey, we're okay, you know. We can cut a hit here, you know.
We just have. That took about 15 minutes to do. And that was just one of those things that clicked real well.
With no problems. What I found was a family, a family of people that felt their music very deeply, who weren't so absorbed in commerciality that... They lost the sense of commitment to making the music right.
As a matter of fact, they're so serious about it that they don't get a take on a song that really satisfies them. I mean, they just can't sleep all night waiting for the next day to get it right. Now, the way they work is that you kind of let them find their own point of view as musicians.
You don't bang on their heads and say, play this way, play that way. If you let them find it, each of them will come up with a part that... that it's not just a mechanical piece of music. Part of an integrated whole point of view.
Playing as little as possible, but meaning the most. Whatever you play. They say the least is the best. You know?
And it's learning how to establish moods. And dynamics. When to play what where and why do you want to play it there instead of somewhere else on the song?
And always remember that the vocalist is the star and not the player on the record one two three One two There are times when a woman has to say what's on her mind Even though she knows how much it's gonna hurt Before I say another word, let me tell you I love you. Let me hold you close and say these words as gently as I can. Too much has really really happened that's new since the advent of the Bob Dylan's and the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.
Now, if it comes from America right now, there's a very good likelihood it'll come from Muscle Shoals. We were at MEADM one time in France for an annual convention that we attend. regularly and we had the number one record in America at the time. Torn Between Two Lovers, that was a big moment.
recording complex under one roof in the entire world right there. Well, it's completely two different things. Of course, this studio is better equipment-wise. It has more room to move around. It's a better facility, it's an easier facility to work in, but you can never discount what was done at the old building at 3614 Jackson Highway.
There was a lot of hits made there, there was a lot of good time. times there. I think there's a lot of magic that happened in that building. It was just too crowded.
I remember when we left the old building, I gave it one last look, and I did feel real sentimental about it, but I knew that where we were going, it would be just a lot easier place. The old place got so crowded, it looked like a pawn shop because of all the instruments inside, and it had a front door and a back door, and once you were in there, you were... were in there and you could go out and stand in the parking lot or stand around on the back porch if you wanted. That was one way to get out.
This place is a little better because there's lots of places to go and to kind of get away from the scene, so to speak, if you want to. We had about a 2,500 square foot building, one office that four of us shared. And now we all have our own offices and 31,000 square feet to share.
share and with indoor parking so you know it'd be hard to it was it's fun to think back but I wouldn't go back I'm looking here and there, and I'm searching everywhere, Life is sailing, home again, sea to sail, when you're in love with a beautiful woman. Oh When you're in love WALSTON TAKE THAT You may call me Terry, or you may call me Timmy. You may call me Bobby, or you may call me Zimmy.
You may call me RJ, you may call me Ray. You may call me anything, no matter what. You may call me Terry, or you may call me Zimmy.
I'll serve somebody. I'll serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil, and it may be the Lord.
All four are the best friends I'll probably ever have the rest of my life. Only all four look at each other, and we look after each other. We always think in terms of four, because we never got where we were without the four. So I started here with $800 with Muscle Shovel Sound Publishing Company and we started a publishing company.
This was in 1969, March of 1969. In a couple of three years, the publishing company had six top 20 records. I left Muscle Shoals Sound and went into business with my now current partner. This is our 10th anniversary this year, by the way. We started an independent production company.
A year later, we started our publishing companies. So we've always been pretty independent, with the exception of about a year and a half where we were exclusive to Motown Records. When Terry and I worked for Motown in 74, 75, we did The Temptations and Thelma Houston.
I'm there on Commodores. And as a matter of fact, Lionel used to come up and sing demos for us. We're cutting Mack McAnally's present. And it's the first time that we ever had, I mean, they're like all the little ducks are in a row. You know, to cut an album, you got the label behind you, you got everything, all David Geffen wants is a good album.
Just he says bring me a good album and Which we think is gonna be hit and he says it is so I have to assume that's what's gonna be and I'm sure that holds the key to What the future brings You can stay in business without hits, however hits really do help. If you get a hit everybody thinks you're a genius overnight, you know, and they bring you all these different acts to produce and stuff. When the ability hasn't changed at all, you just become recognized.
It's a very fickle business. and we could be hot next year. Muscle Shoals Sound could be hot the year after that, and yet we're doing two different types of music and two different kinds of setup. Our whole situation here is set up on independent production.
and publishing. We're not a studio that emphasizes outside rentals to other people even though you know the Hank Williams Jr. career was broken here rebroken or whatever because the big albums that he's had were cut here. Other outside people have used our studio, Milly Jackson, people like that, but as far as us catering to that, we haven't done that in the past. It's really for our convenience to have a studio here and to try to keep it state-of-the-art for the artists that we produce. I bet the angel in your arms this morning is gonna be the devil in someone else's arms tonight.
Yes, the angel in your arms this morning. It's been great to see the Muscle Shoals area flourish in the music business. And even a lot of our own people here are not aware what takes place. That we have in the top ten in the nation all... almost every week consistently.
We have records that are written, produced, or recorded right here in the top ten. And sometimes the number one record in the United States is made in Sheffield or Murray. muscle shows.
I think it's just been a team no one person's done anything by himself here. It's just took a team and spirit and just a lot of hard work. A lot of hard work.
I admire Rick and all those boys for what they've done. Till that moon started getting to me. A Pebble Beach studio in West Sussex, England. The Music Association was formed in 1975 with Buddy Draper as its executive director. New studios have joined, including Littletown, a gospel and country studio.
together a demo and jingle studio the association got an anti-tape piracy law passed in the state legislature and in Alabama Music Hall of Fame established Terry Woodford of Wishbone was appointed to the Hall of Fame board Woodford has also established the first four-year commercial music curriculum in the nation at the University of North Alabama yes the muscle shoal sound is cooking