You Gotta Move!

THE ROCK & SOUL SOUNDS OF MUSCLE SHOALS, ALABAMA OTIS REDDING, WILSON PICKETT GREGG ALLMAN, BETTYE LAVETTE JASON ISBELL & MORE

2021-08-01 -

MUSCLE SHOALS, ALABAMA, FIRST APPEARED ON THE musical map 99 years ago, with local eminence W.C. Handy recording his Muscle Shoals Blues in tribute. But its critical role really began in the late ’50s, when Rick Hall and his associates launched their Fame Studios in the area. By 1961, they had their first hit record – Arthur Alexander’s You Better Move On – and, soon, the area had become a crucible of soul and southern rock, and of elite recording practices at both Fame and the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio just down the road. It was at the latter that The Rolling Stones recorded You Gotta Move, Brown Sugar and Wild Horses, and this month’s feature on Sticky Fingers provided the initial impetus for us to compile this MOJO CD of Muscle Shoals nuggets. Sadly, however, You Gotta Move! has also turned out to be a memorial to one of the Muscle Shoals greats, drummer Roger Hawkins, who passed away on May 20. Rhythm pivot of The Swampers, the studio’s imperturbably groovy house band, Hawkins played on multitudes of great records that crystallised the local sound, not least Wilson Pickett’s Save Me. This compilation, encompassing 60 years of extraordinary Muscle Shoals music, is dedicated to his memory.

1 FAME GANG Soul Feud

The Swampers, featuring Roger Hawkins, might have been the most famous Muscle Shoals backing band. But in 1969, after a spat with boss Rick Hall, they left Fame to set up their own Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. In their place, Hall recruited a new crew, later known as The Fame Gang, who also recorded a couple of singles. Soul Feud, from 1969, makes a tremendously funky, strutting overture to our comp.

Written by Albert Lowe, Jesse Boyce. Screen Gems-EMI

2 BLIND BOYS OF ALABAMA I Can See

A gospel institution for over 80 years, the Blind Boys originally formed in Talladega, three hours from Muscle Shoals, in 1939. This righteous track, made there in 2017, features founder member Clarence Fountain.

Written by Joey Williams, Ray Ladson, Jimmy Sloan. Published by BBOA Publishing (BMI). Administered by BMG / DoraSues Publishing (BMI) / Modern Roots Music and Publishing (BMI). From Almost Home (Single Lock Records); www. singlelock.com Recorded at FAME Studios, Muscle Shoals, Alabama USA. Produced by Steve Berlin

3 WILSON PICKETT Save Me

Few artists who passed through Fame had more of an impact than Wilson Pickett, who recorded numerous sessions at the studio for Atlantic in the ’60s. This rave-up, penned by Fame regulars George Jackson and Dan Greer, opened 1968’s Hey Jude; an LP also notable for introducing the guitar skills of Duane Allman.

Written by Dan Greer, George Jackson. Published by Fame, BMI ℗1969 WEA International Inc. USAT20103617 Licensed courtesy of Warner Music UK Ltd.

4 BETTYE LAVETTE I Still Want To Be Your Baby (Take Me Like I Am)

LaVette first turned up at Fame in 1972, recording an album – Child Of

The Seventies – bafflingly shelved until 2015. By then, she’d made a return visit in 2007 and worked with second generation Shoals rockers the Drive-By Truckers on the fine

Scene Of The Crime. It’s written by another key player, guitarist Eddie Hinton, more of whom later.

5 GREGG ALLMAN My Only True Friend

A by-product of Duane Allman’s link with Fame is that he and brother Gregg’s pre-Allmans band, Hour Glass, recorded there in 1968. Nearly 50 years later, Gregg was back for the sessions that became his last LP, 2017’s Southern Blood. Mostly covers, but including this poignant new burner: “I hope you’re haunted by the music of my soul, when I’m gone.” Written by Gregg Allman. Published by KOBALT MUSIC PUB AMERICA I OBO D DEM MUSIC ℗&©2017 Rounder Records. From Southern Blood (Rounder Records) www.rounder.com

6 JASON ISBELL Heart On A String

Another George Jackson co-write, best known from the version on Candi Staton’s 1970 Fame debut, I’m

Just A Prisoner. A more recent Fame graduate, Isbell grew up locally and met Swampers bass David Hood in his teens. Part of Drive-By Truckers with Hood’s son Patterson, Isbell went solo in 2007: this crunchy take comes from 2011’s Here We Rest. Written by George Jackson, Mickey Buckins. Published by 50.00% EMI Music Publishing 50.00% ℗&©2019 Southeastern. From Here We Rest (Southeastern)

7 OTIS REDDING You Left The Water Running

It’s one hell of a demo. Visiting Fame in ’66, Redding was asked by Rick Hall to run through this Dan Penn tune in preparation for Wilson Pickett’s version that figured on 1967’s The

Wicked Pickett. Otis’s take briefly surfaced as a bootleg 7-inch in the mid ’70s, before official release in ’87. Written by Wallace Daniel Pennington, Roe Erister Hall, Oscar Eugene Franck. Published by Screen Gems-EMI Music Publishing (BMI) / Irving Music, Inc, BMI ℗1968 WEA International Inc. USAT20000310 Licensed courtesy of Warner Music UK Ltd.

8 ARTHUR ALEXANDER You Better Move On

Where it all began. Florence, Alabama local Arthur Alexander had one single under his belt when he entered the original Florence home of Fame in 1961 and cut his own country-soul beauty with Rick Hall. Fame’s first hit (Number 24 in the US), it helped finance Hall’s move to his more famous Muscle Shoals facility on Avalon Avenue. Note, too, a Rolling Stones cover on their 1964 self-titled EP. Written by Arthur Alexander. Screen Gems-EMI

9 EDDIE HINTON Cover Me

A session guitar regular in Muscle Shoals, Eddie Hinton was also a terrific songwriter – very much a contemporary of Dan Penn – and a pretty handy vocalist, too. His most famous song might be Breakfast In Bed, but we’ve gone for Hinton’s demo of this plaintive Southern soul classic, given the full-on treatment by Percy Sledge in 1968 and then Jackie Moore in 1971.

10 JIMMY HUGHES I’m Qualified

Another one of Fame’s early intake alongside Arthur Alexander, Jimmy Hughes was a local gospel singer and cousin of Percy Sledge, who recorded Rick Hall and Quin Ivy’s I’m Qualified in 1962. When the single flopped. Hughes went back to work in a rubber factory, but his persistence would eventually pay off a couple of years later when he took a new song of his, Steal Away, to Hall. The resulting single made it as high as 17 in the US charts.

Written by Quin Ivy, Rick Hall. Screen Gems – EMI

11 DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS Where The Devil Don’t Stay

Although DBTs have been torchbearers for Muscle Shoals culture for over two decades, thanks to the local roots of core members Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, their long recording career has rarely strayed back to the area. But 2004’s mighty fifth album The Dirty South, was recorded at Fame and opened with this searing, Cooley-fronted rocker.

12 JOHNNIE TAYLOR Walk Away With Me

Some soul legends took their time making it to Muscle Shoals, a case in point being Johnnie Taylor. His career began in the 1950s, singing gospel alongside Al Green, and by the late ‘60s was a cornerstone of the Stax roster. His Muscle Shoals era began in the ’80s and peaked with 1996’s Good Love! – where this Dark End Of The Street-like quiet storm, featuring the Swampers, comes from.

Written by George Jackson. Peer Music III, Malaco Music

13 JAMES GOVAN Take Me Just As I Am

You might know Dan Penn/Spooner Oldham’s gem from Solomon Burke. But this 1969 version by the lesserknown Govan is delivered with much more zip than Burke. Govan, sometimes called Little Otis, was discovered by George Jackson and recorded several singles for Fame in the late ’60s and early ’70s, without ever getting a break. A major neglected talent, it transpires, who worked Memphis’ Beale Street for the last 25 years of his life.

Written by Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham. Screen Gems-EMI

14 LITTLE MILTON Love Is A Gamble

Like his Malaco labelmate Johnnie Taylor, Inverness, Mississippi’s James Milton Campbell Jr was an R&B vet who found his way to Muscle Shoals Sound Studio later in life. Discovered by Ike Turner, signed to Sun and Stax, covered by The Spencer Davis Group, an electric blues guitarist and vocalist of considerable swagger, Love Is A Gamble can be found on 1994’s I’m

A Gambler. Campbell died in 2005, just short of his 71st birthday.

Written by Milton Campbell. Peer Music III, Malaco music, Trice Pub

15 THE SWAMPERS Muscle Shoals Malmo Express

Finally, spotlight on a peerless house band: (above, from left) Jimmy Johnson (guitar), Roger Hawkins (drums) David Hood (bass), Barry Beckett (keys). From ’70s sessions for an M.G.’s-style Swampers album only released in 2018, hear what Lynyrd Skynyrd meant when they sang: “Now Muscle Shoals has got The Swampers/And they’ve been known to pick a song or two/Lord, they get me off so much/They pick me up when I’m feeling blue…”

Written by Roger Hawkins, Jimmy Johnson