Southern Soul: Part 5

The '60s - Deep Soul

The genesis of Muscle Shoals lies in two things - the bands based there that played the college fraternity circuit, and a studio, Fame, built by Rick Hall. He employed Dan Penn, who'd been the lead singer with one of those frat bands, the Mark Vs, and who'd already written his first hit song ("Is A Bluebird Blue?" for Conway Twitty).

"Aretha Franklin had just been signed from Columbia, who hadn't really known what to do with her."

But Muscle Shoals didn't hit until a year later, when a singer named Arthur Alexander arrived with a song called "You Better Move On." By the time it emerged from the studio, the record wasn't deep Southern soul, but a strange mix of pop, rock, and country, with a thin veneer of soul on top. It had everything, and, released on Dot, rose to #24 on the pop charts. The popularity resulted in an album, made in Nashville, that touched more of Arthur's country influence - not a million miles from the country albums Ray Charles was putting out at the time. But the single had helped put Fame on the map. And it was from there that the exquisite ballad style, halfway between soul and country, would really emerge, in addition to one of the best studio bands in the U.S.. Much of the writing came from Penn and his various writing partners, works that have becomes standards (several of which can be found on Penn's own Do Right Man, which shows that even in his 50s, he remains one of the most underrated white soul singers around).

Hall lost his first studio band (including David Briggs and Norbert Putnam) to the higher wages of Memphis, but into their shoes stepped a formidable team - players like Roger Hawkins and Barry Beckett. There was space in the sound Hall got at Fame. The music breathed - you can hear it on a song like "What Kind Of Fool" by the Tams, for example.

But by 1966 they'd reached a new level of creativity. That was when Wilson Pickett came to town to record. Pickett, born in the South but a longtime Northerner, had already made a couple of hits at the Stax studio - "Midnight Hour" and "634-5789" - but his manner had made him no longer welcome there. Instead, Atlantic sent him to Alabama, and at Fame he laid down three more hits ("Mustang Sally," "Funky Broadway," and "Land Of A Thousand Dances") that were a long way from the usual Muscle Shoals fare, but as undeniably wicked as the man who sang them.

The fact that Pickett was on Atlantic led to more work for the label, and what might be termed the definitive Muscle Shoals session. Aretha Franklin had just been signed from Columbia, who hadn't really known what to do with her. Like Pickett, she'd been born in the South and raised in Detroit, where her father was a famous preacher. Taking her down home to bring out the true quality of her voice was an inspired idea, and she certainly responded to it. "I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)" was one of Aretha's finest moments, spare, soulful, yet full of Southern country air. And the Penn-Moman composition, "Do Right Woman - Do Right Man" was, if anything, even starker, and certainly more unusual in its structure, one of the finest country-soul ballads ever written.

They were the basis of the transformation in Aretha's career, helping to turn her into the Queen of Soul she'd become. However, only the first track was completed at Muscle Shoals; the backing track for the second had been finished, when a fight between Hall and Franklin's husband signaled the departure of the singer's party. She recorded her vocal in New York, and completed Never Loved a Man there with musicians imported from Memphis and Muscle Shoals.

But the music didn't end with that. Clarence Carter (best remembered for the maudlin "Patches") recorded there, and proved also to be an excellent songwriter, as he showed when the Chess label brought blues woman Etta James down to record at Fame, cutting Carter's "Tell Mama" and "I'd Rather Go Blind," both of which became staples of her repertoire. However, Hall had a way of antagonizing people, and in 1969, he did it again. He wanted his house band to be under exclusive contract to him, which would have meant no lucrative outside work. And they weren't about to let that happen. Instead Atlantic advanced the band $19,000 to open their own studio, Muscle Shoals sound, in town, and immediately began to recoup their investment by sending their acts there - instead of to Fame - to record. The golden age of Fame was over.

Even before Muscle Shoals Sound, though, there'd been another studio in town. In 1963, disc jockey and record store owner Quin Ivy, a friend of Hall's, built a small studio, and achieved almost instant success when a male nurse named Percy Sledge arrived to record, accompanied by his band, the Esquires. The song he had was a draft of "When A Man Loves A Woman," and after a lot of work, it was eventually put on tape, with the Fame Studio band behind the singer. Through Dan Penn, the Hall, the track found its way to Atlantic, who issued it in 1966, when it went to number one on the pop and R&B charts. Perhaps more than anything since Ray Charles, there was a rich gospel feel to the song. It was straight out of church - but it was out of the cotton fields, too, which would be true of many of his subsequent singles, like "Warm And Tender Love" and "Out Of Left Field." But he'd be the biggest success Ivy managed.

Southern Soul: Part 6