Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

I keep wanting to make something poetic out of the caskets.

The truth is the Swampers bought the building because they could afford it, and it was close to fame.

The caskets were a detail, not a metaphor.

The Swampers had been the house band at Rick Hall's Fame Studios, a mile and a half up the road.

Hall was a sharecropper's son from Mississippi.

Smart, demanding, and very tight with money.

An altercation involving Aretha's husband, a trumpet player, alcohol, and the accumulated tension of a black entourage in a white Alabama town The details depend on who tells it.

Wexler pulled the session and finished the album in New York.

And he'd come out and did that.

And then I brought in Will McFarlane from Bonnie Raitt's band and the Muscle Shoals Swampers, and he'd come out and played.

And then I figured in, I think it was March or February of 23, I think it was March actually, I thought I would do it with a band.

So I called our mutual friend Scott Page from Pink Floyd, and I called Tony Franklin, who played bass for The Firm, but Jimmy Page called Rockers.

Her records were always spectacular, and she'll join us again in the Soul Hive.

Before that, we heard the majestic Bettye LaVette with Your Turn To Cry from her unreleased 1972 Muscle Shoals LP, Child of the '70s, recorded with The Swampers, but then shelved by Atlantic Records.

These tracks became the stuff of true soul music legend and were finally released on the Runout Groove label as a standalone vinyl release in 2018.

But previous releases were on CD as Souvenirs in 2000, and later as Child of the '70s on the Rhino Handmade label, and we owe a lot to them for resurrecting these tracks.

Before that, the sensationally soulful Spencer Wiggins with uptight Good Woman from 1967 on the tiny but mighty Goldwax label out of Memphis, Tennessee.

Dan Penn himself often sings this during his and Spooner's duet shows, and it's a perfect example of just how deep Southern soul songwriters and singers can go, right down to the bottom of the well.

And by the way, the lead guitarist of the Swampers, Jimmy Johnson, that's Jimmy on the lead guitar for instance intro of Aretha Franklin's Respect, was a co-writer of this righteous cut.

And we let off with one of the kings of country soul.

In 2019, renowned session guitarist, sound engineer, and co-founder of the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Mr. Jimmy Johnson, died at the age of 76.

As a central member of the studio's legendary house band, The Swampers, his work shaped the definitive rock and roll sounds of Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, and The Rolling Stones, among many, many, many others.

In 2020, Metallica officially scored a history-making milestone when their live symphonic version of All Within My Hands hit number one on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay chart.

The achievement cemented them as the first and only musical act to top that chart across four separate decades.

fame.

But the must-show sound would have been when the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon wanted that bluesy sound in their music, and they wanted the Swampers, and by then they got some out at Rick Hall.

They started their own studio, which is actually in Sheffield.

Yeah.

But it was fame recording studios, trademarked, the must-show sound.

So the Swampers were so mad at Rick Hall, it wasn't trademarked.

They named their studio The Muscle Show Sound and trademarked it.

Cher.

Are these

people going to know who the Swampers are?

I mean, you know what? They're

session musicians.

Like, there's, like, a bunch of crazy shit has happened in the studio.

Yeah,

so, and the Swampers are musicians that live

in the area that have played there a million times, and they're like, we got a guy, and they just come in and they do the job.