Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

Democrats are back in array!

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

I really should read my own blog.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Not all heroes wear capes.

You are here: Home / TV & Movies / Movies / Open Thread: Muscle Shoals, Warehouse of 1,000 Dances

Open Thread: Muscle Shoals, Warehouse of 1,000 Dances

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A review by Andrew Martin, in the NY Review of Books:

… The obvious question is “Why there?” Though Shoals contains a number of paeans to the spirit of the area, there’s also a more prosaic explanation. Hall, a local music publisher and producer, started FAME Studios and Publishing in nearby Florence, Alabama in 1959, along with Billy Sherrill and Tom Stafford. Hall soon became the sole owner, and, through a combination of skilled recruitment and the luck of chemistry, ended up with an unusually talented set of session musicians, the most famous group of which later became known as the Swampers. The rhythm section of this band—Barry Beckett on keyboards, Roger Hawkins on drums, Jimmy Johnson on guitar, and David Hood on bass—played on most of the tracks recorded at FAME from approximately the mid-1960s until 1969, when they broke with Hall and started their own studio, called Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.

The sound that emerged from this unlikely place—rhythm and blues with a country looseness—made these studios major destinations for artists eager to record somewhere other than the big city music hubs like New York and Memphis. Unlike Booker T and the MGs, the house band at Stax Records, or Motown’s house band, the Funk Brothers, the Swampers weren’t associated with any one label, though many of their classic recordings were done for Atlantic Records through the producer Jerry Wexler. Even as they were forced to adapt to acts ranging from Otis Redding to Bob Seger, what remained consistent in Muscle Shoals recordings was a warmth and brightness, born of the players’ and producers’ familiarity with each other…

Reader Interactions

40Comments

  2. 2.

    Birthmarker

    Well, Anne, the first post up is about Muscle Shoals, and the second post is about Tim Cook, Alabama native and Auburn grad! Enjoyed!

  3. 3.

    Tommy

    Music comes from often small and focused places.

    New Orleans isn’t a small place. But let me introduce you to The Meters. I bet 95% of the folks here have never heard of The Meters. In the late 60s and 70s known as the “Up Town Rulers.” They owned New Orleans. Aaron Neville brother’s Cyril sings lead.

    Sad fact, I guess through lawsuits or I don’t know what you can’t get much of them on YouTube. I have stuff from them on Rhino Records that would blow your mind. Heck Paul McCartney paid them to play his wedding in like 1988 on the QEII and that LP (there is a record that was sold) that flat out rocks.

    I don’t get into hip hop or rap, but I often hear it and know the base. I think I once read The Meters are the most sampled band ever.

    Search a little on YouTube and you will be amazed ….

  6. 6.

    Amir Khalid

    @Tommy:
    Paul McCartney was married to Linda Eastman from 1969 until she passed away in 1998. Are you sure he had a wedding in 1988?

  7. 7.

    Tommy

    Just fun. I think 1992. A band called Dash Rip Rock played outside of the gates of LSU at The Chimes (a bar) in an ally. About a decade later I took my brother (nine years younger) to Jazz Fest. He only wanted to see Dave Matthews play. Cowboy Mouth (former Dash Rip Rock) closed with this.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEfpoUuKFOY&feature=kp

    His best friend didn’t want to see Dave and came with me as Jazz Fest closed. We ended up in some tent. A jazz band. A gospel choir. A congo line was started. A decade later he talks about it everytime I see him.

    I took my friends to see Cowboy Mouth play at the 9/11 club in DC and they were like why are these folks not like the most popular band in the US? I was like, I got no clue.

  8. 8.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Tommy:
    @Amir Khalid:

    Hardly 1988, but maybe Tommy was thinking of this?

    In 1975 Paul McCartney invited the Meters to play at the release party for his Venus and Mars album aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California; Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones was in attendance at the event and was greatly taken with the Meters and their sound.[citation needed]

  9. 9.

    Tommy

    @Amir Khalid: I would have bet you that you were wrong and I was right. You are right and I was totally wrong. I had a mythology of the Meters here that was wrong. One I’ve held and told for 20 years :). My bad. My bad. Not how that album got produced. Long story, but Paul made it happen, just not as I thought. Maybe there were too many bongs and no Internet when I heard that story in grad school in the early 90s!

  13. 13.

    Tommy

    @Suzanne: I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but you live in AZ. I think you have other stuff to worry about. My state isn’t as liberal as Vermount or San Fran, but my gosh in the last year this has happened where I live. Gay marriage passed our House, Senate, signed by the Governor. Cook County judge said it wasn’t legal to wait to June 31 (when the gay marriage law goes into affect) and so we just started handing out marriage licenses.

    Legal pot.

    We forced the SCOTUS to force us to allow carry permits.We did NOT want this.

    I don’t mean to not hear you or belittle you, I feel for you that you have to fight, and fight for just the basics. Hard to imagine!

  15. 15.

    Tommy

    @Suzanne: Let me say something else on-top of my other comment. I’ve been to your state a few times. Spent almost a month there this time or that. I flat out love the place. Before I went there I didn’t think I would enjoy it, I mean it is a desert isn’t it? I found so much more.

    I just as a far left liberal can’t get that up on fighting for your state or even a state like Texas or Mississippi (I’ve lived a lot in Lousiana–throw them in).

    We are IMHO fighting on the edges where I live in Illinois. I can’t muster up the effort to get into a fight where I have to explain to folks the earth isn’t flat. That immigrants are good for our economy. Heck that I am a fucking immigrant (family came here in 1867 — pretty sure we didn’t have any “papers”).

    Just saying … I almost feel like you are on your own … and that makes me sad!

  16. 16.

    Rex Everything

    OH yeah. Great stuff. The Muscle Shoals rhythm section = a national treasure.

  18. 18.

    Rex Everything

    @Tommy:

    I bet 95% of the folks here have never heard of The Meters.

    I hope you’re kidding! Or at least mistaken!

    (Then again, for being so “we’re no whitebread from the suburbs,” this commentariat does seem to take Lou Reed, Patti Smith et al awful seriously as vocalists, and revere Paul Westerberg as the messiah, which only whitey-white whitebread is capable of doing.)

  19. 19.

    trollhattan

    Can somebody refresh me on why open carry is a good idea?

    A man armed with an assault rifle was shot and killed by Sacramento County Sheriff’s deputies early Sunday morning after he pointed a handgun at them while walking on an Antelope street, authorities said.

    The victim, described as a male in his late 20s, was pronounced dead at Mercy San Juan Hospital. His name was not released pending notification of next of kin.

    “We do not know what his motive or what his intentions were,” said Sgt. Lisa Bowman, spokeswoman for Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department. “It’s really bizarre.”

    The incident occurred about 2:15 a.m., when sheriff deputies responded to multiple calls of shots fired in the area of 4000 Antelope Road. As the deputies were en route to the scene, more calls came in reporting that a man armed with a gun was walking in the area of North Loop Boulevard, not far from Antelope Road.

    After the deputies arrived and began searching the area, they found a man carrying an assault rifle walking on Don Julio Boulevard, just north of Antelope Road, Bowman said.

    The deputies confronted the man, and ordered him to drop the weapon, but he refused. Instead, he pulled out a handgun and pointed it at the officers. At that point, the deputies shot him. It was not known how many times the male was shot. No deputies or civilians were hurt in the incident.

    http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/02/6201768/man-with-assault-rifle-pistol.html#storylink=cpy

  20. 20.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I laughed out loud when I read that. If you change the word know to the word care, I could have written your comment myself.

  21. 21.

    Tommy

    @Rex Everything: No I wasn’t in the least. If more folks do, yahtzee! IMHO it is rare anybody I know, knows about The Meters. If they do, I want to hug you.

    Virtual hug to you ….

  24. 24.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Tommy: Thank you for the Cowboy Mouth video, Tommy. And yeah, like yourself, I don’t know why some bands fall between the cracks of pop culture. It certainly wasn’t because of lack of talent.

  25. 25.

    trollhattan

    @gbear:
    If so I sure feel sorry for the cops. I know several and none has ever discharged his weapon on duty, much less killed somebody.

  26. 26.

    Amir Khalid

    Well, when people see incidents like this reported in the news, they might think, “Hey! the cops can gun you down just for carrying! That’s ain’t right! We gotta carry too, and be ready to shoot first! We gotta stand our ground!” And then they’ll go out and buy more guns. A win for the gun industry.

    That’s my theory, anyway.

  27. 27.

    Tommy

    @Amir Khalid: That is it. I live in a moderate area and I am pretty sure if the police were told to take your guns away they would say, “nope, not going to happen.”

    The cops in my town are my acquaintances.I know all their names!

    IMHO as a cop if you have to discharge your weapon,only in a few instances, you are not doing your job well.

    I also think if you feel the need to arm yourself to be safe, you should move. I mean that. I ponder this thought. When I leave my house I always make sure I have my wallet.

    What goes into the mindset you need a gun with your wallet?

    I want to know ……

  28. 28.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Tommy:

    What goes into the mindset you need a gun with your wallet?

    Human beings are demonstrably incompetent when it comes to assessing the risk of unlikely or infrequent events. All of us. This condition is responsible for the existence of lotteries and tobacco related deaths, among other things.

    For some people a circumstance where a gun would be necessary is a reality in their mind even though the actual chance is infinitesimally small. But what’s in their mind guides their behavior in carrying a firearm.

  29. 29.

    Tommy

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: There is a story I tell. I used to live in a part of DC, well not a good part. In ten years I had my house broken into twice. My car broken into. My girlfriends car stolen and never found again. Mugged twice.

    I asked my friends that lived there if I should get a gun.

    This was in the mid to late 90s where a gun in DC was illegal. Asking my friends, even a Federal Judge (he owned a gun).

    They all said the same thing, you don’t know how to use a gun. The numbers say it will be used against you.

    No, don’t get a gun.

    Now I would not say I am a badass, but I can defend myself. They knew this and said I can’t defend myself against a gun. Buying one would be a terrible idea. Terrible.

    Dealing with crime isn’t a movie. Not like the Gun Fight at the OK Carel. Let them take your shit, collect insurance, and don’t get hurt.

    I don’t think I am a wimp, but that always sounded to me like the best advice (later my dad gave me the same) I’d ever been given.

  30. 30.

    p.a.

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: in, what, ’72,’73 (too lazy to Google) Harry had an AM hit with Spaceman, on the Son of Schmilsson album. 12 or 13 year old me loved the song. Asked for the album for Xmas. Xmas morning,parents still in bed, I put the record on the stereo. Not loud, but small house, they could hear. No prob until the song You’re Breaking My Heart. First line: You’re breakin my heart, you’re tearin it apart so fuck you… From the bedroom I hear my old man “What the HELL is that!!??”

  31. 31.

    A Ghost To Most

    The legacy of the Swampers is written large across the catalog of the Drive-By Truckers and Jason Isbell. Patterson Hood (son of David) and Mike Cooley have written several songs about the Swampers and their cohort.

  32. 32.

    J

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: This is well said, and of course people’s risk assessment isn’t helped when they are relentlessly propagandized, subtly and not so subtly, to see (vastly exaggerated) threats everywhere and not to see the (considerable) threat having a gun poses to oneself and one’s own at all.

  33. 33.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @Tommy:

    I think I once read The Meters are the most sampled band ever.

    Nah, that would be James Brown and his associated acts. But my god, The Meters are fucking incredible. I’ve got a lot of Meters vinyl on my shelves–it’s must-have stuff.

  34. 34.

    The Moar You Know

    They nailed all the amps, mic stands and the drumkit to the floor so that the sound couldn’t change. I found that an impressive dedication to replication of results.

  35. 35.

    mainmata

    I always wondered about the name, “Muscle Shoals”. The name, as written, makes absolutely no sense. Now, this is Mississippi so there may be some obscure reason for the name but I have to wonder whether it isn’t a misspelling of what should be Mussel Shoals, which would seem to make much more sense…shoals and all. Just sayin’.

    The Meter is definitely good music.

  36. 36.

    burnspbesq

    In case you young’uns don’t know and haven’t guessed, Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers is David Hood’s son.

  37. 37.

    burnspbesq

    The McCartney party at which The Meters played was the release party for “Venus and Mars,” which was held aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach Harbor in 1975.

  38. 38.

    David Fud

    Muscle Shoals wasn’t as good as 10 Feet From Stardom, but it was very enjoyable nonetheless.

  39. 39.

    Cailte

    @mainmata: Actually it’s Alabama. Up to this moment, I thought it WAS Mussel Shoals, and I grew up not far from there in MS.

    Now, a possible explanation for the spelling: It required a lot of muscle to get your boat past the shoals. But more likely it’s just a misspelling.

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