The Muscle Shoals Movie

SPOONER OLDHAM

About fifteen minutes into the movie, Spooner Oldham walks across the floor of FAME studios, sits down at a ratty old piano, puts his fingers to the keys and starts to play music so soulful, I tingle as I write this, remembering it.

RICK HALL

He was motivated by rejection, he needed to prove to the kids at school who saw him as poverty-stricken and Jerry Wexler, who pulled Aretha from FAME and never came back, that he was the baddest, bestest, record producer extant.

I know I wrote about grit, but the truth is so many people who achieve great things have something to prove. They want to set the record straight. Show all the bullies and naysayers they were right.

If you're shooting for excellence, you have a strong opinion. You do your best to get along, but by testing limits in search of greatness, people are gonna be offended, they're going to try and put you in your place. The key is to swallow the negative feedback and soldier on. Unfortunately, when you do break through the revenge is not as sweet as you envision it, but it's what got you there.

PRODUCERS

Sometimes they neither play nor sing, they don't even put their hands on the board, but they know what's right. They're searching for that elusive something that separates an average track from a hit. It's not so much eliminating mistakes as it is capturing the essence. It's the exhalation at the end of a vocal line, the way a note is bent, getting the drummer in the pocket... As the years have gone by and acts have seen everybody produce themselves, the value of a great producer has been diminished. But every session needs a boss. And it's best if it's an outsider.

ARETHA

Was backed by white musicians on her legendary hits. Soul is not a color, it's something you feel.

MUSCLE SHOALS

None of the Swampers was famous. They were all local players who gravitated to FAME to get their chance.

MICK JAGGER

Looks like a fop surrounded by these down home crackers. In his cap and color it appears to be artifice, whereas the players were all about soul.

WILSON PICKETT

Wanted nothing to do with Rick Hall and vice versa. Hall saw Pickett as dangerous! But they ended up becoming fast friends. MTV has done a lot to integrate America, but in the sixties racial tension constantly boiled, especially in Alabama.

PERCY SLEDGE

He's still alive!

He's working in the cotton fields, singing and...

He ends up recording "When A Man Loves A Woman" at FAME. Rick Hall calls Jerry Wexler, who said to ring him whenever he had a hit, and it was.

HITS

That was Rick Hall's goal. To deliver a hit whenever anybody came down to record. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't come back. Talk about pressure. In today's world where you get extra time on the SATs for disabilities and everybody wants a do-over, the truth remains that when push comes to shove no one wants to hear about your shortcomings, they just want you to deliver, instantly.

BARRY BECKETT

Is barely in this movie. Even though I believe him to be the most talented player in Muscle Shoals. Listen to his piano work on Paul Simon's "One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor." The notes are simple, but the way Barry extracts them from the instrument...whew!

ROGER HAWKINS

Didn't believe he was good enough until Jerry Wexler said so.

Today everybody's overconfident.

But praise can inspire.

DAVID HOOD

Looks like your uncle who never got married and works at the insurance agency! Proving once again, it's not how you look, but how you play.

JIMMY JOHNSON

Looks like David Hood's boss at the insurance agency.

ARETHA FRANKLIN AGAIN

Was once young and sexy.

ETTA JAMES

Was a hottie in every sense of the word. She was visually exciting and was hot-headed, she could be pushed into delivering that something extra.

HEY JUDE

Duane Allman convinced Wilson Pickett to record the Beatles number during a break. Duane went from hippie outcast to insider instantly as a result.

LYNYRD SKYNYRD

Jimmy Johnson spent a year trying to get a deal for Skynyrd, but no one would bite. But when you see the band playing live, after so much studio footage, your head will spin. Once upon a time, a band could become so successful that they could sell out stadiums on their music alone. There was no big screen, almost no production whatsoever. But the minions came and lost their minds to the sound.

_____________________

This is a flawed movie. Trying to be everything to everybody, it disappoints those who care and those who don't. Bono speaks, even though U2 has no history there. Alicia Keys testifies even though she's decades removed from the music's heyday and the session featuring her at the end of the flick is boring. And as great as he is, there's too much Rick Hall, is it his biography or the story of the music?

But having said all that, watching this movie you want to do nothing so much as make a pilgrimage, because place is important, you can feel the music when you're in Memphis, I'm dying to go to the Shoals.

But what's most thrilling about this flick is the geekiness and the music. Stripping away the star testimonials and the landscape footage, what you've got here is a renegade bunch of crackers who made some of the most legendary music of all time, and they're all there to explain how they did it. And it wasn't difficult so much as it required dedication to their craft, stardom was secondary, hell, almost none of the musicians had ever hit the road, but boy could they play!

There was a small coterie of people bitten by the bug. They formed bands and played fraternity parties. They could never give up and go straight, they had to follow the muse. And when you put a bunch of people in a room who love to play, who are in search of excellence, you find out the whole world is watching, and listening.

P.S. Denny Cordell named them the Swampers, after they worked on "Leon Russell and the Shelter People."

http://www.muscleshoalsthemovie.com


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