Duane Allman in Muscle Shoals(Long)

[charlie_t_jr]

Here's a recent blog entry I made on our WLAY-AM myspace site:


Sunday, October 15, 2006

Duane Allman in Muscle Shoals

The Muscle Shoals area had become the recording mecca for soul, rythm & blues by the close of the '60s. As the 60's turned into the '70's, more studios would begin to open and the music recorded in the area would broaden to include pop, rock, and country. A diverse group of musicians, singers, and songwriters would be drawn to this rural country of North Alabama. One of these would soon become revered as one of the all-time guitar greats, Duane Allman.

Duane Allman recorded in Muscle Shoals as a studio musician from November of 1968 through March of 1969, when he returned to Jacksonville, FL to start the Allman Brothers Band. He would return frequently to The Shoals to lay down guitar tracks on several recording sessions, right up until just a couple months before the tragic motorcycle accident that would claim his life. Muscle Shoals would be the place Duane would catch the ear of some the industry's most powerful men, including Rick Hall at FAME, Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records, record producer and executive Tom Dowd. He'd play on records for Wilson Pickett, Athur Conley, Clarence Carter, Otis Rush and many more. Duane would get the opportunity to travel to New York with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section to record with Aretha Franklin. It would be right here in this sleepy little corner of North West Alabama that the formation of the Allman Brothers Band would have its roots.

Duane and brother Gregg's first connection to Muscle Shoals actually dates back to 1966 when they were playing in a band called the Allman Joys. Florence/Muscle Shoals native Buddy Killen had moved to Nashville before the boom of the Muscle Shoals music industry. Buddy would become a giant in the Nashville record industry. In 1966 he was working with Dial Records. He caught the Allman Joys playing at one of the southern teen clubs and they would eventually record several songs for Killen's label in Nashville. Only one single was released. A cover of Willie Dixon's "Spoonful" backed with "You Deserve Each Other". Apparantly Killen wasn't impressed. After hearing the single and the rest of the material the Allmans had recorded, he advised the band "to go look for a day job".

The two brothers would persevere in the Allman Joys for several more months until the band imploded while playing in St. Louis. Once again North Alabamians would play a pivotal role in the Allman story. Duane and Gregg would join forces with drummer Johnny Sandlin and keyboard player Paul Hornsby from the group "The Five Minutes" out of Huntsville. Their bass player at the time according to Gregg was some "cat called Wolf". The new band played Nashville and made a return to St. Louis where the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band stopped in to catch their gig. The Dirt Band's manager convinced the band they could make it nationally if they would move out to California. So the newly christened "Hour Glass" relocates to L.A. in the spring of 1967. The situation only went from bad to worse as the band felt they were misled by their record company, Liberty Records. Liberty was calling all the shots and picking the material for the band, which turned out to be a terrible blend of psychedelic and soul. The self titled debut "The Hour Glass" is released in October of 1967. Their second album "Power of Love" is released March of '68. Neither record sold and the band was in debt to Liberty. Once again, Muscle Shoals enters the Allman history. The problem with the Hour Glass albums was it just wasn't the Allman's music. The band determined to develop their own sound, head east to Muscle Shoals to record some demos at Rick Hall's FAME studios with Jimmy Johnson as the recording engineer in April of '68. By this time "Wolf" was out of the band and Florida native and soon to be legendary Muscle Shoals Sound session guitar player Pete Carr is in the band. Liberty Records though had absolutely no interest in the Muscle Shoals demos. Matter of fact, by this time Liberty makes it clear they were only interested in promoting Gregg as a solo act. In May of '68 fed up the band leaves L.A. But they are deeply in debt to the record company and after being threatened to be sued, Gregg goes back to L.A. to record a solo album. As expected Liberty calls all the shots.

Duane stayed in Jacksonville, FL hanging out with bands 31st Of February and The Second Coming which included future Allman's Butch Trucks, Berry Oakley, and Dickey Betts. Back in Muscle Shoals in November of "68, Rick Hall at FAME studios was preparing for an important Wilson Pickett session. Remembering Duane's work with the Hour Glass, he sent a telegram to Jacksonville. Duane jumped at the chance at a paying gig and headed to Muscle Shoals. November 27, 1968 the recording session begins with Wilson Pickett. While the other musicians and studio crew went out to lunch, Duane persuades Wilson to record the Beatles "Hey Jude" with Duane on lead guitar. Rick Hall gives Atlantic Records Jerry Wexler a call and plays "Hey Jude" over the phone for him. Jerry is impressed with the song and the young guitarist and decides to release it as a single. The "Hey Jude" single would eventually sell millions and Duane was invited to stay in Muscle Shoals. Jimmy Johnson of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section said of Duane's work on that song, "In my estimation, that guitar solo that Duane played on the vamp at the end of 'Hey Jude' was the beginning of Southern rock music." Through the end of '68 Duane would add his distinctive guitar work to Clarence Carter, Athur Conley along with Wilson Pickett. December of '69 would also mark the first time Duane would work with producer Tom Dowd. Dowd would work extensively with the future Allman Brothers Band. Also during this period the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section was doing outside work for Atlantic Records, recording with Aretha Franklin in New York. In Janurary of '69 Duane traveled to New York with the rhythm section to work with Aretha and once again Tom Dowd.

A pivotal point in rock n' roll history takes place in Muscle Shoals early in 1969. The Allman Brothers Band will come together in the spring of '69. In a short two years they will reach the pinnacle of commercial success, be lauded by critics nation wide, and usher in a new musical genre called "Southern Rock". But in February of '69 Duane is in Muscle Shoals with no band. Brother Gregg is still out west in California miserable and lonely working off the Hour Glass debt to Liberty records. Rick Hall though is so impressed with Duane that he signed him to a recording contract and encourged Duane to do a solo album. According to Allman Brother Dickey Betts, "See, Rick Hall wanted him to do a Hendrix power-trio thing. But Duane was too warm and personal for that. He needed a lot of other guys to get that full sound he wanted." So Duane called on his friend Berry Oakley (bass), former Hour Glass members Paul Hornsby (piano) and Johnny Sandlin (drums) for the recording sessions in late January through February of '69 at FAME. The solo album would go unreleased until after his death. The tracks would eventually be released on the "Duane Allman Anthology" and the Allman Brothers Box set "Dreams". Duane also met up with future Allman Brother drummer/percussionist Jaimoe Johnson at a King Curtis recording session at FAME.

The recording contract that Duane signed with Rick Hall was soon purchased by Atlantic VP Jerry Wexler and sold to Phil Walden. Walden was putting together a roster for his Atlantic custom label, Capricorn Records. In search of those musicians "to get that full sound he wanted" and with the contract in hand, Duane and Jaimoe moved back to Jacksonville, FL. Soon Gregg would join them and the Allman Brothers Band was solidified. One could make the connection that this all happened because Rick Hall sent a telegram to a young unknown guitarist that was in an unknown failing band that passed through his studios several months before.

The Allman Brothers Band began recording and playing shows in the spring of '69, but Duane would often return to Muscle Shoals to lend his guitar work on several recording sessions. He'd work with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section at their new Muscle Shoals Sound Studio on Jackson Highway. He'd lay down tracks for Cher on the first album recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound. On Boz Scaggs debut, Lulu, Ronnie Hawkins, John Hammond, and many more. Duane also continued to work with the Muscle Shoals Rhytm Section and Aretha Franklin in New York and Criteria Studios in Miami. At Criteria not only did the Allmans record there, but Duane would get the chance to work with Eric Clapton on Derek And The Dominos.

The last Muscle Shoals session for Duane would come just two months before his death. He layed down guitar on a song called "Please Be With Me" for the band Cowboy in September of 1971 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. The song written by Cowboy member Scott Boyer. Boyer, a former member of the Butch Trucks band 31st of February, now a current resident of the Shoals and member of The Decoys. Sadly, two months later on October 29, Duane Allman dies after a motorcycle accident at the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon, GA at the age of twenty-four.

http://www.myspace.com/muscleshoalssound

[Kyle]

If you havent heard of them already check out the Drive-by truckers. They are a southern rock band (one of the last few left) from muscle shoals and sing about the area and recording studio in some of their songs. IMO they really capture the character of the state and what it feels like to come from this part of the country. Here are a few examples.


RONNIE AND NEIL
(Hood / DBT)

Church blew up in Birmingham
Four little black girls killed for no goddamn good reason
All this hate and violence can't come to no good end
A stain on the good name.
A whole lot of good people dragged threw the blood and glass
Blood stains on their good names and all of us take the blame

Meanwhile in North Alabama, Wilson Pickett comes to town
To record that sweet soul music, to get that Muscle Shoals sound

Meanwhile in North Alabama, Aretha Franklin comes to town
To record that sweet soul music, to get that Muscle Shoals sound

Although it is spoken word this is one of my favorite songs by them.

grew up in North Alabama, back in the 1970's, when dinosaurs still roamed the earth…

Speaking of course ofthe Three Great Alabama Icons… George Wallace, Bear Bryant and Ronnie Van Zant… Now Ronnie Van Zant wasn't from Alabama, he was from Florida…He was a huge Neil Young fan… But in the tradition of Merle Haggard writin' Okie from Muskogee to tell his dad's point of view about the hippies ‘n Vietnam, Ronnie felt that the other side of the story should be told.And Neil Young always claimed that Sweet Home Alabama was one of his favorite songs.And legend has it that he was an honorary pall bearer at Ronnie's funeral… such is the Duality of the Southern Thing…And Bear Bryant wore a cool lookin' red checkered hat and won football games… and there's few things more loved in Alabama than football and the men who know how to win at it…So when the Bear would come to town, there'd be a parade.And me, I was one a' them pussy boys… cause I hated football, so I got a guitar… but a guitar was a poor substitute for a football with the girls in my high school…So my band hit the road… and we didn't play no Skynyrd either… I came of age rebellin' against the music in my high school parkin' lot… It wasn't till years later after leavin' the South for a while that I came to appreciate and understand the whole Skynyrd thing and its misunderstood glory…I left the South and learned how different people's perceptions of the Southern Thing was from what I'd seen in my life… Which leads us to George Wallace…Now Wallace was for all practical purposes the Governor of Alabama from 1962 until 1986… Once, when a law prevented him from succeeding himselfhe ran his wife Lerline in his place and she won by a landslide… He's most famous as the belligerent racist voice of the segregationist South… Standing in the doorways of schools and waging a political war against a Federal Government that he decried as hypocritical… And Wallace had started out as a lawyer and a judge with a very progressive and humanitarian track record for a man of his time.But he lost his first bid for governor in 1958 by hedging on the race issue, against a man who spoke out against integration…Wallace ran again in '62 as a staunch segregationist and won big, and for the next decade spoke out loudly… He accused Kennedy and King of being communists.He was constantly on national news, representing the “good? people of Alabama…And you know race was only an issue on TV in the house that I grew up in…Wallace was viewed as a man from another time and place… And when I first ventured out of theSouth, I was shocked at how strongly Wallace was associated with Alabama and its people… Ya know racism is a worldwide problem and it's been since the beginning of recorded history… and it ain't just white and black… But thanks to George Wallace, it's always a little more convenient to play it with a Southern accent.And bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd attempted to show another side of the South… One that certainly exists, but few saw beyond the rebel flag… And this applies not only to their critics and detractors, but also from their fans and followers.So for a while, when Neil Young would come to town, he'd get death-threats down in Alabama… Ironically, in 1971, after a particularly racially charged campaign, Wallace began backpedaling, and he opened up Alabama politics to minorities at a rate faster than most Northern states or the Federal Government.And Wallace spent the rest of his life trying to explain away his racist past, and in 1982 won his last term in office with over 90% of the black vote… Such is the Duality of the Southern Thing…And George Wallace died back in '98 and he's in Hell now, not because he's a racist… His track record as a judge and his late-life quest for redemption make a good argument for his being, at worst, no worse than most white men of his generation, North or South…But because of his blind ambition and his hunger for votes, he turned a blind eye to the suffering of Black America.And he became a pawn in the fight against the Civil Rights cause…For

tunately for him, the Devil is also a Southerner…

[Kyle]

One other interesting note. Patterson Hood who one of DBT's lead singers is David Hood's(of Muscle Shoals fame) son.

[charlie_t_jr]

[ QUOTE ]
One other interesting note. Patterson Hood who one of DBT's lead singers is David Hood's(of Muscle Shoals fame) son.

[/ QUOTE ]

The DBT are very cool. I had a chance to interview Patterson and Jason Isbell. They are all from Northwest AL except the drummer. But they are based in Athens, GA.

One interesting note. As you mentioned Patterson is the son of David Hood, bass player for the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section or the "Swampers" as mentioned in "Sweet Home ALabama". The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section(MSRS) got their start at FAME studios in Muscle Shoals. FAME was home to some of the biggest Soul and R&B hits of the mid and late '60's. In '69 the MSRS opened their own studio, Muscle Shoals Sound which recored a ton of soul and rock artists like the Stones, Rod Stewart, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Paul Simon, etc. Patterson grew up around all that, but had never sat foot in FAME studios until just a couple of years ago when the DBT finished up their "Decoration Day" album by recording at FAME.

Any way cool band, and Muscle Shoals with a very cool history.