Muscle Shoals Sound Studio: How the Swampers Changed American Music

The book was well written and researched; pictures and illustrations help to tell the story of that iconic studio, and those very talented musicians. Highly recommended.

Definitely a must read for local history nerds like me. Looking forward to reading more about Muscle Shoals music history.

I was a fan of the Muscle Shoals sound even before I knew what it was. This unassuming region in the northwest corner of Alabama produced some of the best rock and roll records of the 1960s and ‘70s. Though the area has been home to dozens of recording studios, two companies in particular are responsible for the lion’s share of gold records to come out of the Shoals. The first was FAME studios, founded by Rick Hall. The second was Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, founded by four of Hall’s session musicians who struck out on their own. Barry Beckett (keyboards), Roger Hawkins (drums), David Hood (bass), and Jimmy Johnson (guitar) comprised the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, affectionately nicknamed the Swampers, as mentioned in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.” These four musicians have played on hundreds of albums and singles by a diverse roster of artists that includes Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, and Traffic. Carla Jean Whitley’s 2014 book Muscle Shoals Sound Studio focuses mostly on the Swampers’ recording career, but also touches upon the broader history of the Muscle Shoals music scene as a whole.If you’ve already seen the 2013 documentary feature film Muscle Shoals, then you already know most of what Whitley has to say here. In fact, I would recommend anyone see that film rather than buy this book. Whitley herself devotes a chapter to the film and references it frequently throughout her book. While the film features interviews and anecdotes from those who actually worked on the hit records, Whitley’s book contains almost no behind-the-scenes information of recording sessions whatsoever. A glance at the bibliography indicates that she only interviewed a handful of people, none of them rock stars. The bulk of her sources are magazine and newspaper articles, websites, and blogs. Thus, the text is largely a collection of quotes, most of which are merely people making general statements about how great it is to record in Muscle Shoals, without any personal reflections about their time spent there. Whitley has opted not to use notes in her text, so almost every paragraph is a quote followed by “so-and-so told Rolling Stone,” “as reported in Billboard magazine,” etc. Whitley is an editor for Birmingham magazine, but her prose doesn’t even measure up to a good magazine article. Instead, it reads like a research paper cobbled together for an undergraduate college course.Something this research paper really could have used is an appendix. How about a comprehensive list of the albums and singles the Swampers worked on? It would be interesting to see not just the big-name artists but also some of the lesser-known figures who have recorded at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Instead, Whitley mostly talks about the same artists covered in the documentary film but offers less detail.The glory days of Muscle Shoals basically ended in the 1980s, so the last few chapters of this book come across as rather depressing. The Sound Studio became a museum, which suffers from underfunding. The Black Keys recorded an album in Muscle Shoals and then complained that the experience was no big deal. Numerous small studios have sprouted up, mostly catering to unknown up-and-coming artists. Whitley tries to put a hopeful spin on all this, but instead the book really ends on a downer.As a fan of the music discussed, I liked reading this summary account of Muscle Shoals history well enough. I can’t really say, however, that I learned a lot that I didn’t already know.

Beautifully written, for somebody that wrote their first book! Carla Jean Whitley absolutely shines all the way through. Fantastically written (loving job) and beautifully researched. Her heart was really in it. And she's local person, Alabamian anyway, unlike Bono! Why did they even put him in the movie? What does Bono knows about Muscle Shoals? He never even recorded there and now he's an expert?FYI For some reason this book went very quickly out of print and it was going for as much as $100 around Christmas time! That's if you can even find it! Now that is ridiculous. It also was available by Barns & Nobles (going out of business this year) by print on demand for $85 + shipping! Please issue a second printing! And I would love to have Hard Binding that was never issued.

If you love R&B/Soul music, then you have heard the Swampers, the studio musicians who played on so many of the '60's, 70's, etc. hits, Jimmy Johnson, Barry Beckett, David Hood, and Roger Hawkins. They gave Aretha her first hit and many more after it, and created hits for Wilson Pickett, the Rolling Stones and so many others. I first noticed the Swampers' names along with Duane Allman's on Boz Scaggs' first album sometime in the '70's and saw them repeated again and again on so many other albums that I used them as a buying guide. And it always worked!Carla Jean Whitley has done superb job telling the Swampers' great story; the stories of so many of the hit tunes of my generation. The book is loaded with vignettes about the stars and how their most famous hit records were recorded. A fast read and loads of fun!

Short and sweet. Could have been expanded quite a bit though.

And informative. We are travelling there next week. We are music fans, but not intensively so, where alot of detail is needed, sothis book is percect. Also wathced the documentary; and the facts in this book complement it.

Back in the day I would buy any record I came across that was recorded in a tiny Alabama town called Muscle Shoals: Aretha, Pickett, Clarence Carter and a host of others produced some of their best work there. This is the interesting history of how it all happened And the musicians behind the music.

The item was expected thank you.

This book provides an overall view of the studio and its history. The research done for it seems to be info from websites but lacks interview detail. The players' names are mentioned but there is no story that introduces them, unlike the "Memphis Boys" and "Soulsville USA" books

The book was written like a students project .

Damn, I so wanted to like this book. having recently seen the documentary film, I had high hopes for this. Sadly the book is little more than an annotated list (who cares about Rolling Stones listings? Tell us about the music!) cobbled together from other blogs and old newspaper cuttings. The book showed little soul for the music - it could as easily have been about a washing machine spare parts factory! A wasted opportunity.