They say the music comes from a spirit in the water in Muscle Shoals, Alabama: Glynn Wilson

By Glynn Wilson –

MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. — Sitting beside the Tennessee River in McFarland Park by the Florence Visitor’s Center after spending a few days in the quad city area often just called “the shoals,” I cannot help but think about what might have been.

What if I had stuck with the music business back in the late 1970s and early ’80s instead of going on parole from rock ‘n’ roll and switching to newspaper journalism as a career? I write about this in my memoir, Jump On The Bus, with no real regrets, just a curiosity about the road not taken. I’ve had some great runs as a reporter and writer and I’m not done yet.

But as the river rolls by filled with flotsam and jetsam after some heavy rain, I’m reminded of a country song by Dick Curless, the pioneer of the trucking music genre, who sang, You Can’t Go Back Again.

And I think of the author Thomas Wolfe, who once wrote “you can’t go home again,” a novel published after his death in 1940 by his editor, Edward Aswell. The novel tells the story of fledgling author George Webber, who writes a book exploring the changing American society of the 1920s and 30s. After the stock market crash of 1929 and the coming of the Great Depression, Wolfe explores the illusion of capitalist prosperity along side the rise of fascism in Germany. Webber’s book is portrayed as a national success, but the residents of his home town, unhappy with what they view as his distorted depiction of them, send the author menacing letters and death threats.

I can relate.

With all the rapid changes going on in American society now, all the problems of politics and technology and journalism, there are days when I just wish I could get behind a set of drums and escape it all. While I traveled around with rock bands back in the day, I never got a chance to play in the studio and help create original music. Visiting the studios here and catching up on all the history just makes me wonder if it might still be possible to live another dream I once had, somehow.

They are still recording great music all over the shoals area, even in the era when anyone can record in a kitchen or a basement with the help of a computer and sound software. One of the hottest new studios in Sheffield is the The Nutthouse, by Jimmy Nutt of Shreveport Louisiana. A song called “Old Flame” was recorded there by Jason Isbell and John Paul White for a tribute Album to Alabama called High Cotton. James LeBlanc recorded there for his album “Nature of the Beast,” for another example.

Jimmy Nutt by the sound board in the Nutthouse Studio in Sheffield, Alabama: Glynn Wilson

While taking the tour with my friend Dick Cooper, who has been around the area and seen it all since coming here to work for the Florence Times Daily newspaper back in the 1960s and then quitting to get involved in the music business, Elvis Presley’s bass player and Nashville record producer Norbert Putnam walked in and we had a nice chat about the business and other things. What a nice guy for someone who has been around fame his entire life. He played bass in the opening act for The Beatles first concert in the United States in Washington, D.C., photographed by my good friend Rowland Scherman.

Dick Cooper by the Singing River statue in Sheffield, Alabama: Glynn Wilson

Cooper’s journey is the opposite of mine in many ways, although we share much in common. We both still write, take photographs, love music — and wish the religious nuts and the gun freaks would stop dividing us so we could fix our democracy and government and make things work again. While my first love was making music, he took photographs and wrote for newspapers and then gave it all up to work in the music business alongside some of the great names, like Barry Beckett, Jimmy Johnson, David Hood and Roger Hawkins, Pete Carr and Spooner Oldham. He even co-produced the first big record for the Drive By Truckers, Southern Rock Opera, and became the young band’s road manger, traveling 72,000 miles on tour in a Dodge van. What stories there are to tell, only I can’t get to them all here.

A picture of David Hood and his son Patterson Hood of the Drive By Truckers in the Florence Visitors Center: Glynn Wilson

After visiting with Cooper for a few days, I stopped by FAME studios, where it all started with Rick Hall, and then went out to visit Te-lah-nay’s Wall, which you may recall from the Muscle Shoals Sound Documentary was built by a man calling himself The Stone Talker, Tom Hendrix. He tells the story of his great-great grandmother, a native American medicine woman named Teh-la-nay who was rounded up by President Andrew Jackson’s men in the 1830s and sent to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears.

The front of FAME studios, where Rick Hall started it all in Florence, Alabama: Glynn Wilson

She escaped and walked for five years all the way back to Alabama, as the story has been passed down over the generations, saying none of the rivers in Oklahoma could sing quite like the Tennessee. The Euchee Indians believed there was a female spirit living in the river who sang them songs.

Te-lah-nay’s Wall just off the Natchez Trace Parkway: Glynn Wilson

This story is so famous now that the National Park Service under the U.S. Department of the Interior has designated a six county area here as a National Heritage Area, celebrating “the Land of the Singing River” and the “Hit Recording Capital of the World”.

A sign in front of the original Muscle Shoals Sound Studio along Jackson Highway: Glynn Wilson

On my way back from the Natchez Trace Parkway, where you can find the wall right off County Road 8, I arrived just in time for the late afternoon tour at the original Muscle Shoals Sound studio at 3614 Jackson Highway. It was here Cher recorded her first solo album without Sonny Bono. It was also the first album recorded after the group of musicians later called “the swampers” broke with Rick Hall at FAME, making a deal with Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records to open a new studio under the name Muscle Shoals Sound.

The original Muscle Shoals Sound studio at 3614 Jackson Highway: Glynn Wilson

Lynyrd Skynyrd got its start here, although when producer Jimmy Johnson couldn’t find a distributor for Free Bird, they moved to Georgia and re-recorded the songs in Doraville and released the Pronounced album. Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones recorded hits here. Other great artists came for the magic, like Linda Ronstadt. My good friend Wayne Perkins from Birmingham played on many hit records in the shoals for several studios after he joined Eddie Hinton at Muscle Shoals Sound. Perkins went on to tour with Leon Russell, later turning down the job as third guitar player with Skynyrd, fatefully avoiding the plane crash that killed Ronnie Vann Zandt and other band members. Skynyrd’s First and Last album was released in 1978 from tracks recorded in the studio on Jackson Highway.

Lynyrd Skynyrd in the first Muscle Shoals Sound studio, it’s heyday from 1969-78: Glynn Wilson

Speaking of spirits, one day we visited Cypress Moon Studios, right on the river at 1000 Alabama Avenue, which was the home of the newer and even cooler Muscle Shoals Sound studios from 1979 to 2005. It recently hosted Scott Boyer’s memorial service after the song writer and guitar player of Cowboy fame died of heart failure.

Tonya S. Holly, owner of the Cypress Moon Studios, with Dick Cooper: Glynn Wilson

Boyer was around when Duane and Gregg Allman first came to town to record. He toured with Gregg in 1974 after Duane and bass player Berry Oakley both died in motorcycle wrecks a year apart. I saw a concert on that tour at Boutwell Auditorium in Birmingham. It’s sort of amazing that I remember it. The ’60s culture had come to Alabama in the ’70s, if you know what I mean. The list of greats who recorded here is pretty amazing. Bob Seger, Bob Dylan, John Prine, Julian Lennon, Glenn Fry of the Eagles, Jimmy Buffett, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Delbert McClinton, Dire Straits, George Michael, Etta James, etc.

It is now owned by a cousin of Elvis, Tonya S. Holly, who says the place is definitely haunted by the friendly spirit of another Native American, who lurks in the dark and occasionally makes its presence known. If I was going to make a record or a movie, this seems like the place to do it. Making films is another dream.

Maybe one day soon I will pull the media/camper van up behind the studio, plug in and get involved in a project. May we all have the opportunity to fulfill all of our dreams in America, if the politicians would just get their act together and stop crumbling the government and let the money flow in the right direction, like the singing river.

One can only live an honest life, work like hell and hope. Sounds like a blues or country song to me.

More Photos

Looking in the front door of the Muscle Shoals Sound studio at 3614 Jackson Highway: Glynn Wilson

A replica of the old sound console is sometimes still used for recording, although the place is mostly a museum owned and operated by the Muscle Shoals Music Foundation: Glynn Wilson

Examples of guitars from the time in the heyday of the original Muscle Shoals Sound Studio on Jackson Highway: Glynn Wilson

The original piano of hits in Muscle Shoals Sound studio at 3614 Jackson Highway: Glynn Wilson

David Hood’s autograph adorns one of the old tiles on the wall in the original Muscle Shoals Sound Studio on Jackson Highway: Glynn Wilson

A picture of the original swampers in front of FAME Studios: Glynn Wilson

Te-lah-nay’s Wall just off the Natchez Trace Parkway: Glynn Wilson

A plaque by the Singing River Sculpture in Sheffield, Alabama: Glynn Wilson

A photo taken by Jimmy Johnson of Mick Jagger hangs on the wall in the Muscle Shoals Sound studio on Jackson Highway: Glynn Wilson

A photo taken by Jimmy Johnson of Linda Ronstadt hangs on the wall in the Muscle Shoals Sound studio on Jackson Highway: Glynn Wilson

Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler with Willie Nelson in front of the original Muscle Shoals Sound studio on Jackson Highway: Glynn Wilson

Cher’s first solo album, cut at the first Muscle Shoals Sound studio on Jackson Highway, inspired the sign on the building that is still there to this day: Glynn Wilson