Music History Recording Studios of Muscle Shoals, Florence & Sheffield, Alabama

Welcome to
City of Muscle Shoals
Hit Recording
Capital of the World

The Singing River Sculpture (Sheffield)
Legend of the Singing River 
The Yuchi and other early inhabitants who lived along the banks of the mighty Tennessee River held the legend of the Spirit Woman who lived in the river, protected them, and sang to them. If the river was angry, She sang to them loudly; if the river was peaceful, She sang softly and sweetly, sometimes humming a comforting lullaby. 
Some say that all they heard was the high waters' mighty rush and roar over the mussel shoals or, at other times, the calm, low waters babbling through the river rocks. Others say She is real and can still be seen in the early morning mist, hovering over the waters, just as She did many years ago. In her honor, they called it the Singing River, and in her honor, we named these sculptures the Singing River Sculptures. 

1951 Dexter Johnson's Recording Studio

Bluegrass musician and uncle of Swampers guitarist Jimmy Johnson established the Shoals area’s first professional recording studio in his garage a decade before Rick Hall’s FAME opened its doors.

Recording Studios(Alabama Music Hall of Fame)
Dexter Johnson's Recording Studio c1951
Charles Stanfield's Mobile Recording Studio c.1955
Tune Recording Studios c.1957
Spar Recording Studio c.1958
Fred Bevis Recording Studio c. 1967
Woodrich Recording Studio c.1973
Joe Wilson Recording Studio c.1973
Paradox Recording Studio c.1975
Cactus Recording Studio c.1980
Audio Workshop c1984

1956 Tune Records,123 E Alabama Ave Florence, Al. 

The Shoals’ first record label and publishing company released a single by Bobby Denton called “A Fallen Star,” which laid the foundation for the emergence of the area’s recording industry. (James Joiner, Walter Stovall, Kelso Herston, and Marvin Wilson) (Junior Thompson recorded Who's Knocking/How Come You Do Me 1956)

This Concertone tape recorder was used by James Joiner in this Tune Records Studio, one of the first studios in the Muscle Shoals area to make commercial recordings
(Alabama Music Hall of Fame)

1959 SPAR Music, 123 1/2 E Alabama Ave Florence, Al. 

(Stafford Publishing and Recording) 

above the City Drug Store in downtown Florence, was the brainchild of the “local bohemian type” 

(Tom Stafford), the birthplace of the Muscle Shoals music scene and the precursor to FAME Studios.

Original Site of FAME Recording Studio early 1960s

This marks the site of the pioneering music company of Florence Al Music Enterprises FAME, a name that became renowned worldwide as the home of "the Muscle Shoals Sound."

FAME was founded in the early 1960s by three young local entrepreneurs (Rick Hall, Billy Sherrill, and Tom Stafford)  who improvised make-shift studios in a vacant room above the City Drug Store that once stood there. FAME's earliest recording sessions launched the careers of such music business legends as Arthur Alexander, Rick Hall, Billy Sherrell, Norbert Putnam, David Briggs, Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, and many others. 

Original Site of FAME Recording Studio early 1960s
Following the limited success, the partnership dissolved. Rick Hall took the publishing company and FAME name in return for the studio equipment. He relocated the studio to an empty tobacco warehouse in Muscle Shoals. His next recording, "You Better Move On" by Arthur Alexander, was acclaimed as the Shoal's first worldwide bestseller.
Over the next several decades, FAME recording studios became one of the most successful producers of rhythm and blues, pop, and country music in the world. Rick Hall became known as the "Father of the Muscle Shoals Sound."

1961 FAME (Rick Hall) 603 Avalon Ave., Muscle Shoals, AL, was the first successful professional recording studio in the state of Alabama, producing hits by Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Clarence Carter,  the Osmonds, and countless others.

2015 Fame Recording Studios, where it all Started 

Fame Recording Studios, where it all Started in 2011

FAME Recording Studios Home of the Muscle Shoals Sound (2009)
(Muscle Shoals Municipal Building)

Rich Hall on his own in Muscle Shoals
Fame Studio at Old Candy and Tobacco Warehouse
(Singing River Statue Muscle Shoals)

1963 Quin Ivy Recording Studios  

1965 Norala Sound Studio,104 E 2n St Sheffield, Al 

Founded by FAME songwriter and WLAY disc jockey (Quin Ivy), gave the world Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman” and brought Jerry Wexler and Atlantic Records to the Shoals

Percy Sledge's "When a Man loves a woman"
Hospital orderly Percy Sledge recorded 'When a Man Loves a Woman' at Quin Ivy's studio in 1966. Mr. Sledge's breakup with a girlfriend inspired the lyrics credited to songwriters Calvin Lewis and Andrew Wright.

The release featured Marlin Greene (guitar), Spooner Oldham (Farfisa organ), Albert 'Junior' Lowe (bass), Roger Hawkins (drums), Jack Peck (trumpet), Bill Coifed (tenor sax), and Don Pollard (alto sax). Greene and Ivy produced the cut. At the request of Roger Hawkins, Ivy played the recording for Rick Hall, owner of FAME Studios. Hall felt it had hit potential and contacted Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler, who released it. The song hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and was Atlantic's first certified gold record. Rolling Stone magazine ranks it number 54 among the best songs of all time.

Percy Sledge was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. Spooner Oldham followed in 2009. Donna Jean Thatcher Godchaux, who sang backup on the hit, was inducted in 1994 with her husband Keith Godchaux and other members of the Grateful Dead

Producer Quin Ivy Norala and Quinvy Studios
 Record store owner and WLAY dis jockey Quin Ivy established North Alabama Recording. 

Studio (NORALA) at 104 E. Second Street in Sheffield in 1965. He purchased used equipment, including Ampex 351 and Berlant mono tape recorders and a radio station console. Ivy-mounted egg cartons on the studio walls to deaden stray frequencies.

The first song recorded at NORALA was Florence native Donna Jean Thatcher's "I'm Out of Touch." Several months later, Percy Sledge cut the classic "When A Man Loves A Woman." With proceeds from the Sledge session, Ivy completed a better-equipped studio across town in 1968 and named it Quinvy.

Ivy also produced Tony Borders, Buddy Causey, Jeanie Green, and Z.Z. Hill, Ben E. King, Mickey Buckings and The New Breed, Don Varner, the U.S. Male, and the Wee Jun.

1969 Muscle Shoals Sound Studio was the home of the Swampers(Jimmy Johnson, David Hood, Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins) and the consummate 1970s hit factory, recording the Stones, the Staple Singers, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson, Rod Stewart, Bob Seger, and more. 

1969 Muscle Shoals Sound Studio
Muscle Municipal Building)

Muscle Shoals Sound 3613 Jackson Highway (2019)

1969 Widget Sound Studio in Sheffield, 3804 Jackson Hwy., Sheffield, AL 

A very near neighbor to Muscle Shoals Sound gave Woodford and Ivey’s Wishbone a workspace pre-1976 and gave the world Sailcat’s “Motorcycle Mama.”(by Ron Ballew) 

Widget Studio is the first step in the music field for Ronnie Ballew (left) owner; the first major production for "Peanut" Montgomery(center) and the studio's first waxing puts the voice of Al McLendon (right on record for the first time.
TIMES DAILY 

1972 Broadway Sound Studio, 1307 Broadway St., Sheffield, AL 

The successor to Norala carried the R&B tradition of its predecessor into the 1970s and gave birth to the “Southern rock” genre by recording Lynyrd Skynyrd's first demo. (Quin Ivy)

Broadway Sound Studio Est. 1972 (2008)
(Alabama Music Hall of Fame)

Broadway Sound studio with owner and producer David Johnson, second right
(Sheffield Singing River Statue)

1973 Wishbone Recording Studio 
1920 Webster Avenue, Muscle Shoals, AL 

was a proving ground for songwriters like Mac McAnally and Robert Byrne and recorded albums by such legends as Roy Orbison and Hank Williams, Jr. (by Terry Woodford)

Wishbone Recording Studio Est 1973

Wishbone Studios (Photo furnished by Terry Woodford)
 (Singing River Statue Muscle Shoals) 

1974 Music Mill Recording Studio, 1108 E. Avalon Ave., Muscle Shoals, AL 

Founded (by Al Cartee), it was the first of the big local studios to specialize in country music, working with everyone from Narvel Felts and Roy Clark to Bobby Bare and Arthur Alexander.

1974 Music Mill Recording Studio (2008)
(Alabama Music Hall of Fame)

1978-85 Cypress Moon Studios

was the second home of the Swampers (Jimmy Johnson, David Hood, Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins), where they reconnected with their R&B roots and got reacquainted with old friends like Bob Dylan, Bob Seger, and B.B. King.

Cypress Moon Studio (2019)

The world-changing Muscle Shoals Music
Legendary producer Jerry Wexler at Muscle Shoals Recording Studios' riverfront location
(Singing River Statue Sheffield)

1977 East Avalon Recording  2815 1/2 East Avalon Avenue Muscle Shoals, Alabama 35661 

Wishbone engineer Steve Moore purchased the studio from its builder and designer Joe Wilson, and East Avalon Recorders was born in the "Hit Recording Capital of the World," Muscle Shoals, Alabama. 
The successful studio operated until around 1988.

1987 Avalon Recorders

1977 East Avalon Recording

East Avalon Studio
 (Singing River Statue Muscle Shoals)

1985-2005 Malaco Recording (at Cypress Moon)

used the Sheffield studios for its own artists, including Johnnie Taylor, Bobby Bland, and Little Milton, while continuing to operate its own facility in Jackson. The Rhythm Section, minus Beckett, worked with other studio musicians at Malaco Records and at other studios.

Cypress Moon/Malaco Recording 

2006 The Nuthouse (Jimmy Nutt)

In March of 2006, Jimmy launched The NuttHouse Recording Studio in downtown Sheffield, Alabama. What was once a 1950s bank is now the home of The NuttHouse Recording Studio.  
108 W 4th St, Sheffield, AL 35660

The Singing River Sculpture (Muscle Shoals)
The city served as the birthplace for early breakthroughs in the local music industry and later provided a home base for some of the area’s top studios. The first commercial recording to emerge from Muscle Shoals — the Bobby Denton single, A Fallen Star — was produced by James Joiner in the Second Street studios of WLAY Radio in 1957. Four years later, in an old candy-and-tobacco warehouse on Wilson Dam Road, aspiring producer Rick Hall joined forces with bellhop-turned-singer Arthur Alexander to cut Muscle Shoals’ first national hit, the Southern Soul anthem, You Better Move On. In the wake of that success, Hall built FAME Recording Studios on Avalon Avenue in 1962. Artists ranging from Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Etta James to Duane Allman, the Osmonds, and Bobby Gentry later recorded there. From 1970 to 1985, Muscle Shoals became known as “The Hit Recording Capital of the World” as FAME and Al Cartee’s Music Mill, Steve Moore’s East Avalon, and Terry Woodford and Clayton Ivey’s Wishbone Studios generated hits by Clarence Carter, Hank Williams Jr., the group Hot, George Jones, the Forester Sisters, Mac McAnally, Shenandoah, and many others. In 2011, Hall received the American Music Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2014, he was awarded the Grammy Trustees Award for his significant contribution to the recording industry.

In 1964, Mrs. Jewell Britton Wear began a career in the local music industry she founded Florence, Al. 

JJ Records with Junior Thompson, Monty Olive, and the Hacker Brothers for that label.

She also established the Music Scene Column in Florence Times Tri-Cities Daily. It was the first column detailing the music in the industry. 

Label owned by Junior Thompson and Jewel Wear.

In 1964, Mrs. Wear began a career in the local music industry. She founded JJ Records with Junior Thompson. She also established the Music Scene column in the Florence Times-Tri-Cities Daily. It was the first column detailing the local music industry.

Thomas Reeder “Monty” Olive 

Taken From: 

April 2010 Newsletter Birmingham Record Collectors

From Killen, Alabama, comes a piano player by the name of Monty Olive. Monty's style of playing and singing was compared to that of Fats Domino. Although he never got national airplay, his recordings were very popular locally. 

He was another of those who made a musical instrument his "friend." Monty tells it this way. "I've never had a piano lesson. When I first started playing, I would get the melody of a tune set in my mind and try to find the proper keys for it. It was fun, and I practiced it every day." Sounds easy, doesn't it? SURE!! 

Monty entertained in many cities across the country, including D.C., Detroit, Dallas, and Panama City's Old Dutch Inn. From an interview in the Time Tri-Cities Daily, August 13th, 1957, Monty put it this way. "Everywhere I go, I respond to the crowds. I feel the touch of my music. It's something you can't explain. I enjoy performing."

Rain Inside My Heart/Foggy River

Bell of Bar Room/Molly Darling

Mary Lee/Follow Me 

US Rockabilly singer, born Clen Houston Thompson Jr., Florence, Alabama

Junior Thompson began in 1956 at Meteor Records from Memphis (Tennessee). He also made a demonstration in Sun Records in 1956 without success. In 1957, it passed to Tune (56), JJ' S, and Badd Records before disappearing from Show Business. He was a regular singer in Dixie Hayride (Florence, Alabama) in 1956. 

1967-1968 JJ’S RECORDS Jewell Wear 

Sit by my side/Jungle Girl 1967

House of Lost Lovers/Ooby Dooby 1967

Cry on My Shoulder/Jimmy Boy 1969

Fairyland Girl/Child Days 1969

I’ll Never Let You Go Little Darling/Sally Ann From Paris, France 1969

The Hackers 

1967 Ange Love/Keep on Running Girl 

I am not sure of the location of JJ's Studio, which may have been located in her home.