Tucked in a quiet, unassuming corner of Alabama, FAME Recording Studios is a musical and historical landmark — literally. It has been designated a historical landmark both by the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage and by the US National Register of Historic Places. In this article, Sweetwater delves into the storied history of FAME Studios and explores its recently restored Studio B.
The Soul of the Shoals
Founded in the late 1950s by legendary songwriter/producer Rick Hall, Florence Alabama Music Enterprises — FAME for short — moved to its current location in Muscle Shoals in the early 1960s. This prosperous studio churned out hit record after hit record, starting with the Jimmy Hughes classic, “Steal Away.” It was at FAME that the original Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section cut their teeth on a huge cache of 1960s-era recordings. After that, the legendary “Swampers” rhythm section started making history at FAME before establishing their own Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in nearby Sheffield, Alabama.
After the Swampers struck out on their own, Rick assembled a new house backing band, dubbed the FAME Gang and also called the FAME Rhythm Section. This group consisted of eight musicians and an arranger. The group was also bolstered by frequent guitar contributions from the pre–Allman Brothers Band guitarist Duane Allman.
By the mid 1960s, FAME had become a first-class recording destination, attracting such artists as Little Richard, Etta James, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and Aretha Franklin. In fact, Aretha Franklin credited her early experience at FAME Studios for her transformation from an unknown jazz-pop vocalist to the one-of-a-kind “Queen of Soul.”
FAME Studios was notable for its racially inclusive mindset — a rarity during the turbulent pre-civil-rights era. “It was a dangerous time,” Rick noted in his autobiography, The Man from Muscle Shoals. “But the studio was a safe haven where blacks and whites could work together in musical harmony.”
Thus, FAME Studios became ground zero for the burgeoning soul genre, introducing Caucasian audiences to “Black” music and African American audiences to “White” music. This yielded a multitude of record-sales-breaking songs.
The Hits Kept on Coming
As the 1970s approached, FAME Studios branched out into other genres, most notably pop and country, earning the studio a distribution deal with Capitol Records. The ensuing decades yielded a string of hits from a diverse array of artists including the Osmonds, Mac Davis, Jerry Reed, Bobbie Gentry, the Gatlin Brothers, and more. The Studios’ success earned Rick a Grammy nomination along with a “Producer of the Year” designation from Billboard magazine.
In addition to producing hits for established acts, Rick also developed new artists, such as Shenandoah, a local bar band that Rick helped transform into a hit-making country-music powerhouse.
Rick Hall’s Untouchable Legacy
In 1989, Rick turned the day-to-day operations of FAME Studios over to his children, Mark, Rodney, and Rick Hall Jr. When Rick Sr. passed away on January 2, 2018, after a battle with cancer, it was just 28 days before his 86th birthday.
Rick has received many accolades. In its obituary, The New Yorker stated, “Muscle Shoals remains remarkable not just for the music made there but for its unlikeliness as an epicenter of anything; that a tiny town in a quiet corner of Alabama became a hotbed of progressive, integrated rhythm and blues still feels inexplicable.”
Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed, “Hall’s Grammy-winning production touched nearly every genre of popular music from country to R&B, and his FAME Studio and publishing company were a breeding ground for future legends in the worlds of songwriting and session work, as well as a recording home to some of the greatest musicians and recording artists of all time.”
FAME’s Legendary Studio B
Rick built Studio B in 1967 to absorb overflow from the often-overbooked Studio A. Centered around a custom 12-channel Universal Audio console, Studio B quickly became legendary in its own right. The space hosted a myriad of legendary artists, including the Allman Brothers Band and others, and it produced many classic hit songs, such as “Hey Joe” by Wilson Pickett and “Greenwood, Mississippi” by Little Richard.
Studio B became renowned for the unique sonic character of its live room, which lent a magical character to every source tracked in it. The room was especially coveted for the distinct acoustic beauty it brought to horn arrangements. In fact, sessions in Studio A would oftentimes record horn parts in Studio B just for the sonic mojo.
Enter Glenn Rosenstein
Grammy Award–winning producer/engineer Glenn Rosenstein began his music career at New York City’s legendary Power Station. He then sharpened his skills at Sigma Sound Studios, working with chart-topping artists like Ziggy Marley, U2, Madonna, Miles Davis, the Ramones, Talking Heads, James Brown, and many others.
Glenn describes a longtime affection for Studio B’s live room. “When I needed to track drums or do other ‘big studio’ tasks, I went to FAME Studios and fell in love with the live room in Studio B,” he recalls. “FAME’s Studio B is one of the finest live rooms anywhere,” Glenn continues.
Returning Studio B to Its Rightful Glory
Glenn’s affinity for FAME Studios inspired him to partner with Rodney Hall to bring Studio B up to modern specs. They started by expanding the studio’s cracker-box-size control room, which was too small to accommodate a large-format console. They then installed a 56-channel Solid State Logic 6056E console — the actual console Stevie Ray Vaughan used to record Soul to Soul, The Sky Is Crying, and Live Alive. They also refurbished Rick Hall’s original custom Universal Audio console for use as a sidecar to ensure that the studio’s classic sound is easily within reach. The SSL is powered by a custom Atomic Instrument power supply and is outfitted with a dedicated THD-Labs Tangerine automation computer.
The room’s original UREI 813 midfields are bolstered by modern ATC SCM45A studio monitors. “I’ve used virtually every high-end monitor available, and ATCs always speak to me,” Glenn notes.
“Most importantly,” Glenn exclaims, “we didn’t touch the live room.” The studio also boasts three isolation booths, and everything has been acoustically tuned by the sound experts at Steven Durr Designs.
Studio B is outfitted with an Avid Pro Tools | HDX system. Its selection of outboard gear consists of two Pultec EQP-1A3 equalizers, a blackface UREI 1176 limiter, a Tube-Tech compressor, a Summit Audio ECS-410 Everest channel strip, a trio of Empirical Labs EL8 Distressors, and a whole lot more.
The studio’s drool-worthy mic locker includes selections from Neumann, Manley, Blue Microphones, AKG, RODE, Shure, Sennheiser, sE Electronics, Electro-Voice, and others.
There’s also an impressive cache of musical instruments on hand.
FAME Studios Today and Tomorrow
While it might be easy to reduce FAME Studios to a mere historical curiosity, that would be doing it a disservice. It’s hardly a relic of the past. Quite to the contrary, it’s a thriving recording destination. Artists like the Raconteurs, Margo Price, Jason Isbell, Alicia Keys, Ann Wilson, Third Day, and Zach Williams flock to FAME, invoking the spirits of their forebears to create music for the next generation with an unmistakable sound they can’t achieve anywhere else.
If you want to hear a modern recording that was created at FAME Studios, then we recommend that you check out the Muscle Shoals: Small Town, Big Sound compilation. Released in 2018, this album includes classic FAME hits recut by some of the industry’s top artists, including Steven Tyler, Grace Potter, and Demi Lovato — all recorded at FAME Studios.
To learn more about FAME Studios or to book a session, visit https://famestudios.com/.
All images used with permission of FAME Studios.
