‘Muscle Shoals’ Conveys Magic of Musical Hotbed

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Average: 5 (1 vote)
HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 3.5/5.0
Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Greg Camalier’s “Muscle Shoals” is a robust, entertaining piece of work that captures the power of a place that has produced some of the most remarkable music in the history of the recorded form. It’s a testament to power of the “Muscle Shoals sound” that so many music legends sat down for Camalier to discuss it but the director wisely doesn’t turn this into cavalcade of stars, keeping the focus as much on the man who built this hotbed of creativity and the musicians who played behind the household names.

The tiny little Alabama town of Muscle Shoals seemed an unlikely place to birth so much amazing music from finding the soul of Aretha Franklin to some of The Rolling Stones best recordings to really the whole sound of Lynyrd Skynyrd. There are only 8,000 residents in this tiny burgh but millions have been impacted by what has come out of it, largely due to the hard, dedicated work to the form from Rich Hall, the man who founded one of the most important studios in music history.

Hall is a character and Camalier wisely keeps a lot of “Muscle Shoals” focused on him, including his dark family background (his family and first wife died horribly) and his unique approach to talent. It’s about the art, the creative drive for Hall, and he never let that get in the way of the celebrities or larger-than-life personalities that came through his door. When someone like Wilson Pickett challenged him or his musicians, he didn’t cave. When Aretha Franklin’s husband demanded change, he didn’t give in, and a rift grew between Franklin and her beau that led to, you guessed it, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.”

Muscle Shoals
Muscle Shoals
Photo credit: Magnolia Pictures

“Muscle Shoals” presents its title location as more than just a home for its recording artists but details how the studio became an active participant in the history of rock and roll. Ignore for a minute the creative freedom given the artists that came there and just consider how many incredible recordings The Swampers, the studio musicians, played on over the years. Here’s just a few – “Kodachrome,” “I Never Loved a Man,” “I’ll Take You There,” and “Mustang Sally.” People heard that Muscle Shoals sound and everyone from Bono to Paul Simon to Bob Seger to The Black Keys had to be a part of it.

There’s a lot of mythologizing in “Muscle Shoals” as luminaries like Bono and Keith Richards wax on and on about the importance of the place to a degree that could have been edited (it runs long at 111 minutes). I wanted more archival footage and more interviews with the people who were there in the moment and helped create the sound rather than those who were just impacted by it like Alicia Keys, for example. The stories about Pickett, Franklin, and Skynyrd are fantastic and make the film worth an On Demand rental on their own. Real fans of rock should skip On Demand and head out to theaters to get a bit of that Muscle Shoals sound.

“Muscle Shoals” was directed by Greg Camalier. It was released On Demand on September 27, 2013, and will be released in Chicago theaters on October 4, 2013.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com

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