Jan Freeman writes The Word column for Ideas.
Joshua Glenn is a Boston-based writer, editor, and multimedia
producer.
Christopher Shea writes the Critical Faculties column for Ideas.
 Send the Brainiac bloggers a
comment on a post.
  Week of:
November 11
Week of:
November 4
Week of:
October 28
Week of:
October 21
Week of:
October 14
Week of:
October 7
Mind the gap
Shop talk What he learned in the newsroom Mr. Boffo lays an eggcorn Curse of the mummy's tummy More in Word Watch  |
« We have never been pre-modern | Main | A buffalo stampede » Thursday, September 21, 2006THIS is the famous studio?The Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, in Alabama, is legendary -- having played host to the Rolling Stones, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan and Lynyrd Skynyrd, among many other musicians -- but I had no mental picture of the place. If I had to guess what it looked like, I would never have come anywhere near this. Imagine Jagger spending the day there, then leaving for the rich nightlife of ... northwest Alabama. The "Swampers," the go-to rhythm section name-checked by Skynyrd in "Sweet Home Alabama" ("Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers ...": an oft-misheard lyric), held court in this particular building from 1969 to 1978, when they moved on to a bigger one. (A key attraction of Muscle Shoals was that the backup musicians themselves owned and ran the place.) After that, according to Preservation Magazine, the building was used by an appliance store and a record shop, until a Chicago musician and businessman bought it in 1999. Now it's a studio again, and a museum. "Ronnie and Neil," a song by the Drive-By Truckers, makes nice use of Muscle Shoals as as symbol of, as the band puts it it, "the duality of the Southern Thing." Posted by Christopher Shea at 03:00 PM
|
