The sound at the heart of rock n roll: Muscle Shoals

The best thing about the documentary Muscle Shoals is that it makes you want to go back and re-listen to so much of the great music that came out of the 2 rival recording studios in that small Alabama town; I'm sure there's a soundtrack, and it must be very good. The doc is a little too long - obviously because all of the archival footage, recording sessions and early performances from the Stones, Percy Sledge, and other greats - is so powerful that nobody had the will to cut or edit; the photography is beautiful, but there's probably too much of the talking heads interviews filmed explicitly for this documentary. The story line is pretty powerful - Rick Hall (corrected from first posting, thanks WS) was raised in extreme poverty in Muscle Shoals, had many tragic childhood events that were clearly traumatic, and with chip on shoulder he set out to make good, mostly through music - started off writing and recording and then set up his own studio, Fame, and had some major hits with early r&b - building the studio into a rock monument. One question is - why? Why at this studio? Several answers, I think: terrific studio band (the group, the Swampers, later broke away and opened its own studio in town), an uncanny ability to draw from various sources: country, r&b, jazz - mixing and blending white and black traditions; Hill's personal genius at mixing - he created a sound that some referred to as "funky" and I think, in this film, Bono expressed it best: there's a huge emphasis on base and drums, pumped way up. I would say that changes the way we hear music - the recorded sounds very different from how it were to sound if you were hearing the band live - and put an emphasis on rhythm and beat rather than on melody. Later, Hill got away from this - to less success - and he never fully adapted to the next phase of music, 60s psychedelic rock, with its focus on guitar. The three  members of the Swampers who participate in this are great - amazing how you see these three older men and would never in a million years believe that they are seminal figures in rock history; also surprising that an all-white backup band performed be hind Sledge, Pickett, A. Franklin and others. As a movie, this is good but not great, but as a look at rock history as seen from an entirely different angle, it's definitely worth seeing and enjoying.