Author Archive for: Norman

When Marty Stuart performed Hillbilly Rock at Bristol, Rhythm And Blues Festival in the USA recently it still crackled with a Buddy Holly-like popabilly energy. Stuart’s gray hair stood up like a rooster’s comb atop his head, and the black fringe on his jacket flew when he twirled back to the microphone after a guitar break

a life so immersed in creativity, that he became an excellent presenter of country music tv and radio documentaries. He was also, though, a much loved artist, leading a British country band that included Reg Meuross, a fine player and singer and hugely under-rated songwriter, and fiddle player Bobby Valentino, who would become ´the man who invented jazz.

The forceful music that rolled out of Muscle Shoals in the 1960s and 1970s shaped hits by everyone from Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to the Rolling Stones and Paul Simon. Christopher M. Reali’s in-depth look at the fabled musical hotbed examines the events and factors that gave the Muscle Shoals sound such a potent cultural power. Many artists trekked to FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound in search of the sound of authentic southern Black music–and at times expressed shock at the mostly white studio musicians waiting to play it for them. Others hoped to draw on the hit-making production process that defined the scene. Reali also chronicles the overlooked history of Muscle Shoals’s impact on country music and describes the region’s recent transformation into a tourism destination.