Muscle Shoals

I always loved listening to the great albums recorded at the two Muscle Shoals studios, so I looked forward to seeing this documentary in the hopes of learning what exactly made the Muscle Shoals sound so distinctive.

Unfortunately, I think the musicians interviewed couldn't really explain what it was that made Muscle Shoals so special from a technical perspective. Bono, as always, was quite articulate, but he didn't offer anything technical. He instead talked philosophically about the power of the Tennessee River just as the Mississippi influenced the Blues. Most of the other musicians fell back on platitudes and clichés about funky white guys. Keith Richards was beyond hopeless as an interviewee. He seemed like he was doing a really bad Saturday Night Live impersonation of himself.

Don't get me wrong. The stories were entertaining. I particularly liked Greg Allman's story about how his brother Duane learned to play the slide guitar and Wilson Picket's story about the first time he came to Muscle Shoals. I also thought the documentary did a good job telling the history of the original FAME studio as well as the second studio started by the so-called "Swampers".

Nevertheless, I think at least one interview segment with a Rock historian or a musicologist to put everything in context and offer technical explanations would have been a great addition.

Finally, although it's clear that the Muscle Shoals musicians were far ahead of their fellow southerners on the issue of race, and the film rightly showcased this, it also showed clips of Lynyrd Skynyrd in concert proudly displaying a confederate flag. Displaying a confederate flag in 2013 is beyond bad taste. It's simply unacceptable.