6 State in 4 Days, a 800 Mile Motorcycle Ride: Day #4 Muscle Shoals Alabama to Sweet Home Clarksville Tennessee

What a great day to start riding.  It is Day #4 on our motorcycle adventure and we will be home today.   It is the first morning of the trip that there is no threat of rain.   The one good thing about summer thunderstorms they don't last long the rain is on the off, but today there are sunny skies with scattered clouds.  We eat breakfast at the hotel and then get on the road.  We want to know where this Muscle Shoals Sound came from, more importantly how it made America a better place. 

Since the tour at the Fame Recording Studios Tour doesn't start until 10am.  We ride over to the Muscle Shoals Recording Studio on Jackson Street.  Actually a recording studio started by members of the Swappers, who were studio musicians for Rick Hall at FAME Studio. He is credited for making the Muscle Shoals Sound a powerful force in the music industry.    For the full story I recommend the movie, “Muscle Shoals".   

The muscle shoals recording Studio saw its greatest in influence during the late 60’s and 70’s, with big names like the Rolling Stones, Bob Seger, Cher, and Lynyrd Skynyrd recording big hits.     It is still an active recording studio at a different location producing the likes of The Black Keys.   This studio leaned more toward the popular rock of the time.  We just ride past stop on a side street to snap a few pictures. 

After the doing this we are off to FAME Studios may be 2 miles away.  FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios is where it all started.   This area of Northern Alabama referred to down south as the Shoals.  It has a magical aspect about it.   There is a synergy in the area that was created by the interracial collaboration that took place in the midst of dyeing segregation.   Muscle Shoals does feel like a special place, a river community where all things seemed to have merged into one.

 

The Tour is one of the highlights of the trip.  Fame still an active recording studio has a group that shows up for a recording session at the same time as our tour.  We talk in the lobby waiting for our tour and there session to start.   As they proceed to Studio B we end our tour in our Tour in Studio A.  The tour included the organ that was used in Aretha Franklin's hits and a piano that Alicia Keys used in her sessions at FAME.    They have the microphone where Wilson Pickett belted out “Mustang Sally”.   Of course there is the story of how it all started, which was a song by Arthur Alexander; “You Better Move On”.  Once this song was covered by the Rolling Stones in England, becoming a big hit; the word was out about Muscle Shoals.   There was no stopping this place.

 

 Once the tour was over with it was time to get back to Tennessee.    We head out of Muscle Shoals on Highway 43 north.   We cross the Tennessee River and ride through Florence.   We stop to eat Chinese for lunch and Terri looks thru a quilt shop that is right down the street.   Within an hour we are back on the road and head north into Tennessee.  Once in Tennessee we are in familiar territory.  We ride in the rolling Tennessee countryside once in Columbia we take Highway 7 to Dickson.   From Dickson it is a hop, skip and a jump to our driveway in Clarksville.

 It was a great trip, but like so many we discover even more place that we want to ride.  We have to get back to the Deep South sooner than later, but for now it is good to be home.