FAME Studios
| FAME Studios | |
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FAME Recording Studios in 2010
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| Location | 603 Avalon Avenue, Muscle Shoals, Alabama 35661, USA |
| Coordinates | 34°44′42″N 87°40′00″W / 34.74506°N 87.66667°WCoordinates: 34°44′42″N 87°40′00″W / 34.74506°N 87.66667°W |
| Official name: FAME Recording Studio | |
| Designated | Dec 15, 1997 |
| Official name: Florence, Alabama Music Enterprises (FAME) Recording Studios | |
| Designated | November 29, 2016 |
| Reference no. | 16000397 |
 Location of FAME Studios in Alabama
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FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios are located at 603 East Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, an area of northern Alabama known as the Shoals. Though small and distant from the main recording locations of the American music industry, FAME has produced a large number of hit records and was instrumental in what came to be known as the Muscle Shoals sound. It was started in the 1950s by Rick Hall, known as the Founder of Muscle Shoals Music. The studio, still owned by Hall, is still actively operating. It was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on December 15, 1997, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. The 2013 award-winning documentary Muscle Shoals features Rick Hall, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (also called The Swampers), and the Muscle Shoals sound originally popularized by FAME.
FAME (standing for Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) was founded by Rick Hall, Billy Sherrill and Tom Stafford in the late 1950s. It was first located above the City Drug Store in Florence, Alabama. Two doors down was a pawn shop - "Uncle Sams" - where aspiring artists would buy or pawn their instruments, depending on the trajectory of their careers. The studio was moved to a former tobacco warehouse on Wilson Dam Road in Muscle Shoals in the early 1960s, when Hall split from Sherrill and Stafford. Hall soon recorded the first hit record from the Muscle Shoals area, Arthur Alexander's "You Better Move On" in 1961. Hall took the proceeds from that recording to build the current facility, on Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals. In 1963, he recorded the first hit produced in that building, Jimmy Hughes' "Steal Away".
As the word about Muscle Shoals began to spread other artists began coming there to record. The Nashville producer Felton Jarvis brought Tommy Roe and recorded Roe's song "Everybody" in 1963. The Atlanta music publisher Bill Lowery, who had mentored Hall in his early days, sent the Tams. The Nashville publisher and producer Buddy Killen brought Joe Tex. Leonard Chess encouraged Etta James to record there, and she made her 1967 hit "Tell Mama" and the album of the same name at FAME. Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records brought both Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to record. The recording session with Franklin brought conflict: one of the horn players was fresh with the singer, and her husband had him fired from the session. Later that evening Hall went over to make up with Franklin and her husband, but a fight ensued, and the recording session was canceled. Wexler swore to Hall he would never work with him again.
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