Rick Hall

Rick Hall
Hall at FAME Recording Studios, 2010
Background information
Birth name	Roe Erister Hall
Born	(1932-01-31) January 31, 1932 (age 85) Tishomingo County, Mississippi, United States
Genres	Soul, pop, country
Occupation(s)	Record producer
Years active	1959–present

External video

"Oral History: Rick Hall Talks About the Necessity to Modify Equipment and Improvise in the Recording Studio Back in the Day". Interview, July 13, 2015. NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) Oral History Library

Roe Erister "Rick" Hall (born January 31, 1932) is an American record producer, songwriter, music publisher and musician who is best known as the owner and proprietor of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and "Father of Muscle Shoals Music". Hall was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 1985 and also received the John Herbert Orr Pioneer Award. Hall remains active in the music industry with FAME Studios, FAME Records and FAME Publishing.

Hall was born to a family of sharecroppers in Tishomingo County, Mississippi, and was raised in Franklin County, Alabama. He moved to Rockford, Illinois, as a teenager, working as an apprentice toolmaker, and began playing in local bar bands. When he was drafted for the Korean War, he declared himself a conscientious objector, joined the honor guard of the Fourth United States Army, and played in a band which also included Faron Young and the fiddler Gordon Terry.

When Hall returned to Alabama he resumed factory life, working for Reynolds Aluminum in Florence. But when both his new bride and his father died within a two-week period, he lost all interest in a regular job, deciding instead to drift around the area playing guitar, mandolin, and fiddle with Carmol Taylor and the Country Pals. The group appeared on a weekly regional radio show at WERH in Hamilton, Alabama. Subsequently, Hall formed a new R&B group, The Fairlanes with the saxophonist Billy Sherrill fronted by the singer Dan Penn, with Hall playing bass. He also began writing songs at that time.