I would say that my favorite singers would be Candi Staton, who never really got her just due. She is a great singer, and as far as I am concerned Aretha does not have anything on Candi. Wilson Pickett; Jimmy Hughes, who was one of the early ones that had 5-6 hits but never got to the super- star status. He has got a falsetto type voice that is very unique; Clarence Carter; Duane Allman,he was more of a session artist when he was here but nonetheless he made a huge impact on Muscle Shoals and on the world as far as that goes. I would say that is probably my most memorable ones.
Duane Allman in Studio B at FAME.
Were you around there as a kid during those hit-making days? Yes.
Did you ever remember seeing Duane All- man? I remember hearing about him but was just a lit- tle kid. I have heard some stories though.
Yeah, like what? Well, he lived here for about two years, and lived out on the lake and just played around town. I think that when he was here Jimmy and the guys were just about ready to start their thing [Muscle Shoals Sound] or they had already. I have heard that he used to say that he was "going over to Muscle Shoals Sound and burn some asses this afternoon." One of the stories was that he drove around town in a milk truck when he was here. Then there is a story that when we were recording Wilson Pickett, he talked him into doing "Hey Jude" in the middle of the session. The Beatles had it out in the Top 10. My Dad said "why do we want to do it, cover the Beatles?" and Duane said "that is exactly why we do it, no one would expect it." I didn't remember him even though I was around him because I was so young. The musi- cians remember him because he was the first hippie they had seen. Everyone in Muscle Shoals had short hair then, even Jimmy and those.
Past, present, future artists that have recorded at FAME. Who are some of your favorites? Some of the ones that you like.
I was looking at the Duane Allman Anthol- ogy albums and FAME is all over it. Yeah, studio A was built when they first opened, and then studio B was built a few years
later.They were not the Allmans at the time. It was the Hourglass then, which was Duane, Pete Carr, Paul Hornsby, and Johnny Sandlin. They did some work here and after that when Duane tried to put the Allman's together and Gregg wouldn't come, but he tried out Berry Oakley and Jaimoe in Studio B. He just set up down there for about one week.
Do you have in house writers at FAME? Isn't Russell Smith of the Amazing Rhythm Aces one of the songwriters that you have? Yes. He is amazing. We are going to restart the label, Fame Records. In the 70's we had a label that had Clarence Carter, Candi Staton, Arthur Conley, Stan Penn, a lot of big soul acts. We are restarting that and we actually have been cutting
FAME, 2mixing console, 2001. (Photo by Jill Smith)
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