tracks for the past two days on a Russell Smith record. We are going to take his songwriting hits, hits that he has had for other artists that he did not necessarily do with the Aces as an artist. We recut those, and it turned out great and will be a really cool album. We are also doing an album on The Decoys, we are finishing that up. David Hood, Kelvin Holly, Scott Boyer, and N.C. Thur- man, and alternate drummers.
Yeah, I love the Decoys. What is House Of Fame? That is our ASCAP publishing company.
As far as your publishing you have done a lot of modern acts, like the Dixie Chicks and stuff? Yes, we had a cut on the first Dixie Chicks album that sold 10 million records. It was the first dia- mond award we got, which is 10 million. It was just an album cut but it was like having a single. We have had a couple of Tim McGraw hits and a couple of cuts of Martina McBride in the last year.
Y'all published "I Swear” didn't you? That was a huge hit wasn't it? Yes, it sold 14 million records and was number one on the pop charts for 14 weeks. It was written by Gary Baker from our area and it was done by All for One. It was a country version that John Michael Montgomery did and it was big for 4 weeks, #1. But when All for One did it, it was #1 on the pop charts for 14 weeks and worldwide #1 everywhere and won a Grammy.
What is going on now at FAME that you can tell me about? Well, pretty much right now our label is taking a lot of our time. We are doing a Russell Smith record and are talking to lots of high profile peo- ple that we are going to be dealing with. We feel like there is a void out there. Basically we are going to be doing Muscle Shoals Music, which if you know the history of our music runs the gamut of R &B to country and everything in between, but it has a soul to it that a lot of today's music does not have. There is a swampy kind of feeling to it and this is what we are trying to do with it. There is no one out there doing good soul music,
except Malaco is doing it and they don't really have any competition in that arena. There are artists out there that can sell 50-100, 000 records and there are a bunch of people that want to hear them, and major labels are not servicing them be- cause they are set up to sell a million records, and if you do not do that then they do not want you. John Hiatt, Clarence Carter, these guys can sell fifty to a hundred thousand records on a major label and they still drop you. We have been inde- pendent for 42 years and we do not want to change that. I do not know that many companies that have been independent as long as we have that are still doing it. There are not many and I do not know of any independent publishers since Bill Lowery sold out. All the majors do is buy talent and use it. Bill had a catalog and he sold it and there is no telling what he got for it. He is still in Atlanta. •
This article is in memory of the one and only
Rick Hall, who we lost to cancer January 2, 2018.
Rodney Hall at FAME, 2001. (Photo by Jill Smith)
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