Tell me "I Never Loved a Man" arrangement came into being.

Well I recall there was a, I guess Gerry and Wexler had brought a recording, a demo of a, a vocal and a piano. And there's a wonderful song, Ronnie Shannon I think wrote it, I never met him and I don't know who was singing the demo but when we played that song, in my mind I thought, well, it doesn't have a specific meter really. And, ah, so, we just, the band just sort of looked at each other, just finished, well, what do we do? Where do we go now? So we were just all basically off in our little worlds, trying to figure rhythm or riff and I just happened to be the one that, I guess formulated this little pattern and it started [plays music] and that sort of set it up for verse and then she came in on acoustic at the end of the second verse and the band was in and that one just was dreamed up on the spot, so to speak. And I was happy to be a part of it.

In general though, how would a song be brought to you, it wouldn't be written out, there wouldn't be parts or anything. Tell me about how it usually worked, say with a Wilson Pickett.

Well with most everyone we worked with they'd bring either a cassette or something, a rough demo of the song usually made by the song writer and, or sometimes they'd just have some guy come in with a guitar or sit down at the piano and play just so we can get the chords and we'll make a little chart, rough chart with the chords. And then everybody's sort of up to their own devices as far as they're, what they, each person plays unless the producer has a specific idea for a line, for the bass or the guitar or something. But usually we get to make up our own parts within that chord structure and if they don't like it, they'll say try something, we don't like that, try something else. And so it's a trial and error thing. And sometimes you hit it the first time and sometimes you go through every lick you know before they find something they like.

You know I think our basic style of approaching the song from the beginning is usually between the piano, bass and drums. And then the guitars would usually fall in after those three would, would sort of lock up. And that was our basic way we'd basically would go after every song.

At the time those hits were coming in the late sixties. Another big power house was Motown. Did you all listen to Motown? How your music was similar or different.

Yeah we was big fans of James Jamerson.

James Jamerson is the legendary Motown bass player that never got his name on any of the records but the greatest bass player in the world. I mean today he's still revered by all bass players.

I remember when I first heard ____ keyboard player, I'm sorry the name escapes me but that's ____ hear about them we can't recall their names. And then the guitarist and, and they're all such a warm wonderful band, you know.

___ the band that we all, you know, I think we all learned listening to their music, you know as well as the Fifth Philadelphia group you know and ...

The Gamble Stax group.

... group that came out of Philadelphia, Sigma Sound up there, we were completely mesmerized by what they did.

Them and Motown, they were an urban sound and whereas we and Stax were a little bit more of a, not country but laid, down home sound more, I think, not quite as slick.

Snare laid back a little bit, you know.

What's really different, when you say more of a laid back sound?

I guess some terms, we were a little country, funkier, you know it was like, I think the word funk kind of, was a good description of what we were doing at that time.

The, the Motown and Philadelphia and New York stuff sounded like it was from a big city and the stuff that we did I don't think ever sounded like it was from a big city. It, it was more groove stuff.

It's sort of an abstract thing to talk about but, but back in the beginning especially with the rhythm section with Stax and us, I think it was the air was the difference, the space between the back beat on the drum and the next back beat and the distance between a bass note is a distance ..

Tell me when you first started working with Wilson Pickett. He was the guy who came back from the big city, all dressed off, stepping off the plane and see the cotton fields again.

I think there was an immediate connection because he was from Alabama, number one. And we didn't feel, we felt very comfortable…

Use his name.

I think in the beginning when we started working with Wilson Pickett the fact that he was from Alabama made a, made a quick and close connection for us, very early, on the first day. And, ah, but two, we loved playing the kind of grooves that he recorded like "Midnight Hour" and "634". We loved those records. And, ah, so we, we were really on to play good for Wilson Pickett. And so, I remember the first song we approached was "Land of a 1,000 Dances" and, ah, it came off very well I thought.

Yeah, he definitely missed the excitement on, he was there again, ah, easy to work with because he had so much power. I mean he just plugged in, you know. But then he was always willing to try this, you know, I remember "Mustang Sally" for instance, that was sort of an odd song to think about him doing really before he did it but he just jumped on in, like, like it was his song forever and made that easy also.

I thin the, ah, when we did "Hey Jude" I mean that, I think he kind of, ah, was, was questioning whether he should do that song. And we took a break to go eat, I remember, and Dwayne Allman was on that particular session for the first time and Dwayne had the idea to do that song. And when we came back from the break he and Wilson hung out together and he convinced Wilson to do it while we were gone. And so when we come back it was, I mean hesitation, we went right into it and, and cut that really, really a fine record.

I understand that he was in here for a session the night that Martin Luther King was killed. Were you here then?

I wasn't here I was home in Memphis at the time, I recall.

We were, were in ___ ___ with another act. I'll never forget that night.

I think it was a Stax act.

Which is an ____ group.

Well, ah, I'll tell you what happened. There was a change from that night that, from that point on, the rhythm and blues acts stopped slowly, stopped coming to work with us, after that night. I do remember that and it was a sad occasion in a lot of respects for us. I'd say within a period of what, a year or so after that? We were cutting almost all pop acts: Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, Rod Stewart. I mean everything switched from rhythm and blues and all of a sudden black acts quit coming to our studio. I know it happened quite a bit at a lot of the other studios in the South.

Nothing changed but, but everything changed. I don't know why, you know.

I, I think it's because the black acts, it was like no longer cool to work with white musicians. I'm not sure what, you know I'm not sure that's it but that's certainly the way it felt. I mean nobody ever said, well, we're not going to work with you anymore, they just quit coming.

And, and prior to that time we worked almost entirely with black acts very few white acts.

Almost 100 percent.

Pickett, could you tell me the story of counting off, where goes 1, 2, 3 at the beginning?

Actually I don't think it was him. The problem was with, with Junior, our bass player was having the trouble. Remember the little do do do da da, the little lick after he said 1, 2 3? You know there was a little pause and then before the rhythm started the bass did the pick up. The problem was the bass pick up. We did it quite a few times before Junior Lowe nailed that particular lick, I think that's what you're talking about but he finally got it.

What do you think these guys had going here that attracted so many record companies and artists to come into Muscle Shoals?

One of the elemental things besides their playing, I think was Rick's echo chamber and his engineering that started a lot of it. And then, ah, I don't know, the, the rhythm and blues especially, the artists came here and they got hits and, and the, you know, race music was out there under the counter and, and black music wasn't selling to the general public and all of a sudden there's music that people wanted to buy, white and black. So we were part of that, making that kind of music.

And, and once you cut a hit then other people want a hit and so they will go to where that hit was recorded. And so it just keeps building. And I think another thing maybe is we possibly added a little bit of rock or another flavor to the mix with the black music and maybe that made it, ah, more universal in appeal. But I think once somebody cut a hit and somebody else wanted, hey, I want to go there and cut a hit and so it keeps building on itself.

I think just the general reputation of the, of the producers here like Rick, the sound of the studio, the players. I think that was the attraction for other acts to want to come and get that sound.

Tell me about the echo on "Mustang Sally".

Spooner had a, a real important lick and it was a, the music came to a stop a couple of times in the song and Spooner filled it with three swipes on the Hammond organ and in these three swipes Rick Hall…

Say "Mustang Sally" instead of the song.

When we recorded "Mustang Sally"…

"Mustang Sally".

Well I remember in the "Mustang Sally" record we cut for Wilson Pickett, Spooner had a part when the music came to a stop there was hole he filled with like three swipes on the B3 organ. Well, Rick was the engineer on the session and at that exact moment on Spooner's track he, he turned the echo up, almost full tilt, for those three swipes and it gave an incredible sound that was real identifiable on that record.

Wexler in the studio I read about how he got really involved and was almost part of the rhythm section. Talk about that.

Have you ever seen a white man do the boogaloo? Well, guarantee you, Jerry Wexler did a great version. And it would inspire us, I'll have to say, you know, to see Jerry do the boogaloo was great.

He wouldn't do the boogaloo unless he was happy with what was happening, but Jerry was very in tune even though he's not a musician and has no musical knowledge, he's got excellent taste. He's a, he's a student of music and, and a fan of music and he knows when something is not right. And, ah, so he, we got a lot of feedback from him, working with him but it's not necessarily in musical terms it's more like in feelings. If, if he's not happy, you know it, you definitely know it and if he is happy he does this little dance.

And there's something about, too, when a guy you respect as much as Jerry did, I mean, you know, if the President of the United States had been there it wouldn't have meant any more to us, you know. But when Jerry would get turned on it would excite us beyond belief and so it would make us really play, play really well and funky.

When the Aretha session when things began to go sour on the second song. Is that something you can tell us about?

Well, actually, I don't, I, it's funny the musicians never knew anything was going on.

Well I, I did.

Did you? I never did. And, ah, I didn't know until the next day.

See, I was in the horn section and one of the horn players was the, was the problem, ah. I don't know if it's okay to mention any names or not but.

Sure, he's got a real job now.

Oh has he? A trumpet player named Ken Laxton. And he was drinking. And, ah, he started making slightly off color remarks in Aretha's direction I think and she and her husband, Ted White, took some offense from it. And Ted I think complained to Rick about honky players, you know, and, ah, it was, I think… it was, I think it was because the session was going a long time and the horn players were having to wait, you know, the rhythm section was getting the stuff together and so everybody was getting a little bored and so Ken started drinking. And, ah, I think he made some remarks and I think that set the whole thing off.

Well I heard he pinched her on the rear end.

I'm not sure he did that but I do that he made some remarks.

The thing that, ah, see, this was the first time he had ever played here and he wasn't a part of the normal horn section and so, you know, I don't even think that most of us knew anything was going on at all. And but of course the next day was when I really found out about it when, when the session was called off the next day.

…

Well actually we were in New York doing the King Curtis session, that, that Jerry had asked us to come up and play. It was our first time to play in New York and at the end of the session, ah, it just so happened the Aretha single "Never Loved a Man" was just breaking very, very big around the nation. And he asked us would we stay an extra two or three days and finish off her first album, which we did.

Needless to say Ken and the rest of the horn section, including me, was not there for that.

I think the real blow up probably came, well, we did "I Never Loved A Man" and "Do Right Woman", didn't have much of "Do Right Woman" because we were tired, the day was long, there was a new song. She hadn't even had a chance to learn it even so we got ... then like David said he saw some things going on in the horn section but I think afterwards at the hotel and all. And then well what … about … which is 20 miles from here. And Aretha Franklin sessions were on the counter for a week, album. See, after one day feeling real good about this recording, I come back at 10 o'clock, I walked in the lobby here at Fame and I think the house cleaner was the only one here. And I said, well, where is everyone, on a 10 o'clock start, right? And, and so all I know they say, it's cancelled. I say, everything.

I think we learned basically what happened from Peter Garelnick's books, "We Sell Music" is when I, when I really learned what happened.

Yeah, Rick would never tell us.

I think the, ah, the sound of the horns in between Stax and Muscle Shoals were similar in the fact that they used a certain blend of horns, they had like a, usually a trumpet, a couple of tenors and a baritone. And then later on I think a trombone was added but when you used that same type of horn blend and they would, they would always play the same type of riffs in, in both areas and it was something that was different. Motown had a more of a sophisticated slick, more of a pop sound with the strings and stuff, yeah, very orchestrated. And our were, usually hit arrangements right on, right on the session. And it, it really came out as a little more down home sound sort of like, you know, what you hear on the Al Green sessions, you know.

The horns were a punctuation.

Ahm hm, yeah, they were never ridden whereas in, on the Motown stuff they probably were ridden, they, they sound like they were ...

Very impressive though like you said

But they were done on the, you know, on the spot, just from off the top of their heads they would fill in around the lyrics of the song and/or around guitar licks or something. They were like punctuations like you said.

This group of players for some odd reason were just used to and great at creating their own music within rhythm track, they would hit arrangement like you said. And I'm sure a lot of horn arrangements are written out and maybe rehearsed beforehand in a lot of cases except, you know, in other cities, except Muscle Shoals and Memphis they had a chance to do their own thing on the spot.

In the early days you know we, the horns played loud with us and I think over-dubbing was an after a fact thing, you know, later on as the more, more tracks became available with the multi-track machines but very early days especially when we were mono I mean a lot of times the horns were cut live with us.