8 ms·
The Rolling Stones’ studio receipt for recording ‘Wild Horses’ and ‘Brown Sugar’
- HarHarVeryFunny 5y agoThere's an interesting documentary about this Alabama studio "Muscle Shoals" available on Netflix & Amazon Prime. Seems an awful lot of good music came out of there. Combination of excellent studio musicians, production and maybe a magical local vibe.
- lprubin 5y agoIf you like that type of documentary, I recommend another called "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" about the mostly anonymous studio musicians who played on a ridiculous number of Motown and Pop tracks from 1959 - 1972. "The Funk Brothers produced more hits than The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys and Elvis Presley combined." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_in_the_Shadows_of_Motown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_in_the_Shadows_of_Mot...
- HarHarVeryFunny 5y agoThanks - I'll check it out.
- chrisdhoover 5y agoThere a few interesting documentaries out. The Wrecking Crew about LA studio musicians. There’s one on Brian Wilson. 20 feet feet from stardom about back up singers. Laurel Canyon is interesting - its about the music scene there
- AlbertCory 5y agoI've seen all of these and lots more. I'm just a music movie junkie, I guess. Can't wait for the Peter Jackson movie about The Beatles. The Laurel Canyon one with Jakob Dylan is outstanding.
- mgkimsal 5y agoI wanted the Laurel Canyon one to be more interviews and less "recreate the music". I'm sure there was far more interview footage that would have been more interesting.
- AlbertCory 5y agoYMMV. I actually liked seeing modern artists do the old songs.
- mgkimsal 5y agowould have preferred that to just be a separate movie. it felt very disjointed to me. glad you liked it though - a number of people probably did.
- jbigelow76 5y agoThank you, I upvoted you, lprubin, and belter, but I'll respond just here to not be repetitive. I come to HN for the tech but I stay for the etcetera :)
- belter 5y ago"OneMic Series - Muscle Shoals Sound Studio - Tour" https://youtu.be/hP4IwPgylzE https://youtu.be/hP4IwPgylzE
- mstade 5y agoThis is a pretty good overview, even shows the "secret" bar in the basement! Thanks for sharing this, takes me right back to my memories of visiting a couple of years ago. I pretty much had the same "ooh, ahhh, wow" kind of reactions as the people in the video. :o) Wonderful place to visit, I'll go back there on purpose given half a chance.
- bsder 5y ago> maybe a magical local vibe Translated to: nothing else to do. If I remember correctly, part of the reason for sending the Stones here was so that they couldn't misbehave quite as much and would actually finish their music.
- code_duck 5y agoI was wondering why or how this would happen in Alabama.
- bsder 5y agoWell, if you look at a map, Muscle Shoals is fairly close to equidistant to Memphis, Nashville, and Birmingham. (Although, as I recall, it might as well have been Antarctica because nobody in the Rolling Stones could drive a car ... LOL). However, it's probably mostly happenstance relating to a laissez-faire (for the time) attitude toward race from the area. WLAY would play both "hillbilly" and "race" music. Sam Philips (founder of SUN Records and ex-DJ from WLAY) and Rick Hall (founder of FAME Studios) were quite happy to record (some people would say exploit) artists regardless of race and that was a really big deal at that point. Quote from here about the issues in the Jim Crow South: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/entertainment/music/2021/02/08/chitlin-circuit-inside-roaring-nights-shaped-american-music-hallowed-sound/4406777001/ https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/entertainment/music/2021/0... "You'd go into a town and you'd find somebody nice enough to fix a dinner for you and let you sleep in a bed," Rush said. "You'd put some mattresses on the floor ... or you'd sleep in your car. That's what we had, man, and we didn't think nothin' about it." And, do remember, The Blues in the US was almost dead by 1965--rock had pushed everything aside. It was all those silly Brits with electric guitars picking it back up and putting it into rock that effectively resurrected it.
- code_duck 5y agoThat is very insightful, and thank you!
- mstade 5y agoThis is part of the lore they told us when we did the tour at the studio a couple of years back. Not only was there almost nothing to do around there but record music, it was also a dry county. Of course they had their ways of scoring booze (and other things) anyhow, and there's even a "secret" room with a bar in the basement of the studio, but there were no clubs or the likes that they could frequent. Moreover, very few locals actually knew them at the time. Everyone knows The Rolling Stones these days, but back then without the internet word didn't travel as fast, and very few people in Muscle Shoals or Florence at the time had even heard of the Rolling Stones let alone seen them. Apparently this was true for most artists who recorded at the studio back then. So aside from there being few distractions, the talent could actually roam free in town without being bothered by photographers or locals. It seems to me that there was this perfect confluence of circumstances that made muscle shoals sound studio such a great place to record at the time. It wasn't far from Memphis or Nashville, while also being private, more or less distraction free, great studio musicians and engineers and perhaps most importantly a great sound. Another cool story they told us was when the stones where there to record they didn't have all the lyrics to wild horses ready, or they had to redo parts of it, so Keith Richards (if I recall correctly) locked himself in the bathroom and didn't come out till they were done. The rest of them impatiently hanging out right outside waiting for the man to emerge with a hit. They referred to the toilet as the most important song writing room in the house. :o) When we were there one of my buddies got so inspired by the studio that he actually came back about six months later or so and recorded with a band we'd met in Jackson the night before. Sadly the video is in black and white, but you can at least get a bit more of a sense of space in the studio than from the pictures in the article: https://youtu.be/s_HHgeKLqog https://youtu.be/s_HHgeKLqog It's a wonderful place to visit, highly recommend it.
- vidanay 5y agoAccording to https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/, $1,009.75 in 1969 is equivalent to $7,547.26 in 2021. My guess for the cost of recording two studio songs these days would be about an order of magnitude higher than that. (If you tell me it costs ~$40k to record a studio song, I would not be even slightly surprised.)
- wodenokoto 5y agoThat's 480usd/hour for studio time. Asking Google, a studio runs "30-200+" an hour, which doesn't say a lot, but says that todays prices easily undercut what The Rolling Stones chose to pay.
- basisword 5y agoOn the other hand these days you can record a number 1 single at home with a laptop for pretty much no cost. That wasn’t a possibility at all back then.
- asdff 5y agoPlenty of bands recorded their albums on cheap multitrack recorders in their garage.
- vidanay 5y agoBoston Boston is probably as close as you could get to that "back in the day".
- Turing_Machine 5y agoYep, but that was only really possible because Scholz was an MIT-trained engineer. Without that (or equivalent knowledge from other sources) it would have been tough. Nowadays you can buy the technology off the shelf.
- anamax 5y agoAnd, it wasn't Scholz' first rodeo.
- khazhoux 5y agoStreet View of the studio in Alabama. Impressive! https://goo.gl/maps/E7tzMPvnPRm7up1z5 https://goo.gl/maps/E7tzMPvnPRm7up1z5
- dakial1 5y agoThat can't be it. Looks terrible
- altacc 5y agoMusic studios are often quite small and unimpressive from the outside. Inside they can be quite ratty & smelly. The value of a studio is often the people who work there and the equipment they have on site and that's the attraction for musicians.
- khazhoux 5y agoThat’s it. Here’s a Cher album named after the street address! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3614_Jackson_Highway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3614_Jackson_Highway
- mosdave 5y agoGimme Shelter (the film) has some good footage from these sessions.
- belter 5y agoAwesome...Now will have to go next time in Alabama. They do tours of the Studio! https://muscleshoalssoundstudio.org/ https://muscleshoalssoundstudio.org/ https://muscleshoalssoundstudio.org/pages/gallery https://muscleshoalssoundstudio.org/pages/gallery Past artists using the Studio: - The Rolling Stones - Aretha Franklin - George Michael - Wilson Pickett - Willie Nelson - Lynyrd Skynyrd - Joe Cocker - Levon Helm - Paul Simon - Bob Seger - Rod Stewart - Tamiko Jones - Cat Stevens.
- olivermarks 5y agoI love to visit famous studios, Stax in Memphis is amazing too. Lots of great London Studios in UK, like Basing Street Studios in Notting Hill (Now SARM) https://blackcablondon.net/2011/12/04/cabbies-curios-basing-street-studios/ https://blackcablondon.net/2011/12/04/cabbies-curios-basing-... So much incredible music was recorded here!
- a9h74j 5y agoAlso the early Boz Scaggs Loan Me a Dime -- still being played live (at least in Boz Scaggs' concerts) note perfect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTFvAvsHC_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTFvAvsHC_Y
- AlbertCory 5y agoThe interesting thing about the Muscle Shoals studio band is: everyone assumed from their sound that they had to be all black. In fact, they were all white, AFAIK.
- ratww 5y agoThe band is in the cover of this Cher album, that's khazhoux posted below (the title of the album is the address of the studio): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3614_Jackson_Highway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3614_Jackson_Highway
- racl101 5y agoEven with inflation, seems pretty cheap in comparison to other stories you hear about groups being given hundreds of thousands of dollars upfront to record and then having these groups bitch about how they blew through their money and didn't get their record done OR they got their record done and it was shit and sold like shit. Sticky fingers has sold like ~20 million copies (last I checked) and is regarded as one of the best Rolling Stones albums and one of the best '70s albums altogether. Not bad ROI on two songs. Also, even though everyone seems to know 'Brown Sugar', 'Wild Horses', and 'Can't You Hear Me Knocking', IMHO: 'Sway' and 'Moonlight Mile' are some of the best songs but, honestly, I can always put this record on and listen to the whole thing start to finish. Certainly one of my faves while driving for long periods.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago>Even with inflation, seems pretty cheap in comparison to other stories you hear about groups being given hundreds of thousands of dollars upfront to record and then having these groups bitch about how they blew through their money and didn't get their record done Those stories are about the total budget to produce an album, this is just the cost of the studio time and tapes. I'd bet the producer alone made more than $1000 for this song, and there would be many other people getting similar amounts.
- alfiedotwtf 5y agoMy menory is faded on this one, but IIRC there's an interview with 50 Cent where he talks about recording his first song. The producer wanted something like $50k but 50 Cent asked if instead he wanted royalties instead. The producer was undecided but eventually said royalties, and ended up getting millions
- chiefalchemist 5y agoThey say the key to innovation (i.e., creativity) is scarcity. Low budget is obviously a form of scarcity. It certainly would be interesting to see a sample of albums, the studio bill, the marketing bill, and then the sales / revenue. I'm sure there are exceptions but I bet big bets correlate with big busts :)
- atrn 5y agoDid some recording there a couple of years back. Not a bad room but the studio itself is mostly a museum these days and our engineer had to do a bit of work to get it functioning well enough for our purposes. In the area there are a number of great studios, e.g. Fame, Nutthouse but MSS is closer to a really, really good fried chicken place!
- rmason 5y agoThe Aretha Franklin legend began in Muscle Shoals, it's where she got her first hit. But the recording session ended very badly while recording the second song. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/aug/19/aretha-franklin-fame-studios-muscle-shoals-1967-rick-hall https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/aug/19/aretha-frankli...
- atrn 5y agoSame area, many of the same people, but at a different studio, FAME. MSS was a spin off due to various "fights". I did some recording, with Spooner and David Hood, at both places, a few years back. I really liked FAME, the room is fantastic but MSS has a great vibe.
- lazyeye 5y agoFun fact: Australians might be interested to know "Brown Sugar" was written in a field near Canberra (outside Braidwood). Mick Jagger wrote it whilst on the film set for Ned Kelly.
- modriano 5y ago> ...two of rock music’s greatest songs... I don't often pay close attention to the lyrics in songs, but after hearing the Rolling Stones were pulling "Brown Sugar" from their set list [0] because of it's offensive lyrics, I read through the lyrics [1] and I was shocked to find that the song is about raping a young slave girl. I was shocked; the tone of the song is so incongruous with the horror of the crimes described in the lyrics. So, let's not call "Brown Sugar" one of rock music's greatest songs. Without the lyrics, it's a great bit of music, but it's completely tarnished by the lyrics. [0] https://people.com/music/rolling-stones-retire-brown-sugar-lyrics-that-reference-slavery/ https://people.com/music/rolling-stones-retire-brown-sugar-l... [1] https://genius.com/The-rolling-stones-brown-sugar-lyrics https://genius.com/The-rolling-stones-brown-sugar-lyrics
- ace2358 5y agoWow. Reading the lyrics is an intense experience. How could anyone ever have listened to that and not realised? I’ve never heard the song myself.
- tamaharbor 5y agoYet somehow, it was OK for 50+ years.
- vmception 5y agoThe lyrics have often been brought up as bad. Jagger was 26 years old in Alabama making light of almost every serious issue of the time. Thats really not that absurd or different than what “okurrs” now. A reference to Cardi B’s chart topping songs about personally being a scamming sex worker and general misandry. The people have always had the power to create consequences and simply did not on these topics, and now do so arbitrarily on some predictable topics.
- Nitrolo 5y agoTo be fair it's quite difficult to make out the words when listening to the song. I must have heard it dozens of times and somehow I got the idea that "brown sugar" must have been some American slang I just didn't know for some drug, because I couldn't tell the words apart. Reading the lyrics now is... wow it's something.
- mstade 5y agoI visited muscle shoals a couple of years ago with a bunch of musicians from London, while on a road trip from Chicago to New Orleans. We had booked one of the afternoon tours but ran late, on account of us taking the scenic route rather than the highway, and had to switch to the last tour of the day instead. Boy am I glad we did, because we ran into Steve Melton who worked as the chief engineer at sound studios for most of those seminal years. I don't remember if he worked on these songs, but boy did he have stories to tell about the studio! He was there on his own little pilgrimage, making a return to sound studios for the first time in however many years. Meeting him was this wonderfully serendipitous moment, and I'm immensely grateful to him for taking the time to chat with us and share his stories. One of my buddies later recorded an interview with the man, for a documentary about our road trip. If anyone's interested I can see if it's online somewhere. Anyway, muscle shoal sound studio is a wonderful place, with very friendly and knowledgeable staff. There are so many cool stories from that place and it was like I could feel the history of it all, it was really quite inspiring and moving to me. If you're in the area I highly recommend a visit. The nearby town of Florence had some great food and wonderful people as well.
- AlbertCory 5y agoSince no one's mentioned his Keith-ness yet: His autobiography "Life" is pretty readable. To me at least, the ghost writer managed to make it sound like him. He discloses that he uses a non-standard tuning, which is why the average bar band has had a hard time with it these 50 years.
- shusaku 5y agoNot directly related to the post, but I have seen theories online that suggest that Gram Parsons actually wrote Wild Horses (not just recorded it first). Or at least that he was heavily involved. Maybe there are some big Stones fans in here that could share their impression.
- f3rnando 5y agoActually those songs main subject is heroin. And its usage by slavers, something like "epiousios".