Documentary "Muscle Shoals" - Sundance Film Festival Winner.

[MIKEW-UK]

Just got in from watching the documentary ‘Muscle Shoals’ at the London Sundance Film Festival. I haven’t read anything post on the forum about this movie, but I confidently predict that all visitors to the Soulful Detroit Forum will hugely enjoy this film.
At the heart of the film is the story of Rick Hall, and his drive and unrelenting search for perfection in the music he wanted to create in the Muscle Shoals area. The founder of Fame studios cuts an impressive figure throughout the movie, and he relates how he hired in The Swampers and started to make hit records, his first being Arthur Alexander and “You’d Better Move On”. From there on, numerous hit records emerged, featuring R&B / soul artists like Wilson Picket, Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter, Candi Staton and Etta James. Many other artists were attracted by the sound that Fame and The Swampers created, and there was an influx of artists from other genres, such as The Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and even the Osmonds. The movie covers the painful split which occurred when The Swampers left Rick and Fame and set up their own studio with the encouragement of Jerry Wexler.
I am sure many of the forum members know all of the above very well , but this film is remarkable in many ways. Original footage, great soundtrack, contemporary artists' interviews, the musicians and the photography make nigh on 2 hour movie a real treat. Don’t miss it!!!!

[Jerry Oz]

I cannot wait to see this. It will probably only show in one theater here, and for a couple of weeks if I'm lucky. I'll keep an eye out for it. Thanks for the heads up MIKEW-UK.

[MIKEW-UK]

Jerry, the film will follow the same trajectory as Searching For Sugarman - cinema release, and then DVD. At the Q&A, Director and Producer Greg 'Freddie' Cavalier announced there will be a soundtrack release.

Hearing those sounds on a state of the art Dolby sound system with ultra high fidelity and dynamics at high volume was a real treat. Rick Hall makes an interesting point that he likes human imperfections in the vocal / instrument recordings as this adds rather than subtracts from the beauty of the records, and is interesting / pleasing to the ear.

Good to see interviews with Wilson Pickett, Etta James and Jerry Wexler who have sadly passed on.

http://muscleshoalsmovie.com/

[soulster]

I so want to see this too! I live out there in soulless land, so I don't know how or when.

[MIKEW-UK]

Soulster, one of the facets you will enjoy is the footage of the studios and their recording equipment, both when it was first built, through to today's kit. Also Rick Hall at the mixing desk giving direction. cheers

[Soul Sister]

Will it be on U.S. television?


S.S.
***

[MIKEW-UK]

S.S., this statement appears in the article below.....

Independent Lens scooped up U.S. TV rights to "Muscle Shoals," for future broadcasts in PBS.

'Muscle Shoals' documentary picked up by Mark Cuban's Magnolia Pictures


View the Slideshow >>

[[Gallery by Eric Schultz | eschultz@al.com)

By Matt Wake | mwake@al.com
on March 12, 2013 at 3:24 PM, updated March 12, 2013 at 3:52 PMPrint

Email

Aretha Franklin is shown in the documentary "Muscle Shoals." [[Contributed photo)Magnolia Pictures has obtained U.S. rights to the music documentary "Muscle Shoals," hours before the film's screening at the South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, IndieWirereports.
Co-owned by Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Magnolia's previous releases include the 2011 doc "Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times" and the 2012 Eric Bana-starring crime drama "Deadfall."
Independent Lens scooped up U.S. TV rights to "Muscle Shoals," for future broadcasts in PBS.
Greg "Freddy" Camalier directed the "Muscle Shoals" film, which chronicles the legendary music created at Alabama recording studios FAME and Muscle Shoals Sound, by artists ranging from Aretha Franklin to The Rolling Stones. The documentary includes interviews with stars including Franklin, Mick Jagger and Alicia Keys.
A Feb. 27 Florence screening of "Muscle Shoals" attracted local music legends including producer Rick Hall and keyboardist Spooner Oldham.
The all-star concert following the screening featured performances from the likes of Alabama Shakes' Brittany Howard and the Civil Wars' John Paul White.

[Soul Sister]

Great, thanks MIKE.


S.S.
***

[JIVE FIVE Mary G.]

I would LOVE to see this!!

~~Mary~~

[mickeymac]

When, when does this come out??? I so badly want to see this. The moment this gets on DVD I am so getting this.

[chidrummer]

This is excellent news!! The story of the Funk Brothers has been told. The story of The Wrecking Crew is out there and now Muscle Shoals.

Alright UK, it's your turn. What about that slightly secret group of session players on your side of the pond that sat in for The Kinks, Herman's Hermits and various other groups? We need that bit of history in the can as well.

[MIKEW-UK]

Sundance London Film Festival 2013: Muscle Shoals, review

Transporting audiences to small-town Alabama, Greg Camalier's country soul documentary is joyous and uplifting, says David Gritten at Sundance London.


Muscle Shoals





from TELEGRAPH, written by David Gritten



Muscle Shoals
By David Gritten3:38PM BST 25 Apr 2013Comment
[[Thursday 25/4, 5.30 pm; Saturday 27/4, 6.00 pm; Sunday 28/4 2.30 pm)
A town of some 13,000 inhabitants in northern Alabama on the banks of the Tennessee River, Muscle Shoals is tiny in comparison to cities like Memphis, New Orleans and Nashville. Yet for the last half-century it has punched way above its weight in the annals of American music.
It’s effectively the centre of southern country soul, thanks to its legendary recording studios, where such stars as Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge and Candi Staton made their names, and where in later years established stars like the Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan and Rod Stewart arrived to infuse their music with the elusive “Muscle Shoals sound”. In his affectionate, well-researched documentary, director Greg Camalier traces the story of the Muscle Shoals phenomenon, and has obtained access to many of the stellar names that have made the town a name to reckon with in the music business.
Yet the key figure in Camalier’s film is not well-known at all. Rick Hall, a brooding man with an obsessive eye for detail, produced many of the early Muscle Shoals hits for his Fame label, in a local studio converted from a tobacco warehouse. A man who has known life’s setbacks and looks like it, Hall is the epicentre of the whole story.

His great achievement was to corral a bunch of local musicians [[they became known as The Swampers) to play as session men. They were all white, yet this house band was so funky that no one guessed the difference. [[Paul Simon once tried to track down the “black” musicians who had played on The Staples Singers I’ll Take You There. As Hall observed, it was possible, but Simon might find the musicians paler than he expected.)

The Swampers backed Franklin, Pickett and Sledge on some of their finest recorded moments and inadvertently did much to break down racial barriers in American popular music. An array of famous talking heads confirms details of this terrific story. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards gush about Muscle Shoals, where Wild Horses was recorded. Even the normally reticent Aretha Franklin finds words of praise for the place, and a detailed account by several witnesses about the tense session during which she recorded her exquisite hit I Never Loved a Man is utterly gripping.
Camalier establishes a strong sense of place. Muscle Shoals is lush, green and sleepy. There’s something faintly mystical about it – perhaps due to its proximity to the Tennessee, known as “the river that sings”. Muscle Shoals loses its momentum when the story takes a detour to include the Allman Brothers, who recorded there. And one yearns to see a music documentary that doesn’t feature Bono elbowing his way into the frame to offer his bombastic opinions.
Still, it barely detracts from this film, propelled in equal measure by its gorgeous music and rich anecdotes. Overall, it’s joyous, uplifting – and as funky as the music at its heart

[nabob]

BUMP
The documentary is opening nationwide this weekend.

This site has several video trailers which can be found at: http://www.magpictures.com/muscleshoals/


A larger, readable view of this picture of the Atlanta announcement can be found at: http://sdrv.ms/17cJuhl

[reese]

The film is also available on cable via on demand.

Last week, Candi Staton and the Swampers appeared on David Letterman to promote the film.

[chidrummer]

Just saw the film on Sunday and it was great. There was a lot I didn't know about Rick Hall and all the different connections between him, The Swampers, Fame Studios and Muscle Shoals Studio.
Loved the story about "The Singing River" and Rick's mother.
Note to the Chicago Mob: The film is showing only at Century Center theater. It's also available if you subscribed to Comcast and their On Demand feature. But, go see it in a theater, the sound is terrific.