SWEET HOME ALABAMA--ALABAMA MUSIC HALL OF FAME

This year, on our annual winter trip through the South, we took a 2 hour detour off the Interstate to the tri-city area of Tuscumbia, Muscle Shoals and Florence in Northern Alabama.  My wife, Dianne, is from Georgia, so we speak Southern  When you enter the state, the road signs read "Sweet Home Alabama", as in the Lynyrd Skynyrd song.  That is the state motto as designated by the legislature.

Our destination was the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.  We wandered around the building, touring the museum and learned about many famous musicians that I never knew were from Alabama.   The location was chosen because Muscle Shoals, Alabama was a recording mecca for many rhythm and blues musicians.  The founders of the city were spelling challenged--the city was named for the tasty mussels caught in the shallow water at the bend of the Tennessee River.

The Music Hall of Fame is a modern 12,000 square foot building with a walk of fame with stars for each of the inductees.  The Hall boasts 82 inductees who are required to be natives of Alabama although many of them achieved success elsewhere.   In 1985, they introduced the first inductees to the Hall of Fame, and they honor up to 6 musicians every other year. 

Prominently displayed is a colorful 1950's style jukebox that plays popular music by Alabama artists.
On the walls and pillars are amazing and informative lists of musicians, and recordings, and even backup musicians, all with Alabama ties.   You can hear several songs by Lionel Richie and Bobby Goldsboro and even some I didn't expect, like a Grateful Dead song Truckin'.   The Dead were from Palo Alto, Caliornia, so I'm not sure of the Alabama connection other than they played concerts in the state.  Jimmy Buffett (no relation to Warren but they are friends) is from Alabama although he was born in Mississippi--the jukebox plays Margaritaville.   Captain and Tennille are from Alabama, or at least Tennille is.  You can also hear songs by groups like Spiral Staircase, Dr. Hook, Styx and Mr. Mister. 

The Hall honors other artists who recorded at the studio in Muscle Shoals but are not members of the Hall of Fame because they are not from Alabama and have no other ties there.  They brought the whole studio to the museum, or at least a replica!    The list is a Who's Who of popular music along with the songs recorded there.  The list includes Leon Russell,  Paul Simon (Kodachrome), Bob Seger (Fire Lake), The Osmonds, Paul Anka (Havin' My Baby), The Gatlin Bros., Julian Lennon, Mac Davis, Glenn Frye, Rolling Stones (Brown Sugar), Willie Nelson (but not Ricky Nelson), Rod Stewart, Mary MacGregor (Torn Between Two Lovers) , Oak Ridge Boys and R.B. Greaves (Take a Letter Maria). 

A list of songwriters (with their hometowns) with hits in the Top 40 includes Toni Tennille (Montgomery), Hank Williams, Junior (Cullman) and Senior (Mt. Olive), Tammy Wynette (Red Bay), Sandy Posey (Jasper) and Wilson Pickett (Pratteville), not to mention many others I wasn't familiar with.   On another list are Number One songs by Alabama artists.

Incidentally, the Lynyrd Skynyrd band is not in the Alabama Hall of Fame,, although the band is a member of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.  The band members are not from Alabama.  They pioneered the Southern rock genre but the group originated in Jacksonville, Florida.  Tragically, the band was decimated in a 1977 plane crash in Mississippi when the plane ran out of gas.  Those killed included lead singer and founder Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist and vocalist Steve Gaines and vocalist Cassie Gaines (Steve's sister), as well as their road manager and pilot.  Twenty passengers, including some band members, were seriously injured but survived.   The surviving members made an oath never to use the name Lynyrd Skynyrd again--they didn't want to capitalize on the tragedy.

A large room in the Hall holds the framed portraits of the inductees.  I'm not familiar with some, but here are the better known names with the year of induction:

1985 Nat King Cole (needs no introduction)
1987 Sonny James (Young Love), Sam Phillips (more on him later), Blues legend W.C. Handy (St. Louis Blues among others).
1989 Jazz great Erskine Hawkins
1991 Dinah Washington (What a Difference a Day Makes), who was married to football great Dick "Night Train: Lane, (see KENSUSKINREPORT, Sept. 24, 2007)
1993 Tammy Wynette (Stand by Your Man), Percy Sledge (When a Man Loves a Woman), R & B band Alabama, and the yodeler and father of country music Jimmie Rodgers (not the rock 'n' roll Jimmie Rodgers who was born the same year the first Jimmie Rodgers died)
1995 Martha Reeves, but not the Vandellas (Dancin' in the Streets), Commodores (Lionel Richie's band)
1997 Lionel Richie who needs no introduction
1999Temptations (My Girl), Wilson Pickett (Midnight Hour), Bobby Goldsboro (Honey). 
2001 Legendary baritone Jim Nabors
2003 Country star Emmylou Harris
2020 Big Mama Thornton who recorded Hound Dog in 1953 and held down Number 1 on the Billboard R & B charts for several weeks.  A couple years later, the song was covered by a guy named Elvis Presley who also made it a Number 1 hit.   Elvis' version annoyed the songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.  Leiber said "I have no idea what that rabbit business is all about.  The song is not about a dog it's about a man, a freeloading gigolo."   The song was supposed to be an anthem of Black female power.

Back to Sweet Home Alabama, the lyrics are controversial harking back to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's.  From interviews with the band members, it was not clear which side they were on. 

Big wheels keep on turning
Carry me home to see my kin
Singing songs about the southland
I miss Alabamy once again
And I think it's a sin, yes

Well I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well I heard ole Neil put her down
Well I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man don't need him around anymore

Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies are so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord I'm coming home to you

In Birmingham they love the governor
Now we all did what we could do
Now Watergate does not bother me
Does your conscience bother you
Tell the truth

Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers
And they've been known to pick a song or two
Lord they get me off so much
They pick me up when I'm feeling blue
Now how about you?

According to Ronnie Van Zant, the group didn't appreciate Neil Young's disparaging the state in his song Southern Man so they wrote a rebuttal.  The "Swampers" refers to the Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section that backed up many artists that have recorded in Alabama.   Several have been inducted into the Hall of Fame but they are not household names. 

Finally a large exhibit in the museum is devoted to Sun Records, once owned by Sam Phillips who discovered Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, the Million Dollar Quartet.  Although Sun Records was based in Memphis Tennessee (and is now a museum), Phillips came from Florence, Alabama. 

Phillips formed the record label in 1952 but he had to win a legal battle to use the name Sun Records because the name was already in use.   Sun Records of New York had a big hit in 1950, Papirossen (cigarettes), a very sad song, written and sung by the great Herman Yablokoff--in Yiddish.   I'm not making this up--his biography is in Wikipedia.  He was a big star in Yiddish theater.   My folks had a collection of 78rpm's which included that record.    

In any event, when the New York company went defunct,  Phillips' company copied the design of the record label but made the decision to record songs in English. 

NEXT:  Sweet Home Alabama 2.0:  You're not a Real Bears Fan Unless You Know About Harlon Hill.