Great article Steve, I really enjoyed it. By the way, I am still getting
messages at the Juno address, it doesn’t want to let me unsubscribe.
John Jacques Amateur Radio Station KD8PC Sent from my iPhone
On Jan 3, 2018, at 2:01 PM, Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Rick Hall discusses recording equipment in a NAMM oral interview in 2015:
https://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/rick-hall-0 ;
Rick Hall discusses mainly convincing Clarance Carter to record "Patches,,"
which became his first #1 hit, Carter felt the record was "demeaning to his
people ..." and Hall convinced him to do it because he had grown up the same
way, as a son of a sharecropper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnHDW8gW2VI
Rick Hall, Architect of the Muscle Shoals Sound, Dies at 85
By JON PARE
Rick Hall, who helped develop the Southern soul style known as the Muscle
Shoals sound, receiving an award for lifetime achievement at the Grammy
Awards in 2014. Credit Todd Williamson/Invision, via Associated Press
Rick Hall, the producer who forged the Southern soul style known as the
Muscle Shoals sound, died on Tuesday at his home in Muscle Shoals, Ala. He
was 85.
His wife, Linda Kay Hall, said the cause was prostate cancer.
Mr. Hall turned small-town Alabama into a crucible of soul, country, pop and
rock after he founded FAME Studios in 1959 in Florence, Ala. FAME stands for
Florence Alabama Music Enterprises, although in 1961 the studio moved to
nearby Muscle Shoals, where it remains. Mr. Hall also started FAME
Publishing, which would amass a substantial catalog of hits, and FAME Records.
Mr. Hall’s versatile output drew on Southern roots — country, blues, R&B,
gospel — and on his instincts for concisely emotive storytelling, lean
arrangements and solid grooves. He was a proud taskmaster in the studio.
“For every hit I have ever produced, I have given three pints of blood and
one pint of sweat,” Mr. Hall wrote in his 2015 memoir, "The Man From Muscle
Shoals: My Journey From Shame to Fame."
In the segregated Alabama of the 1960s, black and white performers
collaborated at FAME, as they did at another fortress of Southern soul, Stax
in Memphis.
"It was a dangerous time, but the studio was a safe haven where blacks and
whites could work together in musical harmony," Mr. Hall wrote.
Mr. Hall was a producer, co-producer or engineer for major hits by Aretha
Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, Etta James, the Osmonds, Mac
Davis, Paul Anka and the country group Shenandoah, among many others. His
preferred recording method was to gather trusted musicians and seize the best
ideas from studio jams.
"We cut them from the heart, not from the charts," he told The New York Times
in 2015.
Rick Hall was born Roe Erister Hall on Jan. 31, 1932, in Forest Grove, Miss.
He grew up in rural poverty in northern Alabama, raised by his father, a
sawmill worker and sharecropper. He was 6 when his father gave him a
mandolin, and he would go on to learn fiddle, guitar and bass.
By the mid-1950s, he was in a band, the Country Pals, with a daily radio show
on WERH in Hamilton, Ala. Billy Sherrill, who was in another local band,
began writing songs with him. Mr. Sherrill would become one of country
music’s most important producers.
Photo
Duane Allman signing a contract with Mr. Hall at FAME Studios in 1968. Before
achieving fame with the Allman Brothers Band, Mr. Allman was the studio’s
lead guitarist. Credit The Hall Family
In 1959, Mr. Hall, Mr. Sherrill and a third partner, Tom Stafford, started
FAME as a demo-recording studio and music publisher. Mr. Hall and Mr.
Sherrill also formed a rock ’n’ roll band, the Fairlanes, that added Dan Penn
as lead singer; he would become a Southern soul mainstay as a songwriter and
producer.
The initial FAME partnership fractured, and Mr. Hall restarted FAME Studios
across the Tennessee River in Muscle Shoals. He wrote songs that were
recorded by country singers including Roy Orbison, Brenda Lee and George
Jones. But he saw more opportunity in rhythm and blues.
In 1961, he produced a hit: the soul singer Arthur Alexander’s “You Better
Move On,” which would later be recorded by the Rolling Stones. That song
financed the studio where FAME is still located, built in 1962 at 603 East
Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals. Another soul hit in 1964, Jimmy Hughes’s
“Steal Away,” established FAME as a record label.
The producer Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records brought Wilson Pickett to FAME
for sessions that yielded five singles: “Land of a Thousand Dances,” “Mustang
Sally,” “Funky Broadway,” “Hey Jude” and “Hey Joe.” The idea of recording
“Hey Jude” came from the studio’s lead guitarist: Duane Allman.
Mr. Wexler returned to the studios with Aretha Franklin, who recorded two
career-defining songs there in a day: "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love
You)" and "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man."
But that day ended in a fistfight between Mr. Hall and Ms. Franklin’s husband
and manager at the time, Ted White. Ms. Franklin never returned to FAME
Studios; Muscle Shoals musicians, without Mr. Hall, recorded “Respect” with
her in New York City.
Still, FAME’s soul hits continued, among them Etta James’s “Tell Mama” and
“I’d Rather Go Blind” and Clarence Carter’s “Slip Away” and “Patches.”
A studio band Mr. Hall had assembled at FAME -- Barry Beckett on keyboards,
Jimmy Johnson on guitar, David Hood on bass and Roger Hawkins on drums --
became recognized as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, also known as the
Swampers. In 1969, in partnership with Mr. Wexler, they founded the rival
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield, Ala., and went on to record with the
Staple Singers, Paul Simon, Bob Seger, Traffic, Bob Dylan and many others.
They eventually reconciled with Mr. Hall.
Mr. Hall gathered other musicians and continued to make hits. The Osmonds had
a No. 1 pop single with “One Bad Apple,” produced by Mr. Hall in 1970. Mr.
Hall was nominated for a Grammy Award for producer of the year in 1970, and
Billboard magazine named him producer of the year in 1971.
Mr. Hall largely turned toward country and pop with hits including Bobbie
Gentry’s 1970 “Fancy,” Mac Davis’s “Baby, Don’t Get Hooked on Me” and Paul
Anka’s 1974 duet with Odia Coates, “(You’re) Having My Baby.”
He co-produced Shenandoah, which had been a bar band in Muscle Shoals, as it
became a country hitmaker in the late 1980s.
The Muscle Shoals sound got renewed attention with "Muscle Shoals," a 2013
documentary directed by Greg Camalier, and in 2014 Mr. Hall received the
Grammy Trustees Award for lifetime achievement.
Through the decades, FAME Studios has remained active. Gregg Allman worked
there on "Southern Blood," his final album, in 2016.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Hall is survived by his sons, Rick Jr., Mark and
Rodney; his brothers, Larry and Jerry; his sister, Betty Bedford; and five
grandchildren.
Steve's Note: I heard an excerpt on the BBC in an interview he did four
years ago. He said he had a rough personal life -- growing up in poverty,
etc. -- his mother died when he was young. Later, he was driving his car and
got in a wreck which killed his first wife; then, his father died two weeks
later.
*****
FAME Recording Studios founder Rick Hall dies at age 85
By Russ Corey and Robert Palmer Staff Writers
Jan 3, 2018 Updated 13 hrs ago
Buy Now
Rick Hall sits next to a wall of gold records at FAME Studios in Muscle
Shoals in 2013, the year he was name TimesDaily's Newsmaker of the Year.
Allison Carter
Buy Now
Rick Hall directs Ahbee Orton, left, and Kassidy Gean, right, as he talks
about buttons on the soundboard at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoal in 2013.
Orton and Gean are blind and were to perform for state government leaders.
[ALLISON CARTER/TIMESDAILY]
Allison Carter
Buy Now
Rick Hall
MATT MCKEAN
Buy Now
A copy of Rick Hall's book that released in 2015.
Matt McKean
Otis Redding with Rick Hall at FAME approximately six months before Redding's
death. [COURTESY OF FAME]
Rick Hall at FAME with Little Richard. [COURTESY OF FAME]
Lou Rawls and Rick Hall at FAME studio. [COURTESY OF FAME]
The Fairlanes, FAME Studios' original house band: (from left) Rick Hall,
Charlie Senn, Randy Allen (drums), Billy Sherrill, Terry Thompson. [COURTESY
OF FAME AND THE HISTORY CHANNEL MAGAZINE]
none
Buy Now
Candi Staton hugs Rick Hall after he introduced her at the 2014 Alabama Music
Hall of Fame induction banquet at the Shoals Marriott and Conference Center.
[MATT MCKEAN/TIMESDAILY]
Matt McKean
Buy Now
Muscle Shoals music icons Rick Hall and Jimmy Johnson talk at a conference in
the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in 2014. [JIM HANNON/TIMESDAILY]
Jim Hannon
Buy Now
From top left, Rick Hall, Felton Jarvis, Tommy Roe, Ray Stevens, David
Briggs, Norbert Putnam and Jerry Carrigan during the early days of FAME.
[COURTESY PHOTO]
MUSCLE SHOALS — Rick Hall, founder of FAME Recording Studios, hit record
producer and the architect of the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound, died Tuesday
at his home.
He was 85.
Born Roe Erister Hall in the Freedom Hills community in Franklin County, Hall
rose from abject poverty to become a major player in the recording industry
in the 1960s. He continued to evolve with the times and changes in musical
tastes.
Hall recorded almost every form of American music from soul to rock to pop
and country, and had hits in each genre. His publishing company has been
highly successful.
While others in the Shoals moved on to Memphis and Nashville, in Tennessee,
to pursue their dreams of working in the music business, Hall was determined
to become a success in the Shoals.
"The thing about Rick was that he built his business and his dream from the
ground up," author and American music historian Peter Guralnick said. "He was
somebody who was driven by a vision of something he believed he could be. He
was as determined a person as I have met."
Professional recording was virtually unknown in Alabama at that time. That it
should take root in a small, isolated town like Muscle Shoals is nothing
short of remarkable.
Just as remarkable was FAME's recording almost exclusively black artists in
the 1960s when the civil rights movement was underway. Most of Hall's session
players in those days were white, though black players from Memphis
occasionally joined the sessions. By the 1970s, many of FAME's session
musicians were black.
Hall started his career as a musician who played fiddle and mandolin in
country bands as a young man.
State Rep. Johnny Mack Morrow, D-Red Bay, said his father, Grover Morrow,
taught Hall agriculture at Phil Campbell High School.
"My father actually gave Rick his first instrument, a mandolin," Morrow said.
"He didn't know anything about music, but he could encourage children."
Morrow said his father recognized Hall's talent and encouraged him to join
the school's Future Farmers of America string band. One year, he said, they
won the state championship in Auburn.
A musician and songwriter, Hall joined a group of dreamers at City Drug Store
in Florence, where SPAR Studio was located. With friends Tom Stafford and
Billy Sherrill, Hall founded the music publishing company Florence Alabama
Music Enterprises. When the partnership dissolved, Hall kept the name and
opened FAME Recording Studios in an old tobacco and candy warehouse on Wilson
Dam Road in 1960.
He assembled a group of local musicians and Sheffield bellhop Arthur
Alexander, who had written a song called "You Better Move On." The song
quickly became a hit.
Using the proceeds from "You Better Move One," Hall moved to a new building
on Avalon Avenue where the studio still operates. The first artist to record
a hit there was Leighton's Jimmy Hughes, who also wrote "Steal Away."
"I enjoyed working with him. I learned how to record from him," Hughes said.
"He wanted everything perfect."
Hall continued to work with rhythm and blues, and soul artists, and recorded
hits for Aretha Franklin, Etta James, the Staples Singers, Clarence Carter,
Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and Candi Staton.
"The genesis of Muscle Shoals was three great men — Sam Phillips, Tom
Stafford and then came Rick Hall," said Norbert Putnam, one of the teenagers
hanging out at SPAR and the bassist on early FAME recordings. "If (Florence
native) Sam Phillips had not gone to Memphis to find Elvis, that first rhythm
section might not have come into existence. We, at 15, were playing Elvis's
music.
"We met Tom Stafford (at SPAR) and started playing R&B music, James Brown and
Ray Charles," Putnam said. "A year or so later, a young man named Rick Hall
came up the stairs for publishing and recording."
Putnam, who moved to Nashville with the other rhythm section members — Jerry
Carrigan and David Briggs — said Hall was the entrepreneur of the group who
raised money for professional recording equipment after the original
partnership with Stafford split.
"Rick Hall was the man we needed," he said. "As the years went by, we went
our separate ways, but Rick went on to become one of the world's greatest
producers."
In the 1970s, Hall moved into mainstream pop music and had a string of hits
with the Osmonds, Paul Anka, Tom Jones and Donny Osmond. In 1971, Hall was
named Billboard Producer of the Year, a year after being nominated for a
Grammy Award in the same category.
Near the end of the 1970s, he began producing country artists like Mac Davis,
Bobbie Gentry, Jerry Reed, the Gatlin Brothers, Ronnie Milsap, Barbara
Mandrell, Alabama, Earl Thomas Conley, John Michael Montgomery, Jerry Reed,
Shenandoah and Tim McGraw.
He was named Billboard magazine's Producer of the Year in 1971.
Hall's story became the centerpiece of the 2013 music documentary "Muscle
Shoals," which reignited a curiosity and interest in the Muscle Shoals music
legacy. Music fans began traveling to the Shoals to visit the studios after
watching the documentary.
Hall is also an inductee in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.
In 2014, the Recording Academy awarded Hall with a Grammy Trustee Award,
recognizing him for 60 years of success in the music business. In 2015, Hall
was honored by the Alabama State Council on the Arts. The following year,
Heritage Builders Publishing released "The Man From Muscle Shoals: Rick Hall,
My Journey from Shame To Fame," the story of Hall's life.
In 2015, the Business Council of Alabama awarded Hall and the Swampers Rhythm
Section its Chairman’s Award.
BCA President and CEO William J. Canary extended condolences to Hall’s
family. “There is a great loss today in Alabama of a dynamic leader who
forever will leave his mark on the music industry,” Canary said.
“His book convinced me that there are mystical waters spreading musical
threads through Muscle Shoals, its music, and its people for the benefit of
the world,” Canary said. “His memory will live on forever in his music, as
will the ‘Magic Wall’ which came to life with the release of the documentary
film ‘Muscle Shoals.’”
Hall had a reputation for ruthless pursuit of the music he heard in his head,
and that could make for some rough recording sessions.
"I know I would have had no career in music at all without Rick," said David
Hood, bassist with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, which got its start at
FAME. "He was an encourager, a great influence. Sometimes his threats were
encouragement enough.
"Overall, he had a very positive influence on me and the industry here," Hood
said. "I always thought, even when I wasn't working with him, 'What would
Rick think?' I always wanted him to be proud of us."
Drummer Roger Hawkins said he was probably in his early 20s when he started
working for Hall with his friends Hood, guitarist Jimmy Johnson and
keyboardist Barry Beckett, later dubbed The Swampers.
"Rick was a hard teacher, but a good teacher," Hawkins said. "He taught me
everything I thought I already knew."
Mickey Buckins, who worked at FAME as an artist, songwriter and engineer,
said Hall had the best ears in the music business.
"The main thing I learned from Rick was to listen, really listen," Buckins
said. "He would drive himself crazy, and the rest of us, until he got what he
wanted on tape. That was his way.
"It was a mind-blowing experience at that age," he said. "I loved the man,
the whole Hall family."
Guralnick said Hall was not one to make lots of friends, but those he had he
valued deeply.
"Rick valued so highly his friendship with Jerry Wexler and Sam Phillips. He
especially idolized Sam Phillips," he said. "He had a sense of gratitude that
he was accepted in that company. But the contributions he made to music of
all sorts is incomparable."
Wexler's son, Paul Wexler, said his father had the utmost respect for Hall as
a producer and a man who could recognize talented artists. His father kept up
with trends in local markets and began sending artists to FAME to record with
Hall.
"Times were changing and Rick was at the front of a wave of change in the way
people were recording," Wexler said. "My father gave him a lot of credit for
that."
Singer, songwriter and producer Walt Aldridge said he worked with Hall for 17
years, starting out as a runner and eventually becoming a business partner.
"I got to look at every aspect of the music business with Rick and received
an invaluable education," Aldridge said. "Rick managed to be relevant for a
lot of years. He was able to evolve and reinvent himself."
Aldridge doubts the Muscle Shoals Sound would have existed without Rick Hall.
"The music world changed today with Rick's passing," said singer, songwriter
and producer Mac McAnally, who worked as a session musician at FAME. "I don't
know now who will be the most dedicated, relentless advocate for music being
as strong as it can be, but I know who it was up until today. I am blessed to
have learned at his feet, and happy we have so much work to remember him by."
Aldridge said the special thing about the Shoals is not that hit records were
being cut here because they were being cut in Memphis, Detroit, Michigan, Los
Angeles, California, and many other places.
"There was a lot of hit making going on because it was a young industry
then," Aldridge said. "What's amazing to me is that Muscle Shoals survived."
Hall's son, Rodney Hall, said FAME Recording Studios will remain open per his
father's wishes.
"He planted the seed and we'd like to see that tree grow for generations,"
Rodney Hall said.
Hall said his father lived in what he considers the golden age of the
recording industry.
"He lived during the age when it was a really sexy, fun, cool thing to be
able to go in and make a record and go to a radio station and they'd play
it," he said. "You'd have a hit record just by having good music, sheer, hard
work and determination. That's not necessarily the case today."
Hall said his father's legacy will live on through the music he helped create.
"It's a very sad milestone," said Patterson Hood, Shoals native and
co-founder of the Drive-By Truckers. "All of my interactions with him were
positive, and there's no denying what a true force of nature he was. He
literally made the impossible happen by pure force of will, and I'll always
respect that."
In 2017, Rick Hall was the recipient of an honorary doctorate degree from the
University of North Alabama.
“Rick was a friend of mine and a friend of the University of North Alabama
and I am glad we were able to celebrate his life accomplishments with the
honorary degree in 2017," UNA President Ken Kitts said. "Rick’s work brought
great visibility to the Shoals, and helped establish UNA’s reputation as a
national leader in the field of entertainment industry. He will be sorely
missed.”
Keyboardist Spooner Oldham, who used to write and work on songs after hours
at FAME with writing partner Dan Penn, said Hall was a tenacious worker who
surrounded himself with the best people he could, whether they were singers,
musicians or office workers.
"He was my friend and we rode around together when we'd go to radio stations
when we had a new record," Oldham said. "They'd put in on the air, and we'd
go out in the car and listen to it. I love his family and I wish them well."
Shoals singer, songwriter and keyboardists Donnie Fritts said Hall earned his
spot in history.
"Rick worked so hard to produce those records," Fritts said. "I'm sure he
will be missed. He helped a lot of people get started here. Nobody ever
outworked Rick."
Soul singer Candi Staton said she heard about Hall's death as she was
returning home from Amsterdam.
"I lost it right there on the plane," Staton said. "Rick and I have been such
good friends for so many years. He saw something in me nobody else saw. He
reached out and grabbed it and pulled it out of me. If it hadn't been for
Rick Hall, there wouldn't have been a Candi Staton."
Staton was introduced to Hall by Clarence Carter and laid down three tracks
at FAME the first night they met.
"He introduced me to the music business," she said. "I watched him and
learned how to produce through watching him and making sure everything was
correct. He will always be on my mind for the rest of my life."
Hall's visitation is scheduled from noon to 2 p.m. Friday at Highland Park
Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals. His funeral will be at 2 p.m. at the church.
Morrison Funeral Home of Tuscumbia is handling the arrangements.
*****
Wikipedia Article on Rick Hall:
r moves
5 Later life
6 References
Early life[edit]
Hall was born into a family of sharecroppers in Forest Grove, Tishomingo
County, Mississippi to Herman Hall,[2] a sawmill worker and sharecropper[5]
and his wife, Dolly. After his mother left home when young Hall was aged
4,[2] he, along with his siblings was raised in rural poverty[5] by his
father and grandparents in Franklin County, Alabama.[2][6] He moved to
Rockford, Illinois, as a teenager, working as an apprentice toolmaker, and
began playing in local bar bands.[7] When he was drafted for the Korean War,
he declared himself a conscientious objector, joined the honor guard of the
Fourth United States Army, and played in a band which also included Faron
Young and the fiddler Gordon Terry.[7]
Early career as musician and songwriter[edit]
When Hall returned to Alabama he resumed factory life, working for Reynolds
Aluminum in Florence.[7] When both his new bride and his father died within a
two-week period, he lost interest in regular work and began moving around the
area playing guitar, mandolin, and fiddle with a local group, Carmol Taylor
and the Country Pals.[7] The group appeared on a weekly regional radio show
at WERH in Hamilton.[7] Subsequently, Hall formed a new R&B group, the
Fairlanes, with the saxophonist Billy Sherrill fronted by the singer Dan
Penn, with Hall playing bass.[7] He also began writing songs at that
time.[8][7]
Hall left the Fairlanes to concentrate on becoming a songwriter and record
producer.[9] He had his first songwriting successes in the late 1950s, when
George Jones recorded his song "Achin', Breakin' Heart", Brenda Lee recorded
"She'll Never Know", and Roy Orbison recorded "Sweet and Innocent".[6]
Success with FAME Studios[edit]
In 1959, Hall and Sherrill accepted an offer from Tom Stafford, the owner of
a recording studio, to help set up a new music publishing company in the town
of Florence, to be known as Florence Alabama Music Enterprises, or FAME.[10]
However, in 1960, Sherrill and Stafford dissolved the partnership, leaving
Hall with rights to the studio name. Hall then set up FAME Studios in Muscle
Shoals, Alabama, where one of his first recordings was Arthur Alexander's
"You Better Move On".[6] The commercial success of the record gave Hall the
financial resources to establish a new, larger FAME recording
studio.[6][7][11]
Though Hall grew up in a culture dominated by country music, he had a love of
R&B music and, in the highly segregated state of Alabama, regularly flaunted
local policies and recorded many black musicians.[2] Hall wrote: "Black music
helped broaden my musical horizons and open my eyes and ears to the
widespread appeal of the so-called ‘race’ music that later became known as
‘rhythm and blues".[2] Hall's successes continued after the Atlanta-based
agent Bill Lowery brought him acts to record, and the studio produced hits
for Tommy Roe, Joe Tex, the Tams, and Jimmy Hughes.[7] However, in 1964,
Hall's regular session group—David Briggs, Norbert Putnam, Jerry Carrigan,
Earl "Peanut" Montgomery, and Donnie Fritts—became frustrated at being paid
minimum union-scale wages by Hall, and left Muscle Shoals to set up a studio
of their own in Nashville.[7] Hall then pulled together a new studio band,
including Spooner Oldham, Jimmy Johnson, David Hood, and Roger Hawkins, and
continued to produce hit records.[7]
In 1966, he helped license Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman",
produced by Quin Ivy, to Atlantic Records, which then led to a regular
arrangement under which Atlantic would send musicians to Hall's Muscle Shoals
studio to record.[12] The studio produced further hit records for Wilson
Pickett, James & Bobby Purify, Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter, Otis
Redding, and Arthur Conley, enhancing Hall's reputation as a white Southern
producer who could produce and engineer hits for black Southern soul
singers.[6][7] He produced many sessions using guitarist Duane Allman.[9] He
also produced recordings for other artists, including Etta James, whom he
persuaded to record Clarence Carter's song "Tell Mama".[2] However, his fiery
temperament led to the end of the relationship with Atlantic after he got
into a fistfight with Aretha Franklin's husband, Ted White, in late 1967.[7]
In 1969, FAME Records, with artists including Candi Staton, Clarence Carter
and Arthur Conley, established a distribution deal with Capitol Records.[11]
Hall then turned his attention away from soul music towards mainstream pop,
producing hits for the Osmonds, Paul Anka, Tom Jones, and Donny Osmond.[6]
Also in 1969, another FAME Studio house band, Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section,
affectionately called The Swampers, consisting of Barry Beckett (keyboards),
Roger Hawkins (drums), Jimmy Johnson (guitar), and David Hood (bass), left
the FAME studio to found the competing Muscle Shoals Sound Studio at 3614
Jackson Highway in Sheffield, with start-up funding from Jerry
Wexler.[13][14][15] Subsequently, Hall hired the Fame Gang as the new studio
band.[16]
Recognition and later career moves[edit]
Hall's FAME studio prospered through the 1970s.[16] In 1971, Hall was named
Producer of the Year by Billboard magazine,[7] a year after having been
nominated for a Grammy in the same category.[17] Later in the decade, Hall
moved back towards country music, producing hits for Mac Davis, Bobbie
Gentry, Jerry Reed, and the Gatlin Brothers.[7] He also worked with the
songwriter and producer Robert Byrne to help a local bar band, Shenandoah,
top the national Hot Country Songs chart several times in the 1980s and
1990s.[6] Hall's publishing staff of in-house songwriters wrote some of the
biggest country hits in those decades. His publishing catalog included "I
Swear" written by Frank Myers and Gary Baker.[6][11] In 1985 he was inducted
into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, his citation referring to him as the
"Father of Muscle Shoals Music."[6]
In 2007, Hall reactivated the FAME Records label through a distribution deal
with EMI.[18]
Later life[edit]
Hall's life and career are profiled in the 2013 documentary film Muscle
Shoals.[19] During an interview before the release of the movie, Hall told a
journalist that in 2009, he had donated his home to a charity for abused and
neglected children. The hits he had recorded over the years, and the sale of
two of his six publishing catalogs had made him wealthy. In spite of that, at
the age of 81, he was still trying to make recording deals.[16]
In 2014, Hall was awarded the Grammy Trustees Award for his significant
contribution to the field of recording.[20][21]
Hall published his memoirs in a book titled The Man from Muscle Shoals: My
Journey from Shame to Fame in 2015.[8][9] On December 17, 2016, Hall was
awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of North Alabama in
Florence.[22]
He died on January 2, 2018, aged 85, at his home in Muscle Shoals, resulting
from cancer, after returning from a stay in a local nursing home shortly
before Christmas.[19][23]