Muscle Shoals

Muscle Shoals, Alabama is the unlikely breeding ground for some of America's most creative and defiant music, rock and soul.

Film Signature Image
Series
Independent Lens
Premiere Date
April 21, 2014
Length
120 minutes
  • Nominated laurels-r Created with Sketch.
    2014 News and Documentary Emmy Awards-Outstanding Arts and Culture Programming
  • Director

    Greg "Freddy" Camalier

    Making his directorial debut with Muscle Shoals, filmmaking is a deep-seated passion Greg “Freddy” Camalier is hoping and planning to pursue for the remainder of his life. Having never attended film school, Camalier’s sense of filmmaking is born from his own instincts and visual sensibilities as well as from an appreciation for the art form. Camalier Show more lives in Boulder, Colorado. Show less

    Producer

    Stephen Badger

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    The Film

    Located alongside the Tennessee River, Muscle Shoals, Alabama is the unlikely breeding ground for some of America's most creative and defiant music. Under the spiritual influence of the "Singing River," as Native Americans called it, the music of Muscle Shoals has helped create some of the most important and resonant songs of all time. At its heart is Rick Hall who founded FAME Studios.

    Overcoming crushing poverty and staggering tragedies, Hall brought black and white together in Alabama's cauldron of racial hostility to create music for the generations. He is responsible for creating the "Muscle Shoals sound" and The Swampers, the house band at FAME that eventually left to start their own successful studio, Muscle Shoals Sound.

    In this joyful film, Gregg Allman, Bono, Clarence Carter, Mick Jagger, Etta James, Alicia Keys, Keith Richards, Percy Sledge, and others bear witness to Muscle Shoals' magnetism, mystery, and why it remains influential today.

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