muscle shoals documentary free on youtube

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I got part way into that one and began to lose interest....but, I'm back at again here in 30 seconds.

Bri

edit  it kinda bogged down in the middle, but picked up again.  Great doc.  I ended up with this link connection:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKmGUIM1uAI


 
I saw this a while back and loved it. But then, David Hood was always one of my bass senseis.

Got me irritated yet again about these guys getting paid union scale for session work of the kind they did. When that system was put into place, a composer came in with charts for every musician and they just sight-read their parts. Fair enough. No contribution to the actual composition, just their expertise on their instrument executing a pre-written part. Pay them scale. Everybody's happy (happy enough, anyway).

By the 1960s/70s, though, that model was getting rare. When an artist came to Muscle Shoals or Motown or to a Wrecking Crew session, they usually came in with a bare bones composition and asked these studio musicians to come up with the riffs, licks and fills that literally made the song. Sure, they'd do it under the direction of the producer and/or artist, but often times they were just given free reign. Did they get co-writing credit, or even get paid as arrangers? No. They got the same scale the guys who were sight reading composed parts got back in the 40s and 50s. They literally made the songs what they were. And yet every one of them still has to gig or do grueling studio sessions to make a living, many well into their 70s. Zero mailbox money.

It's a sore spot. My father in law was a horn player in Edgar Winter's White Trash, Toto, Ike & Tina Turner's band, Albert Collins, and many more. He's got a discography a mile long and we have a few of his gold and platinum records all over the living room wall. He did the horn arrangements for most of the artists he recorded with. The guy's 76 and still gigging 5 nights a week in New Orleans because he pretty much has to. It's a shame.

 

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