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About Muscle Shoals Has Got The Swampers
Product Description The legendary rhythm section known as The Swampers is having some of their oriinal music released from the vaults of Muscle Shoals Sound Records after having decades go by since they recorded it. Barry Beckett (keyboards) Roger Hawkins (drums), David Hood (bass), and Jimmy Johnson (guitar) were one of the most respected and sought after session groups from the late 1960's onward. They are responsible for playing several hit songs during their run including Big Joe Turners "Shake, Rattle and Roll," the Staple Singers "I'll Take You There," and "Respect Yourself," Paul Simon's "Kodachrome" and "Still Crazy After All These Years" and Rod Stewart's "Sailing" and "Tonight's the Night." The collection of extremely rare music is amazing. This gives music fans a chance to get to know more about one of the session groups that has helped to create music memories, superstars, and massive hits. Review For us baby boomers, it was the soundtrack of our lives. Virtually every soul record of the '60s and '70s had the same guys behind the music. The sound was black, but the musicians were white, four guys out of Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Barry Beckett on keyboards, drummer Roger Hawkins, bassist David Hood, and guitarist Jimmy Johnson were the founders of the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, after splitting off from their gig as the house band for Rick Hall's FAME studio. Nicknamed the Swampers by Leon Russell producer Denny Cordell, they were immortalized in a verse from Lynyrd Skynyrd's 1974 hit Sweet Home Alabama: 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. Although those four were the core, other musicians rotated in and out, notably Eddie Hinton, who played guitar on the Staples Singers sessions that yielded I'll Take You There, guitarist Pete Carr, who spent a decade as lead guitarist at Muscle Shoals, and pianist/composer Spooner Oldham ( It Tears Me Up, Cry Like A Baby. ) The list of artists they backed is a who's who of soul, including, but not limited to, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Clarence Carter, Etta James, as well as the Staples. Most of their work has been well publicized and distributed. But recently Muscle Shoals Sound Records unearthed tapes from instrumental tracks recorded between '69 and '78 starring the Swampers. It's a mixed bag of styles, kicking off with Roger Hawkins' funky Swampers sounding like an early Meters track. Muscle Shoals Malmo Express channels a Chuck Berry rhythm fronted with greasy Duane Allman style slide and double handfuls of frenetic Little Richard-worthy piano. Whiplash is a strange concept, like George Harrison trying on Duane Allman's slide backed by a Harrison Maharishi infatuated-era soundtrack. Pete's Song, a Carr composition, also recalls the Meters' work with a Allman-esque infusion in the middle and a smattering of jazzy George Benson guitar licks later on. Muscle Shoals starts out sounding like it came from a little farther south, a shimmery, bongo-backed, Latin-flavored tune that morphs into something that can't decide whether its loungey jazz or Todd Rundgren doing an offbeat take on the Spinners' Mighty Love. Backporch Soul is churchy, deep roots soul, a track that has you expecting James Carr or Percy Sledge to wade in and thrash around in any second. Roger Hawkins' Sunday Morning R&B cries out for Sledge to swoop in on bloodied knees and sanctify it. It's great to hear these guys stretching out and just letting it roll. But as good as they are on their own, you can't help but wish that somebody would have run out of the studio and dragged Pickett or Percy or Aretha back in front of a mic to pay lip service to these soulful treasures. --No Depression Magazine In 1969, after years of working as the house band for the late Rick Hall at the legendary FAME Studios, where the likes of Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett recorded, the M
