There are just a few recording studios in the world that changed that same world by determining the course of popular music, and two of those based in the States were Stax and Muscle Shoals, the latter a home not only to such classics by the likes of Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett as, respectively, “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)” and “Land Of A Thousand Dances” but also “Brown Sugar” by THE ROLLING STONES and “Sailing” by Rod Stewart. So it’s about time the Alabama haunt’s tale to be dug into and explored in detail.
Land Of A Thousand Sessions:
The Complete Muscle Shoals Story
1951-1985
Who would be the best person to do it if not Rob Bowman, a venerated Canadian scholar in this field who penned “Soulsville U.S.A.” almost three decades ago, which became a source for an HBO documentary series last year? He also wrote the book on Malaco Records, “The Last Soul Company” that was published back in 2021, and now this label facilitated the emergence of “Land Of A Thousand Sessions: The Complete Muscle Shoals Story 1951-1985”: the tome that runs for over 750 pages and is scheduled to see the light of day on November 11th.
In order to investigate the happenings in the Alabama studios, Bowman interviewed almost a hundred of people who conjured magic there, including Mavis Staples and Mick Jagger. Some of them had never reminisced on the subject before; others have left us since talking to Rob, all of this making the book unique. Given the usual depth of the writer’s oeuvre, the results of his work feel fairly indispensable for any music lover.
