Hidden Spaces: Muscle Shoals Music
Hidden Spaces: Muscle Shoals Music” helps us better understand the way music makers work. Fans engage with music via recordings and live performance and tour famous recording studios but may be unaware of how and why their favorite songs were written. While the Shoals region of north Alabama was home to various performance venues over the years, live music was not necessarily the dominant driver that generated the art and identity now associated with Muscle Shoals. When preparing to record, songwriters, musicians, engineers, and producers often work singularly on their own, in their own private spaces. Before recording, they may gather in shared locations outside of the studio to collaborate and share ideas.
This process, while creatively exciting for the artists and an integral part of the final product, remains unseen and unknown to casual fans—music industry marketing strategies often mask the complex skill, craft, and contemplation necessary to produce hit songs and deeper album cuts. Documenting these personal spaces and visually capturing the artists that use them will help music fans understand the hidden creative process. As the now famous studios in the Shoals region continue to represent sites of successful musical production, these individual spaces serve critical functions by providing songwriters and musicians the focus they need to convert ideas and emotions into melodies, chord progressions, and songs.
Hidden Spaces: Muscle Shoals Music has been made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
