life in the 1800's was just fun, fun, fun....they needed a driver like Jan
The day began, per usual when you’re bicycle touring, checking in with The Weather Channel. The call was for big time storms after the noon hour. We had what appeared to be a three-hour window to get in some pedaling.
The moisture was coming up from the South pushed by 25-40 mph winds. Guess what direction we were heading. After the first 12 miles I checked my watch to discover I was averaging about 8 miles an hour and was well on my way to exhaustion.
Jan, with the common sense unique to Iowans, and totally lacking to those raised in Illinois suggested, “Look you wanted to ride into Alabama. Why don’t we drive to the state line, take your picture and then you can pedal back here with the wind at your back.
Good-bye Tennessee and hello Alabama.....unless of course you want to ride with the wind
Off we went. Took the picture and I headed north. It was uphill almost the entire distance and I averaged over 15 mph. My wife is a genius.
Then she decided to ride thinking riding into the wind would give her a quick, hard workout. We were two hours past the noon deadline, that was the good news but storm clouds were gathering. I caught up with Jan after a ten-mile ride, she was tired and the wind continued to accelerate.
After what seemed an un-ending drive we made the 20 miles into Florence, Alabama, checked into the Hampton Inn (luv those warm chocolate chip cookies everyday at 4) got bags, bike, gin and tonic into the room (the bikes room with us rather than hang-out on the back end of the Ridgeline) and turned on the TV to discover we were smack in the middle of a tornado warning. Well the tornado touched down, but it was over by Huntsville, Alabama almost an hour away.
So tonight Auntie Em (Jan) and I sleep in what has to be America’s unknown music capitol. Florence sits right next to Muscle Shoals, Alabama home of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. Haven’t heard of ‘em? You should if you’re a music fan.
Back in the early sixties four Florence, Alabama musicians worked at a small recording studio as back-up musicians. The four, Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins, David Hood and Jimmy Johnson wrote Mustang Sally for local singer Wilson Pickett and backed up another Florence resident Percy Sledge on the million selling “When A Man Needs a Woman”. They also backed up the Staples Family Singers on the classic “I’ll Take You There.”
Paul Simon heard the Staples cut and wanted the back up musicians on the song to record with him. Told he had to go to the small southern town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama Simon made the trip where he received a big time surprise. At the recording studio he met Becket, Hawkins, Hood and Johnson and after small talk inquired, “Well can I meet the band?” He thought he was talking with studio management since all were white. Indeed R&B legends, the MSRC, were Caucasian. Simon recorded several songs with the group, the best known being “Kodachrome”. Since then they’ve backed up myriad artists including The Rolling Stones, George Strait, Aretha Franklin, Liza Minnelli, Tim McGraw, Alice In Chains, Faith Hill and Rod Stewart.
When Leon Russell recorded in Muscle Shoals he always called the back-up quartet Swampers, a southern term for “helpers” i.e. waiters, hotel maids, etc. The name stuck.
So when the rock group Lynard Skynard wrote what has now become the un-official official song of the “Roll Tide” state, “Sweet Home Alabama” they remembered to include the state’s musical treasures the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.
“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 feelin’ blue
Now how “bout you.
And now one of the most famous guitar intros in the history of rock.
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