Muscle Shoals

Do not leave the film until the last credit rolls by.

Only the genre's most studious followers will be able to watch Muscle Shoals without being regularly astonished: Even if it sometimes gets lost in its byways, Greg "Freddy" Camalier's documentary tells an extraordinary story.

The movie is more a collection of cool people telling great stories than it is a structured documentary (despite Camalier’s attempts in that direction). But in this case, that’s enough.

A trove of great stills and movie footage accompanies the colorful anecdotes, but the film's most consistent pleasure is the way interviewees recall the moments before the tape rolled on an immortal recording.

The hits just keep on coming in Muscle Shoals, a hugely entertaining, perhaps overlong, documentary about the renowned recording studios in the small Alabama town of the film's title. It's mandatory viewing for fans of the classic rock, soul and rhythm and blues of the 1960s and '70s.

Muscle Shoals’ story has needed telling, and Camalier packs that telling with memorable stories and music—though the film sometimes substitutes admiration for investigation, paving over conflicts and moving on to the next amazing piece of music to get recorded in town.

At once overstuffed with interviews and intellectually underdeveloped, the movie charts the area’s music industry and what is lyrically if elusively called the Muscle Shoals sound.

A small town in Alabama became the birth[place of some of the great classic soul hits in the 60s. That was only the beginning for a group of mostly-white men, who created two studios in Muscle Shoals. Later, numerous big names from the Stones to Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded there. This doc outlines 50 years thru interviews with the founders and some of the stars. Great music and a fascinating history. NOTE: Stay thru the credits for one final quote.