MUSCLE SHOALS – The story of WLAY AM 1450, is not only the story of Northwest Alabama,, but is the story of its historic place as the worldwide Mecca of the Music Industry. Nowadays, pretty much everybody in The Shoals knows that our local recording studios, producers and recording artists created many of the most famous tunes in popular music. But that’s in our more modern history… Not so much at the beginning of the recording industry. The studios were probably one of our best kept secrets in the ’50’s, ’60’s and ’70’s. Recording artists and producers in those early days would make their pilgrimages from New York, Chicago, Memphis, Los Angeles and around the world to take a sip of the magic waters to be found in this little-known, back woods place. And when they returned to their homes, they took with them some of that supernatural juice from the “Singing River”. To list just a few artists and their hit songs just barely scrapes the surface of the totality of accomplishments…
But here goes…
“You Better Move On” Arthur Alexander 1961
“When A Man Loves A Woman” Percy Sledge 1966
“Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” Aretha Franklin 1967
“Brown Sugar” The Rolling Stones 1969
“Old Time Rock and Roll” Bob Seger 1970
“One Bad Apple” The Osmonds 1971
“Kodachrome” Paul Simon 1973
There are way too many to list. However there is a little known, but common thread running through these hit records. It is Radio Station WLAY.
“Rick Hall, owner and renowned producer at FAME Studios, was friends with my father, Mitch Self here at WLAY”, Kevin Self explained to The Quad Cities Daily. “Our families lived close to one another. And we kids of the Hall’s and the Self’s were really close friends and playmates”. Kevin told us that they really didn’t understand just what was happening over at FAME. “We were neighborhood kids playing together. But I guess we realized that the Halls were something special the day the Osmond Brothers came into my house and we’re playing football in the backyard. They were staying with Rick’s family when they were in town recording. To us, they’re just a bunch of boys. We didn’t know who they were. And we were pretty much 12, 13 year old boys and playing football, having a good time. And we’d get finished and they’d go home and we’d go in the house and it’s just over. We weren’t so star struck. And so the stars and the entertainers, again, would feel very comfortable here because they weren’t just getting mobbed all the time in the big cities. Here in Muscle Shoals, they were just treated like ordinary folks.”
Kevin Self with a photo of his Father, Mitch Self
Kevin tied the ribbon on his reference to the close relationship between his Dad, Rick Hall and the recording artists. ” Some of the biggest records ever recorded, we recorded right here in Muscle Shoals. And so in that time, there was no digital processing and there wasn’t there wasn’t a computer at the studio. All of those things that they have now in the digital world, they didn’t have then. Analog is all on tape, and Rick would produce a song in the studio and needed to know what it sounded like on the radio because he knew that that’s where this music was going to be consumed,” Kevin explained. He continued, “They would sell 45 RPM records at the record store. And and the reason that they would sell those records is because the kids or adults, whomever, would hear that music on the radio. So they wanted it to sound the best it possibly could. In the early days of the record producing, the studios had the capability of producing a demo record, and it was called an acetate. So Rick would produce several different acetates of different mixes of the songs. and Rick would bring those acetates here to WLAY and Dad would get them played on the air while Rick was outside the station in his car listening to them. Maybe a tune needed more bass or more treble or more vocal presence or all those things that it would that they mixed for so it sounded good on a car radio. Funny, but the deejay would probably most of the time not even announce the record. Wouldn’t say that this is the brand new one from Fame because it hadn’t been released yet. He just hit it cold!”
“Those days, when the personal touch that a radio station like WLAY could put those random tracks on the air, are long gone. But that’s how my Dad played a small hand in getting these hits out!” Kevin smiled… Later, as the number of recording studios grew around Muscle Shoals, like Muscle Shoals Sound Studios and others came into being, those studios could become close to WLAY as well,” Kevin explained, “It was really a special time. Technically, this station, this radio station had the best gear and the and a good sound. And and so they were very confident in what they were hearing would be mimicked throughout the country in some of the bigger markets in the country. And that’s one of the things that we kind of cling to. We’re proud of that we played a little bit of a role in some of the biggest hit records ever released.”
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