Quick-Fire Quips is a speedy questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the State of Alabama! In this episode, Alabama Public Radio host Baillee Majors talks with the president of FAME Recording Studios and FAME Publishing in Muscle Shoals, Rodney Hall.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is currently showcasing the historic Florence recording studio with the latest exhibition, "Muscle Shoals: Low Rhythm Rising."
The attraction explores how an Alabama community developed a distinctive sound, became a global recording epicenter in the 1960s and 1970s, and continues to inspire music today. The exhibit is available in Nashville through March 2028.
Baillee: Hey, Rodney!
Rodney: Hey, Baillee. How are you doing?
Baillee: Great. Happy to have you on!
Rodney: Great to be here.
Baillee: So, tell me about FAME Recording Studios. You recently celebrated 65 years?
Rodney: Yeah, yeah! My dad started FAME back in the late '50s with a couple of his buddies, Billy Sherrill and Tom Stafford, and started as a publishing company. They had a few hits as a publisher.
Then my dad, who was recording the demos, started recording artists and recorded a guy named Arthur Alexander and had a big hit called "You Better Move On."
From there, it just snowballed into 65 years of hits and 400 million records sold. Everybody from Aretha Franklin to Demi Lovato, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, The Raconteurs, just on and on and on. Vince Gill, Warren Zeiders recently, Them Dirty Roses.
It's been a long stretch of hit records and hit songs, and it's great to be involved in it.
Baillee: Awesome. Now FAME Publishing has been around since 1959 and also has won multiple Song of the Year awards. Most recently with Jason Isbell. Can you tell me about that?
Rodney: Yeah, so the publishing company was the first entity... With most people that are successful in music business, everything starts with a song. If you don't have a great song, it doesn't matter how great you sing or how great your recording is. If the underlying song is not there, then it's hard to get any attention. So, we've built our company on songs and songwriters and being a publisher and developing songwriters.
We've had many great songwriters over the years: Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, George Jackson, some of the legendary early guys. And we had Walt Aldridge and Robert Byrne and my brother Mark wrote "I Like It, I Love It" for Tim McGraw and Brad Crisler and James LeBlanc and on and on.
We've just had a great run of songwriters and songs. We had a Song of the Year on Ronnie Milsap back in the early '80s, called, "There's No Gettin' Over Me." And then we had a song called "I Swear," written by Gary Baker, who's another great songwriter who's come through the doors, and "I Swear" was Song of the Year worldwide: Pop, Country, R&B, everything.
Baillee: Okay, now the introductions are out of the way. Let's get you warmed up to answer the questionnaire. And to do that, I want you to say "Quick-Fire Quips" three times fast.
Rodney: Quick-Fire Quips, Quick-Fire Quips, Quick-Fire Quips.
Baillee: Very nice. Okay, here is the first question. What is the first word that comes to mind when you hear Alabama?
Rodney: Football... Roll Tide! I went to graduate school there (The University of Alabama)... And "Roar Lions." I'm a UNA graduate as well.
Baillee: Okay. Next question, what is a hidden gem in Muscle Shoals that more people should know about?
Rodney: Swampers Bar & Grille at the Renaissance Hotel, which is the only place in the Shoals where you can hear music seven days a week. It's mostly Muscle Shoals artists. That's the place to go and get to hear music and shows when you're here.
Baillee: What's a bad stereotype or something that people get wrong about Alabama?
Rodney: That's easy: that we don't have teeth and we don't wear shoes... I tell people all the time that, we've got a lot to be proud of in Alabama: the space industry, the music industry, our college football programs, just a lot of different things. The natural beauty of the state, it's unparalleled. But there's just a stereotype that we're backwards.
Baillee: Let's talk a little bit about music here. What is something you wish more people knew about the music industry?
Rodney: You know, I wish more people knew how hard it was to make a living. It's super hard for songwriters and artists to get out there and put themselves on the line.
They really got to sacrifice a lot just to try to make it. There's a very small percentage that make it. Whatever you consider "making it," whether it's just making a living, or whether it's becoming a superstar.
People think, "Oh, you're sitting around playing music." No, they're not sitting around playing music. They're working at their craft, and they're getting better and they are honing their craft and becoming great songwriters and great singers and great musicians.
It's not easy. If it was, everybody would be doing it.
Baillee: What's something that you wish more people knew about the local music scene in Muscle Shoals?
Rodney: I wish more people knew about the songwriters. They're behind it all. Without the song, we're nothing.
Baillee: When it comes to vinyl, cassettes or CDs, which do you think is the best to listen to music on?
Rodney: Wow, you know, I've longed for my CD player again after trying to get my Bluetooth hooked up... I missed the long-form formats, whether vinyl, cassette, or CD, where you just put it on and just let it play.
I think the way we listen now has changed. Some of it's better and more convenient, some of it's not. I do miss albums, and I don't think people get to experience albums like they used to, because they just pick the songs they like and they put it on a playlist, and then that's the end of that.
Baillee: If there was an alien invasion, what are three albums that you would give to the aliens to represent Earth's music?
Rodney: I would say Eagles Live.... Prince. I'll go with 1999 on that... And then I would say, probably Michael Jackson's Thriller.
Baillee: Next question, who was your childhood hero?
Rodney: My childhood hero, I would say was my dad... at times.
(Baillee and Rodney laugh)
Baillee: Any particular reasons that stand out for him being your hero?
Rodney: His determination and persistence... failure was not an option for whatever it was he was working on, and he was going to do his very best.
Everything he did, if he was going to do it, he did it to the best of his ability, and beyond. He would leave no doubt that he left it all on the field.
Baillee: Would you say that's a sentiment that you still admire to this day?
Rodney: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, persistence and determination will get you a long way without talent, or anything else... Being persistent with your goals and your dreams, you'd be surprised how quickly some of those things will happen.
Baillee: Okay, here's the last question. What does Alabama need?
Rodney: Alabama's biggest problem is that we are known all over for negative reasons when we've got all these great things: the space program and the music, our football.
I don't think it's promoted well, and everybody thinks of us as a backwards on a lot of levels. I just think we got a bad PR problem.
Baillee: That's it for today's Quick-Fire Quips, a speedy questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the state of Alabama. That was the president of FAME Recording Studios and FAME Publishing in Muscle Shoals.
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