NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WHNT) — The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s exhibit, “Low Rhythm Rising: The Muscle Shoals Sound,” marked its first week open to the public Friday. It’s a love letter to the Shoals that celebrates the music and musicians of North Alabama.
Michael Gray, co-curator of the exhibit, said the reception from musicians was overwhelmingly positive.
“We truly got a great reception. The best support from everyone in Muscle Shoals,” Gray said. “Some of the musicians had never been here to the Hall of Fame and Museum. We would bring them here and show them the museum and say, ‘These are our plans.’ A lot of our job is stewardship and building trust. We’re going to take care of your artifacts. We’re going to tell your story correctly.”
One of the best stories belongs to 82-year-old Spooner Oldham, a legendary Shoals musician who has created music with some of the industry’s best. News 19 asked him about one photo showing him and Aretha Franklin.
“Well, I’ve never seen this photo. I saw one black and white from a distance, couldn’t tell who I was, but I can tell on this one,” Oldham said, noting the scarcity of photos from that era. “A guy named David Garr took that photo. I’m real pleased. Aretha and I were in our mid-20s, probably.”
The exhibit also tackles the question of what defines the “Muscle Shoals Sound.” Songwriter and Single Lock Records co-founder John Paul White had the best description of it.
“My answer to it when people ask what is the Muscle Shoals Sound, my opinion is that there is no sound,” White said. “The thing I love about Muscle Shoals is that every artist that came here—and if you know these musicians, you know why they came here—every one said, ‘What is the best thing for this record and this artist at this moment in time?’”
The “street cred” that comes with a Muscle Shoals connection is real, according to musician Jason Isbell.
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“When I met my heroes… I met Kristofferson or John Prine or Neil Young or Springsteen or people like that… if I didn’t have anything to talk to them about, I would tell them where I was from, and that always worked, every time,” Isbell said. “Because everyone serious about the history of popular American music knows some of what went down in Muscle Shoals, and it gave me a legitimacy, whether I deserved it or not. Plus, it gave me something to talk about with those folks instead of, ‘Oh, man, I love your music,’ ya know, and then kind of stumbling off.”
“Low Rhythm Rising” is a long-term exhibition and will remain open through 2028.
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