{"id":12443,"date":"2017-03-16T05:30:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T09:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=12443"},"modified":"2017-03-13T08:32:53","modified_gmt":"2017-03-13T12:32:53","slug":"amy-blacks-latter-day-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2017\/03\/16\/amy-blacks-latter-day-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Amy Black’s Latter-day FAME"},"content":{"rendered":"

Singer’s Muscle Shoals Revue honors music made at legendary Alabama studio<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amy Black<\/strong> didn’t set out to showcase the music of Muscle Shoals, Alabama’s FAME Studios; things just worked out that way. \u201cIt wasn’t planned,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was kind of organic.\u201d Black originally planned to record most of her 2014 album This is Home<\/i> in Nasheville, and then do a few tracks in Muscle Shoals with famed keyboardist Spooner Oldham<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we nailed that album in Nashville, and really didn’t need the studio time\u201d in Muscle Shoals, Black recalls. But since the studio \u2013 and Oldham \u2013 had already been booked, Black went to the small Alabama city anyway. The result of those sessions was an EP, The Muscle Shoals Session<\/i>. That four-song set actually came out ahead of This is Home<\/i>, and the experience of making it whetted Black’s appetite for classic southern soul.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The FAME studio was something Black took for granted as a child. She grew up not far from Muscle Shoals, and passed the nondescript building countless times. \u201cIt was on the corner of a major intersection where my grandparents lived,\u201d she says. Though Black had seen the outside of the building, she didn’t know the story of what went on inside until she had grown to adulthood.<\/p>\n

The Muscle Shoals tunes were originally a side project for the singer, who relocated not long ago from Boston to Nashville. \u201cBut it turned into something much bigger for me.\u201d Black eventually returned to Muscle Shoals \u2013 again with Oldham \u201cat the same Wurlitzer that he had played when he was 19 years old,\u201d Black says \u2013 and cut additional tunes to make an album, The Muscle Shoals Sessions<\/i>, released in 2015.<\/p>\n

That second set of sessions was informed by a different sensibility, says Black. \u201cBy that point I had already done a bunch of Muscle Shoals Revue shows,\u201d she says. Though her original work on This is Home<\/i> and three earlier albums shows Black’s bluegrass\/Americana side, she says that the music of The Muscle Shoals Sessions<\/i> has \u201cbecome such a part of who I am, how I sing and what I do that I don\u2019t even think that much about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The songs on The Muscle Shoals Sessions<\/i> \u2013 and in Black’s live Revue \u2013 are a mix of well-known and little-heard gems, covers of songs cut decades ago at FAME, the same studio where countless legendary musicians recorded. Some of the singers and players who cut tracks at FAME include Etta James, Wilson Pickett, Duane Allman<\/strong>, and (much more recently) The Drive-By Truckers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Black has a long list of FAME-based songs from which to choose. \u201cI have to feel excited about the song on some level,\u201d she says, \u201cwhether it\u2019s a ballad or a high-energy song. Ultimately, I have to be happy singing it night after night; I have to feel like it\u2019s something that I can really make my own.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, and with all due respect to the original people who recorded them,\u201d Black says, \u201cwhen I sing them, they\u2019re my songs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Singer’s Muscle Shoals Revue honors music made at legendary Alabama studio Amy Black didn’t set out to showcase the music of Muscle Shoals, Alabama’s FAME Studios; things just worked out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,69],"tags":[2982],"class_list":["post-12443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-soul","tag-amy-black","cat-41-id","cat-69-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12445,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12443\/revisions\/12445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}