Alex Henderson

The Muscle Shoals Horns
Doin' It to the Bone

When one thinks of southern soul in the 1960s and 1970s, the first place that comes to mind is Memphis. Tennessee’s largest city was the home of the legendary Stax Records, and Memphis was where Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Booker T. & the MGs, Eddie Floyd, Johnnie Taylor and others recorded some of their biggest hits. But in Alabama, there was another city that became a hotbed of southern soul: Muscle Shoals. Many soul giants recorded in Muscle Shoals back then, from Aretha Franklin, Etta James and Candi Staton to Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Clarence Carter, Bobby Womack, Joe Tex and Solomon Burke. And when rockers wanted to give their recordings an R&B edge, they went to Muscle Shoals—rockers who included the Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, Bob Seger and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Just as Memphis had its session players, Muscle Shoals had the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, a.k.a. the Swampers (who Lynyrd Skynyrd gave a big shout out on their 1974 hit “Sweet Home Alabama”) and the four horn players who came to be called the Muscle Shoals Horns: trombonist Charles Rose, trumpeter Harrison Calloway, tenor saxophonist Harvey Thompson and baritone saxophonist Ronnie Eades. After countless sessions backing other artists, the Muscle Shoals Horns wanted to be leaders for a change—and in 1976, Bang Records released their first album on their own, Born to Get Down. A second Muscle Shoals Horns album, Doin’ It to the Bone, was released by Ariola Records in 1977.

Like Born to Get Down, Doin’ It to the Bone was produced by Swampers pianist/keyboardist Barry Beckett but is by no means a carbon copy of the recordings that Pickett or Franklin had recorded in Muscle Shoals. Rather, Doin’ It to the Bone blends elements of Muscle Shoals soul with the popular funk and disco sounds of 1977. This is largely a party album, and the Muscle Shoals Horns keep things funky and danceable on “Addicted to Your Love” (which hints at Earth, Wind & Fire), “Can’t Break the Habit” and “What’s Goin’ Down” as well as “Keep on Playin’ That Funky Music,” the title track and the single “I Just Want to Turn You On.” However, the Muscle Shoals Horns detour into sociopolitical commentary on “Beware of the Rip-Off,” which tackles unemployment, poverty and other issues. 

Original material dominates this album, although the Muscle Shoals Horns also include a cover of Enchantment’s “Dance to the Music.” Enchantment, a Detroit-based vocal group along the lines of the Temptations, the Four Tops and the Dramatics, are best remembered for romantic northern soul ballads like “Gloria,” “It’s You That I Need” and “Sunshine,” but they could provide funky dance grooves as well—and “Dance to the Music” (which Enchantment’s Emanuel “EJ” Johnson wrote with Detroit-born producer Michael Stokes) was a prime example.

After Doin’ It to the Bone, the Muscle Shoals Horns went on to record a third LP: Shine On, released by Monument Records in 1983. Now, in 2015, FunkytownGrooves is reissuing all three of their albums—Born to Get Down and Shine On as well as Doin’ It to the Bone—on CD.

Interviewed in March 2015, Rose, Eades and Calloway fondly looked back on their 1970s activities. Rose remembered that the art work on Doin’ It to the Bone’s front cover was quite similar to the art work that, 17 years later, was used on an anthology by British rockers Humble Pie (the band that singer Peter Frampton belonged to before going solo in 1971).

“My brother John pointed out to me that the cover of Humble Pie’s 1994 Hot ‘n’ Nasty anthology bore a striking resemblance to the cover of Doin’ It to the Bone, released in 1977,” Rose observes. “I have no idea if it was a case of plagiarism or if both covers were parodies of an earlier illustration.”

Calloway remembered that the Muscle Shoals Horns enjoyed a strong rapport with Atlantic Records President Jerry Wexler in their heyday, noting: “Jerry Wexler would bring all his clients to Muscle Shoals to record at producer Rick Hall’s FAME Studios. Then, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section—Jimmy Johnson, David Hood, Barry Beckett and Roger Hawkins—moved across town and formed a studio named Muscle Shoals Sound. We were still working for Rick but not under contract. That meant we had access to whatever artists Wexler bought to Muscle Shoals Sound, and he would say that he wanted the same guys that played over at FAME Studios to play horns on the sessions. At FAME, we already had recorded with Candi Staton, Clarence Carter, Wilson Pickett, Mac Davis and the Osmonds—and Muscle Shoals Sound brought in Bob Seger, Bobby Womack and the Staple Singers. All the people started leaving FAME and going over to Muscle Shoals Sound to record. So we were working in both studios.”

Eades observes that the Muscle Shoals Horns were quite methodical on the numerous sessions they were hired for. “Harrison came up with many of the licks we would use in order to not confuse the producers too much,” Eades explains. “We ran this process like a well-oiled machine. Here’s how it worked: in the studio, we would go and sit in the control room and listen to the song. We’d get a feel for how we could complement the song. Somebody would have a little lick, and Harrison would say, ‘That’s great, let’s do that.’ Then, we would work up the whole song inside the control room. We did this by humming our parts. After we had all parts down by humming them, we’d go into the studio and play it once or twice on our instruments. People used to come in to watch us do this process, to see how we worked.”

After many years, the Muscle Shoals Horns are still closely identified with southern-style R&B. But when they started recording albums of their own, the Alabama residents were determined to stretch out and try different things—and on Doin’ It to the Bone, they did exactly that.

—Alex Henderson, March 2015

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in Billboard, Spin, Salon.com, Creem, The L.A. Weekly, AlterNet, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Cash Box, HITS, CD Review, Skin Two, Black Beat, The Pasadena Weekly, Black Radio Exclusive (BRE), Music Connection, The New York City Jazz Record, Jazz Inside Magazine and many other well-known publications. Henderson (alexvhenderson.com) also contributed several thousand CD reviews to the popular Allmusic.com website and The All Music Guide’s series of music reference books.