FAME Studios

FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studios are located at 603 East Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, an area of northern Alabama known as The Shoals. Though small and out of the way of the main recording locations of the American music industry, FAME has produced a large number of hit records and was instrumental in what came to be known as the "Muscle Shoals sound". Started in the 1950s by Rick Hall, the studio is still actively recording, and was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on December 15, 1997.

History

Early history

Founded by Rick Hall, Billy Sherrill and Tom Stafford in the late 1950s, the studio was first located above the City Drug Store in Florence, Alabama. The facility was moved to a former tobacco warehouse on Wilson Dam Road in Muscle Shoals in the early 1960s, when Hall split from Sherrill and Stafford. Hall soon recorded the first hit record from the Muscle Shoals area, Arthur Alexander's "You Better Move On".

Hall took the proceeds from that recording to build the current facility on Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals, and in 1963, Hall recorded the first hit produced in that building, Jimmy Hughes' "Steal Away."