Independent Lens
Ratified
Ratified brings to life the push to add the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution through the legal battle in Virginia—the final state needed to ratify the amendment.
Muscle Shoals
Muscle Shoals, Alabama is the unlikely breeding ground for some of America's most creative and defiant music. This film is a history of the small Alabama city’s remarkable legacy in rock and soul music, focusing in large part on the huge contributions from FAME Studios founder Rick Hall.
- Series
- Independent Lens
- Premiere Date
- April 21, 2014
- Length
- 120 minutes
Director
Greg "Freddy" Camalier
Making his directorial debut with Muscle Shoals, filmmaking is a deep-seated passion Greg “Freddy” Camalier is hoping and planning to pursue for the remainder of his life. Having never attended film school, Camalier’s sense of filmmaking is born from his own instincts and visual sensibilities as well as from an appreciation for the art form. Camalier… Show more
Producer
Stephen Badger
We fund untold stories for public media.
Learn more about funding opportunities with ITVS.
The Film
Located alongside the Tennessee River, Muscle Shoals, Alabama is the unlikely breeding ground for some of America's most creative and defiant music. Under the spiritual influence of the "Singing River," as Native Americans called it, the music of Muscle Shoals has helped create some of the most important and resonant songs of all time. At its heart is Rick Hall who founded FAME Studios.
Overcoming crushing poverty and staggering tragedies, Hall brought black and white together in Alabama's cauldron of racial hostility to create music for the generations. He is responsible for creating the "Muscle Shoals sound" and The Swampers, the house band at FAME that eventually left to start their own successful studio, Muscle Shoals Sound.
In this joyful film, Gregg Allman, Bono, Clarence Carter, Mick Jagger, Etta James, Alicia Keys, Keith Richards, Percy Sledge, and others bear witness to Muscle Shoals' magnetism, mystery, and why it remains influential today.
