Summary: | This historic marker is located at the intersection of Tennessee St and Seminary St, Florence, AL.
The text on the side one of the marker reads: "This marks the site of the pioneering music company of Florence Alabama Music Enterprises (FAME), a name which became renowned worldwide is the home of the Muscle Shoals Sound. FAME was founded in the early 1960s by three young local entrepreneurs (Rick Hall, Billy Sherrell and Tom Stafford) who improvised a makeshift studio in a vacant room above the city drugstore that once stood here. FAME’S earliest recording sessions launched the careers of such music business legends as Arthur Alexander, Rick Hall, Billy Sherrell, Norbert Putman, David Briggs, Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, and many others."
Side two reads: "Following limited success, the partnership dissolved. Rick Hall took the publishing company and FAME name in return for the studio equipment. He relocated the studio to an empty tobacco warehouse in Muscle Shoals. His next recording of “You Better Move On”, by Arthur Alexander, was acclaimed as the Shoals first worldwide bestseller. Over the next several decades FAME recording studios became one of the most successful producers of rhythms in blues, pop and country music in the world. Rick Hall became known as the “Father of the Muscle Shoals Sound”. "
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