on larry king he built a music making empire out of a tiny town named muscle shoals alabama its legendary record to reduce their recall we did the first hit record on aretha franklin we did the first hit record on had a chance to first hit record on otis redding there is a muslim show sound is heavy on the bass heavy on the cape dump and it's got a lot of a lot of balls plus the music today as far as i'm concerned in ten years from now we'll have known more music on the something changes all next on larry king now. welcome to larry king our special guest recall one of the most prolific record

producers music publishers songwriters and musicians of the past century this man built a music making empire out of his legendary fame studios in the tiny town of muscle shoals alabama his resume includes work with some of the industry's biggest artists and acts like a wreath of franklin wilson pickett the osmonds tom jones the allman brothers and paul ag and that's just to name a few ricks we one of a kind story is the subject of a major documentary appropriately titled muscle shoals he's also author of a book called hell bent off for fame he received the highest honor you can get a lifetime achievement award at the twenty fourteen grammys congratulations thank you sir thank you very much let's go back a little fuel beginnings how did you come to the music business well my mother and father divorced when i was very small five years old or. so i begin to play. and

around the community and so forth and so we had we had a bunch of pickers in most of the shows that i became acquainted with and songwriters really cheryl who later became. the head of an art to c.b.s. records in the nashville what took you out of being a musician to being a producer why did you want to produce the question well i want to make more money . so i wanted to. produce records and i felt like being a musician and songwriter and a publisher and all the other things i was qualified and so i wanted to be i wanted to pursue the producing thing where you had a tough childhood right you know yes already have you lost the younger brother in a burning action as first wife in a car wreck rather in a tractor tractor i shall joe become more music has been a lot of time playing music and writing songs and reminiscing about the past in

a soul thing what to get a muscle shoals alabama i was not welcome in nashville tennessee and i had no friends in new york city model was jerry wexler ahmet ertegun. and clive davis knows gas i want to be big and i want to be i want to be in a pop music business to so nationalist country and so i can i can get in i can break in so i muscle shoals so. i came to most of shows and opens a studio start built my own studio was my own engineer and started working with sly and sanger songwriters and and produced a couple hit records in one record was was there or is there a muscle shoals sound there is a muscle so sound. it's hard to describe but i will tell you this it's it's it's

heavy on the bass heavy on the cape rumble and it's got a lot of. it's about the kind of music what was your big break as a producer you better move on by a black artist by the name of arthur alexander and that in early ninety six sixty five sixty six and their own the the the song was recorded and covered in england. a group called the rolling stones oh and that was the and that was one of their first big hit records number one record for them did you have a problem in the south alabama especially working with black artists no i had no problem whatsoever with working with black artists i had problems with people that are i able by people around the rock artists surrounding surrounding those people and managing them and so forth. no i had no i had no problems

whatsoever even though george wallace was standing in the school with us though at the university of alabama saying no blacks here. we had no problems we were colorblind and didn't didn't we wasn't concerned about the current. governor wallace a few times how did the other the muscle shoals and its music affect the civil rights movement you think it had an effect i thought it was their positive effect larry we did the first hit record on rhythm frankly did first hit record on average james with the first hit record on otis redding you have your studio was kind of a safe zone right for black and white artists to work together together in a segregated city yes very much so. with call klux klan all around us in and that kind of thing but but this is the sixty's and things are tough and. but but i

love the black people and all of the black music in the loved southern so black music. such as a wreath at a james wilson pickett mustang sound he's all those all those little hit records that you're familiar with i'm sure and a lot of people in the city get angry you oh they they knew they knew very little about us because we kept the doors closed we kind of kept hush hush the know how the press come around and interview people and thanks like that so we didn't we didn't have any real hostility but we had a lot of questions you know those guys as long has hippies over there they must be selling dope or something because you know that's that's that's how you make a living and most of it was you know it not music business how did you get the music out of muscle shoals i mean you were producing it you didn't have your own label did you know not at first later on i had a label with the capitol records through carl

a woman and so you know that story know him pretty well you know him quite well he said you know i've got this great little studio down and muscle shells in these cats and these cats are really greedy you're gonna love it. she woke seeing. her with her. and she's got this all rounder see i'm a. girl special. remember watching the guy be any good southern boys they carry home with anything except looking or living with her. so she will run over to the piano. she said there a moment. and then she just hit to saw a long cord i would say. anybody out so they were about.

we did what we called had sessions at that time and there was no real news in britain for it the musicians would just listen to what it was i was doing and then they would decide what they were going to do around that that's from an incredible documentary muscle shoals you should see is to play in play it is it's a tremendous you do a great job with a case i salute you very much. a review i told you i'm told her first trip to was a live shows didn't go right didn't go quite as well as we hoped it would. well she and her husband got tanked up a little bit and he started in manning the jay works or far the horn player and then for a trumpet player and then. this other guy and so. i was chosen to be the one that did the find is so as to what are these people doing you know to intimidate you and he said well there they're making passes at my wife so i

said jerry if the session was over as it were i had a few drinks to settle a nurse and i want to ask that i'm going to the studio over to the hotel and i want to clear this all up and use a police don't write report don't go you know because i don't want trouble and i said well i'm not i'm making a trouble i'm just going to have a few drinks and we'll go over there and be but isn't you know with pennies on the back and have everything will be beautiful tomorrow and so on over there and got into a fist fight with her husband i was told by webster that i would he would never darken my doors again he would never come back most of the shows they came to new york went to new york and finished the album without me and of course i was an engineer and co-producer with her on her stuff was with wexler. and it was it was a tough if stuff. how do you think you work so well with black artists. well i'm

one of them. off the field but more on bill clinton yes like exactly half of a fellow black. my wife can tell you i can tell you that. when a million when black people around me they they feel very good about me what was special about aretha she could hit those high notes like nobody could and she had a very good sense of rhythm what makes a good producer a good producer a guy who knows a hit song when he hears it and a guy who knows how to get the best out of musicians and the recording studio is it teachable i don't think it's very tasteful because it takes a tough guy and you have to be able to take a lot of b.s. well names are martyrs you tell me what it was like to work with them at

a james wonderful i thought she's a sweetheart and. they're just brought it to most of shows to meet me and she came down with her for. a long for a code on in our proposals and she got off and it's this is july and august is hot summertime and she came into the studio and she had a she had a ferocious temper and she told me she said i'm going to do this damn sound one more time and i'm not going to want to hear again and i said there this is as a hit song it is if the hits a big hit song for you and it'll bring you back to promise and she's a lot only here because i'm sick of this song i hate this song always made and i don't know why you're making me do this song. but she she did the song it was

a big hit for resume it was called tell mama oh ok wilson pickett wilson pickett we did i had so many great hits with him good guy need mean yeah but but not to me he was we were we were big buddies the stones the stones were rockin bunch of guys they had a big time and they came in the studio if you got a song out of them in three days you were doing that i like makes a lot oh yeah he's a great guy the dixie chicks dixie chicks they were little tough little tough they're nice way the osman's oh boy they're with a they are there every every produces dream is to cause the arguments because the gentleman's gentleman gentle people hard working people very reserved and easy to work with easy to work with i mean love eleven guys i'm on my buddy paul anka paul

is tough he's a fraction ist yeah he was a perfectionist he was a perfectionist and he wanted things his way. they were his way or the highway or my way as he. expected rock stars and known for big egos right yes just trouble dealing with that now because because i had a bigger one myself where. did you ever get all those is have a favorite artist i have a lot of favorite artists and i am a mascot question is a tough one but wilson pickett was one of my favorite artist of all time a wreath of course was. even paul asked him he was kind of guy he was from new york and he grew up hard and tough but documentaries muscle shoals the book is hell bent for fame in the big big grammy awards of two thousand and fourteen he won a lifetime achievement award you can't do better than that when we were turning

give his opinion on the current state of the music industry don't go away. please take me. to take. on. that that would make their feelings. appear.

i think. the really thought if you. did you know the price is the only industry specifically mention in the constitution. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy schreck albus. role. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and across cynical we've been hijacked like a handful of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers once i'm john mark and on this show we reveal the big picture of what's actually going on and on will we go beyond identifying the problem. rational debate real discussion critical issues facing. ready to join the movement then walk the.

recall one be a lifetime achievement grammy was subject to the documentary muscle shoals what was it like when they told you getting an award i got i don't want to personalize it when the emmys called me and told me i'm getting a lifetime achievement was like wow what was it like for you when they told you and they all called me and said rick this is not a regular grammy this is for a lifetime achievement award and i said and he's a what do you got to say to that i said well they allowed tell you what i've got say hallelujah and compare the music industry today to forty years ago because difference well the music today as far as i'm concerned in ten years from now we'll have no war music unless something changes i mean it's. it's having a hard time. the studios are going to one man shows and the man owns the computer every man as

a pro tool in his basement. and he plays all the parts and does music so it is not like in the old days when we did it we had fifteen people in the studio at one time and we did it all together as a team and you came up with a good lick an asset hey let's build a leslie larry's got to lick this all good for that thing and and work around his thing and now one guy is like the old days one guy did all the range an en route wrote all the parts and had him hand them out to the musicians and. it didn't it didn't work so there's no great producers now that's not a great record producer and computers have just about run the business for these people because you can't get paid and you don't have the personal relationship with each other you can't you have no reason to go and find an artist because no money there and so they let you the guys who like myself who can afford to produce

records have all the cream and nobody asking it in the gene no when you were producing something would be a hit with you good at predicting i was great predicting at at i'll tell you a story. what's a call me one time and he said to me i said to him he said well i'm having a party at my house rick and i hope this is important because i don't have time for that moment ambush and so i said well he told me if i found a hit record to call you and send it to you and i've found a number on record jerry is it a pretty big wreck you know so he sent it since it said to me so i sent it to him and he called me back and said i don't like it out there is it has it jurong jerry because it's the number one record worldwide and he said. and that's pretty big i mean that is really big you know are you sure and i said i'm positive that my laugh

on the number two number two with three the number one number one record and he is that well if you feel that song about i want to make a deal with the artist or sledge and we will put it out it was number one and has been number one far for years but i think it's a classic and it's almost when a man loves a woman persis age or so so you knew that right away i knew that right away give a do a song you thought would be a hit and it didn't lot of a lot of i mean i'm tell you like in the name of law that i thought were hits and they weren't hits and when it's not a hit are you able from that or can you analyze it yeah even it can analyze it and i think i can analyze it because i think first of all a record has to have a dance beat have to have to be secondly has to have

a great lyric you have to have an artist who. is a perfect marriage far the song and courses it all starts with the song great song if you've got a great song like my way or whatever but when they miss you are you able to look back and say well here's why that miss maybe wasn't promoted right maybe the company didn't get behind her if you love that to begin with right yes out it sort of to have those ingredients yes it had at least part of those ingredients but of course that was always my cop out was you know the label didn't promote it the. wind when in trouble in the way or i blame the label is there any music form you don't like no music for why. our cost or so of the robber is good you like rap rap if countries good you like color of country yes i like

blues our legs as i like it all are and i love every part of it not every thing about all of it but but but i'm i'm a big believer in music i think is i think it keeps the world going on strong what about the record industry today and for a whole lot of trouble a lot of trouble they are just barely hanging in there and they they've they've let a lot of people go they've tried to they've they've joined forces in this label bought that label and that big fish eat up the little fish and so forth until there's no. there's no there's nobody in the music that is that i know right now that was a webster or are are a cloud of day this are that kind of a form or are you tired no i'm sorry still going i'm waiting for another elvis come on but special about muscle shoals as a place to live while you live there it's

a small town with a it's a small town with big music jimmied presently yes i made it one time in las vegas would you like to record them oh i love the recording is forty miles down the road from most of the right people in mississippi what's an upcoming artist we should keep an eye on well there's a couple or three that i'm infatuated with well there's a duet i think it's it's the best we've got down there at now in there cause civil wars the so wars are going to be hearing a lot about oh yes you are they've already want a couple of grammys you're going to move to new york. i love new york love the people in new york they grew up with them and they'll tell you how to get to a place there on tell you why yes plexi used to say to me larry say rick

when i call you up you need to have a list made of things that you want and i'll say yes or no and we get through that and five minutes will be done and you know companies a lot but he said don't give me that book about mom and they'll. looking back look at the where you came from poverty and tragedy in your family and you pinch yourself i mean are you surprised that all is not really a i'm of firm believer and. i tell people that kick ass and take names and i'm a survivor have never doubted my. abilities i've always believed in myself and i believe that i was smarter than the next musician songwriter producer engineer the whole thing so we were tough guy to deal with tough it was tough business man hours. car can tell you that i was very tough.

and i had some tough attorneys and they were all from new york clive davis is very big with the grammys and everything is big party which we attend every year we see how important was he in the music business nobody better jerry works or came very close but the company wasn't quite as big as the eighty five special that's been a guest here with us clive was. or is still going yeah here is he still going i mean still a great guy he knows a great song when he hears it you know the hit record when he hears it. he listens to people like recall any listens to larry king and he listens to everybody and says what do you think of the song oh you don't like it why don't you like it you know he's very anyways not a close minded it was no no no here let me introduce harry connick jr yes or in a minute he's that kind of guy and and i went to his office one time and sat with

all of these executives that i think is on tuesday morning we were having a big visit meeting and and he said to me this is recall his the great producer bob vava musses it was alabama and and. i want him to sit in with me and he set me back and his chair beside him and he said i want him to this into the music with me if he hears here i want to tell me and we played a song and i said this to him as a number one record if promoted and he said rick just told me this is a number one record guys and it better be. you know what it was it was one of those one of those teenage girl things clean you hear me you know and you can you can you see me you know is in the harp of of opera sometimes artists aren't the best judge of their own no they're not does the senate worth

a visit bill that johnny cash was very good to me and i interviewed him many times johnny cash hated i walk go on he listened to it didn't like it he's driving in the car he hears it on the radio couldn't stand it close up sam whatever his name was at that record company this is i can send us a sense of the says it's the number one song in the country and he thought it missed a beat. no kidding so you never know now and never know how you would have known that one right i know now and i wouldn't know now and well not only that but sam phillips is from muscle shoals alabama is he and he came up with roy orbison he came up with johnny cash he came up with elvis presley came up with carl perkins all those big rock'n'roll acts jerry lee lewis. holo shaken all that stuff or you guys had this special knowledge about music of music of knowing what you hear

right you can you hear something i don't hear i am and you can't teach that no you can't teach that i think is a god given talent that we some of us have some of us don't have but i think it's i think is you're right this very very unique in the music business because we only have maybe a half dozen and in america are in the world maybe a dozen. that can do that there's a good artist were on their producer evilly they're happy with it and congratulations on the lifetime achievement graduations on the coming book graduations on muscle shoals thank you sir thanks to my very special guest the legendary recall i remember you can find me on twitter at kings things see you next time.

well for the. science technology innovation all the latest developments from around russia we've got the future of coverage.

crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want. the the the. the. dog i'm abby martin and this is breaking the set i want to start off today's show by giving a shout out to nine hundred centuries abolitionist frederick douglass because today is his birthday so after escaping the shackles of slavery back in eight hundred

thirty eight douglas became one of the leaders of the abolition movement as well as an extremely accomplished writer in order his leadership was an integral in raising slavery consciousness in the civil war era and after the war was over douglass helped lincoln move the emancipated slaves out of the south he proved the colonizing myth that black people were somehow inferior to whites completely wrong and even though his dedication was primarily for black equality also believe in the equality for all disenfranchised minorities one scene famously said i would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong all i couldn't agree more so let's find that common ground in the spirit of frederick douglass and let's break the set. of the. it was a. very hard to take that. once again. that he ever had sex with her.