Muscle Shoals and Sound City

Two new documentaries about famous recording studios, that you can find on the Web. Muscle Shoals is a little town in Alabama that produced hundreds of albums by everyone from Percy Sledge to the Stones. We learn that the line Now Muscle Shoals has the Swampers from Lynard Skynard's tune Sweet Home Alabama is a reference to the incredibly funky studio group of white boys that kicked the whole thing off.

Sound City is from David Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters) and touches on a completely different town, Van Nuys California, where an equally impressive list of music acts recorded hit albums in this dumpy little studio. Grohl was inspired to make the movie after buying the classic Neve soundboard the studio used, something that is fascinating to me, being a former owner of a recording studio.

Both films are must-watches for fans of rock 'n roll, soul and blues history.