When 22-year-old Cherilyn Sarkisian arrived at Muscle Shoals Sound in April 1969, the owners and musicians there didn’t recognize her. Sarkisian, better known as Cher, was one of the most famous singers in the world.
They knew Atlanta Records executive/music producer Jerry Wexler was bringing her to record her next solo album. They just expected Cher to be taller.
As late great session guitarist/studio cofounder Jimmy Johnson told me in 2016, “We were expecting a six-foot Amazon. She just looked tall [in photos and on TV] because she was standing next to Sonny [Bono, Cher’s then husband, with whom she’d recorded as a pop duo]. She was here for about an hour before anyone knew who she was.”
As bassist/studio cofounder David Hood, immortalized as “Little David” in 1972 Staple Singers hit “I’ll Take You There,” recalled, “I took her [Cher] for a ride on my motorcycle, and she was shorter than I am.”
Her talent and impact were tall, though.
Cher’s album was the first album ever cut at Muscle Shoals Sound, the studio the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section — Johnson, Hood, keyboardist Barry Beckett and drummer Roger Hawkins – started in 1969.
Previously, the four musicians, later better known as The Swampers due to a shoutout in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s southern rock hit “Sweet Home Alabama,” had been go-to musicians at FAME Studios, where artists like Wilson Pickett, Etta James and Aretha Franklin recorded now-classic hits.
Wexler played a key role in establishing Muscle Shoals, a small north Alabama municipality, as an unlikely recording mecca, by bringing Atlantic artists to record there. And tap into a country-funk sound masterminded by FAME impresario Rick Hall.
At Muscle Shoals Sound, the Swampers struck out on their own with Wexler’s backing. As the rare session musicians to own and operate their own studio, they were industry pioneers. Their studio was built inside a former coffin factory/showroom across the street from a cemetery in Sheffield, Alabama.
In the mid ‘60s, Sonny & Cher became stars with their smash hit “I Got You Babe.” But as the decade progressed, the duo’s squeaky image and pop sound became lame with the rise of bluesier, edgier acts.
As Cher recalled in her 1998 memoir, “I loved the new sound of Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, the electric-guitar oriented bands. Left to myself, I would have changed with the times because the music really turned me on. But [Sonny] didn’t like it—and that was that.”
Hood told me, “They were at a point in their career, they’d been Sonny & Cher and were famous, but it was in a decline. And that’s when Wexler and Atlantic Records decided they wanted to do a solo album on her.”
In Wexler’s 1993 memoir, Wexler wrote, “I love Cher’s voice and was excited about the project. ‘In the case of a tie [on decisions about the album’s musical direction],’ I told Sonny before the sessions, ‘I win.’”
Wexler selected the songs for Cher’s Muscle Shoals album. The LP featured covers of songs by the likes of Bob Dylan, Otis Redding and Alabama songwriters Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham and Eddie Hinton.
However, before Cher began cutting her vocals, Wexler fell ill with pneumonia. So, Tom Dowd, who’d make his name recording the Allman Brothers and Derek and the Dominoes, and Arif Martin, known for his work with the Rascals, Aretha, Dusty Springfield and, later, acts from Queen and Bee Gees to Hall & Oates and Norah Jones, helmed the sessions.
Johnson, Hood, Beckett and Hawkins provided basic tracks for Cher’s album. Hinton contributed guitar. Backing singers on included a young local named Donna Thatcher, who previous sang on Percy Sledge’s Shoals-recorded 1966 hit ballad “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Thatcher later became known as Donna Jean Godchaux as a member of ‘70s era Grateful Dead.
Singles released from Cher’s Muscle Shoals Sound album were strong. A chicken-fried version of Buffalo Springfield’s hippie classic “For What’s It’s Worth.” A take on Dr. John voodoo rocker “I Walk on Gilded Splinters.” Throughout the album, Cher’s vocals are slinky and soulful, rising to the Alabama musicians’ red-dirt grooves.
Muscle Shoals Sound’s address, 3614 Jackson Highway, was superimposed as the album title on the cover photo, which was shot out in front of the studio. That photo depicted a headband-wearing Cher in front of a cluster of musicians and studio rats who worked on the recording.
Only after the album’s release did Muscle Shoals Sound add the now iconic address sign that hangs on the studio’s cut-stone front, where countless fans and celebs have taken selfies since.
They internet says “3614 Jackson Highway,” Cher’s sixth solo album, got good reviews but flopped commercially. More importantly, it gave Muscle Shoals Sound industry cred. The studio soon scored its first hit with soul singer R. B. Greaves’ song “Take a Letter Maria,” released in September 1969. Many hits followed, including the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” and “Wild Horses.”
“3614 Jackson Highway” helped segue Cher from duo partner to solo star. Her later hits like 1989 pop-rocker “If I Could Turn Back Time” and, especially, 1998 Auto Tune gem “Believe,” have eclipsed “I Got You Babe” in cultural pow. And this weekend, long overdue, Cherilyn Sarkisian was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
