Osborne Ink » Muscle Shoals Sound

Saturday Afternoon TV: W.C. Handy Festival

Matt Osborne — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 17:00:46 +0000

In honor of the WC Handy Music Festival this weekend, here are several performances of his classic song “St. Louis Blues.” I hope to catch a Pine Hill Haints Show in the next few days and give viewers a completely different take on this tune:

Morning Truckers

Matt Osborne — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:05:00 +0000

Much to my surprise — and delight — I have tickets to see these guys tonight.

Lyrics to We Ain’t Never Gonna Change by The Drive By Truckers

Let this be a lesson to you girl: Don’t come around where you know you don’t belong.
They’re riding on the avenue and probably coming after you and they all look mean and strong.
Mean and strong like liquor.
Mean and strong like fear.
Strong like the people from South Alabama and mean like the people from here.
Take it from me… We ain’t never gonna change.

Daddy used to empty out his shotgun shells and fill ‘em full of black-eyed peas.
He’d aim real low and tear out your ankles or rip right through your knees.
There ain’t much traffic on the highway. There ain’t much traffic on the lake.
The ATF and the ABI got everything they could take.
Take it from me… They didn’t take it from me.

We ain’t never gonna change.
We ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong.
We ain’t never gonna change
so shut your mouth and play along.

I thought about going in the army. I thought about going overseas.
I wouldn’t have trouble with a piss test; only problem is my bad left knee.
My brother got picked up at Parker’s, got him a ride in a new Crown Vic.
They said that he was movin’ on a federal level but they couldn’t really make it stick.
Take it from me…

We ain’t never gonna change.
We ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong.
We ain’t never gonna change
so shut your mouth and play along.

You can throw me in the Colbert County jailhouse.
You can throw me off the Wilson Dam
but there ain’t much difference in the man I wanna be and the man I really am.

Death of a Lyric

Matt Osborne — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:32:00 +0000

It’s the end of a lyric. Barry Beckett, founding member of the session band The Swampers, died last Thursday. Millions of people have loved his music for four decades without ever knowing who he was, even when Lynrd Skynrd sang about them:

Now Muscle Shoals has got The Swampers
And they’ve been known to pick a song or two
Lord they get me off so much
They pick me up when I’m feeling blue
Now, how about you?

Beckett is survived by the sound he helped create: a unique crossroads of blues, rock, country, and soul known as “southern rock.” Muscle Shoals remains a complete secret to most music fans despite the incredible number of hits still coming from its studios today.

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