Aretha Franklin

Now Muscle Shoals Has Got The Swampers...

Now Muscle Shoals Has Got The Swampers...

When you have a chance to fulfill a childhood dream, you have to jump at it, right? That was how we ended up in Muscle Shoals, Alabama last weekend.

In 1969, Cher made an album no one cared about: 3614 Jackson Highway. Growing up an extremely loyal Cher fanatic, I was one of the few who did care. I pored over the liner notes (a handwritten letter from Cher herself, in which she earnestly uses the word “groovy” twice) and examined the cover many times when I was younger, imagining the place in time and space that this album came out of. After learning it was in Alabama, I figured I’d probably never get there, and figured there wouldn’t be too much there, anyway.