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Critics Consensus: Essential for soul fans and entertaining for novices, Muscle Shoals offers a compelling, warts-and-all glimpse at one of the most fascinating stories in modern American music.
Critic Consensus: Essential for soul fans and entertaining for novices, Muscle Shoals offers a compelling, warts-and-all glimpse at one of the most fascinating stories in modern American music.
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All Critics (82) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (79) | Rotten (3)
Hall's backstory, riddled with tragedy, gets the proper attention and respect here. But it's the music that won't let you stop watching.
The movie is more a collection of cool people telling great stories than it is a structured documentary (despite Camalier's attempts in that direction). But in this case, that's enough.
Director Greg "Freddy" Camalier augments the talking heads with unusually evocative vistas ...
Occasionally baggy, always sincere, this is an essential document of a defining era when 'soul' really meant something.
Even casual music fans will enjoy behind-the-hits doc.
Greg Camalier's debut feature offers a worthy if sometimes ponderous take on a significant slice of U.S. popular music history.
The movie doesn't mention the contemporary Christian or gospel albums recorded at his studio. But what's there is so uplifting it's still well worth your time.
An occasionally doleful but otherwise lively trip, Muscle Shoals is yet another cinematic shout-out to those unsung heroes who came out of nowhere and made music that mattered.
Camalier's tuneful if somewhat overlong anecdotal history does the most justice to the Muscle Shoals sound just by listening to it.
Retrospective rockumentary deconstructs the secret of a legendary Alabama music studio's success.
It is amazing to see how this style and sound came to fruition as it changed the careers of artists like Aretha Franklin and created some of the most memorable albums and songs from artists like Etta James, The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and [more].
Camalier makes an excellent job of combining talking-head interviews with music, anecdotes and folklore.
Shortly after streaming this music documentary I also streamed The Wrecking Crew. I have rated this one a full star higher because every part of it is simply a step above that other rock doc. The studio session musicians at the center of this doc produced more essential tracks for more hit records and artists. The storytelling aspect is more interesting with great interview clips and archival materials. FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama was ambitiously, independently managed by Rick Hall. It is thrilling if you only know the big name singers/bands who recorded songs at FAME to get a behind the scenes peek and meet the work horse session musicians who are actually responsible for the sounds we know and love.
Super Reviewer
There have been a tremendous amount of music documentaries created over the last five years and Muscle Shoals adds to that memorable list. Here deep in Alabama, a unique sound emerges causing all the big names in music to come, record and pay homage. This is also a homage to those individuals who stayed in the community and contributed to that greatness.
Documentary explaining how two studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama became hit factories, supplying us with number one singles from Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin, the Rolling Stones, and others. This goes deeper into the music business and its history than the more celebrated 20 FEET FROM STARDOM, and Anthony Arendt's unexpectedly great cinematography makes this tiny hamlet and its environs into a character every bit as intriguing as the rural music moguls.
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