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A Brief History
By Dustin K. Britt
Nearly a century before The Swampers founded the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Tuscumbia-based duo The Shoalsmen began drunkenly plucking out American and Irish standards on the Wimberley’s family’s back porch. With Al Riggs on guitar and Joe Wimberley on the double bass, the boys caught the ear of many local vagrants, dogs, and truant children, who joyfully slept through many of their four-hour concerts.
When Al and Joe were too gin soaked to play straight, local fiddler Kelli Partin would routinely step up and entertain the townsfolk with an Irish jig or two. Now a trio, the Shoalspeople were hired for box socials, weddings, political rallies, and the occasional live goat birth.
When local boy James Keller came passing by one day, saying he could pick a few notes on the old banjo, the trio gladly welcomed him to the porch whenever he decided to skip school or church, practically a weekly occurrence. On more than one occasion, James guilted his family into hiring the group to play at family reunions and picnics at Ivy Green.
Al, Joe, Kelli, and James begged Viney Washington, soprano at the First Baptist Church, to sing a song a song now and then, fleshing out the group’s Alabama sound.
Over the next four years, a revolving door of percussionists joined and left the quartet (now re-renamed the Shoalsmen, as Shoalspeople wouldn’t fit on the wagon). It became commonplace for Kelli to search the crowd for a young fellow and toss him a few kitchen appliances to bang.
Few recordings of Shoalsmen songs were known to have been made before they disbanded in 1896 after Joe’s wife Renee gave birth to their third child and Al moved to Nashville to begin a successful two-week solo career.
When the Alabama Ave. location of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio was sold to another label in 2005, a 7” gramophone record was discovered, along with a small painting of a country house. It was an 1889 recording of American folks song (and occasional sea shanty) “Shenandoah.” Its condition was surprisingly good and efforts to clean up the recording proved successful.
It is that intimate, single-track recording, more the than 125 years old, that we present to you now.
credits
released July 20, 2018
Kelli Partin- violin
al Riggs- guitar
Aya Wallace- vocals
Joe Wimberley- double bass
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