Along the Tennessee River, the Yuchi and other early inhabitants held a legend of a Spirit Woman who lived in the river, protected them, and sang loudly when the river was angry and softly when it was peaceful, giving rise to the name Singing River. In Muscle Shoals, that legacy joined a musical heritage that, from the 20th century to the present, helped make the area known as the “Hit Recording Capital of the World.” Artists, musicians, songwriters, producers, recording engineers, music publishers, and other industry professionals shaped a broad musical legacy, and performers such as Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin, the Staple Singers, and Bob Seger helped establish the area’s fame. In the 1960s, while segregation persisted outside the studios, musicians of different races and religions worked together inside them to create widely loved songs including Steal Away, Mustang Sally, Tell Mama, Patches, and Respect Yourself. Arthur Alexander’s songs You Better Move On and Anna drew the attention of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, whose early albums included their own versions of his work, and area songwriting later produced hits such as I Loved Her First, I Swear, Blown Away, and Before He Cheats. The musicians and singers remained central to this tradition, including Jimmy Johnson, Barry Beckett, David Hood, and Roger Hawkins of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, celebrated in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama as the Swampers. Muscle Shoals also played a direct role in the rise of the local recording industry: in 1957 James Joiner produced the first commercial recording to emerge from Muscle Shoals, Bobby Denton’s A Fallen Star, at the WLAY Radio studios on Second Street; four years later Rick Hall and Arthur Alexander cut the first national hit from Muscle Shoals, You Better Move On, in an old candy-and-tobacco warehouse on Wilson Dam Road; Hall then built FAME Recording Studios on Avalon Avenue in 1962, where artists including Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Duane Allman, the Osmonds, and Bobby Gentry later recorded. From 1970 to 1985, Muscle Shoals was known as “The Hit Recording Capital of the World” as FAME, Al Cartee’s Music Mill, Steve Moore’s East Avalon, and Terry Woodford and Clayton Ivey’s Wishbone Studios produced hits by Clarence Carter, Hank Williams Jr., Hot, George Jones, the Forester Sisters, Mac McAnally, Shenandoah, and many others. Rick Hall later received the American Music Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and the Grammy Trustees Award in 2014 for significant contribution to the recording industry.