Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
In a tiny Alabama town with the curious name of Muscle Shoals, something miraculous sprang from the mud of the Tennessee River. A group of unassuming, yet incredibly talented, locals came together and spawned some of the greatest music of all time: “Mustang Sally,” “I Never Loved a Man,” “Wild Horses,” and many more. During the most incendiary periods of racial hostility, white folks and black folks came together to create music that would last for generations and gave birth to the incomparable “Muscle Shoals sound.”
Muscle Shoals is a warmly received music documentary that uncovers a genuinely remarkable but underappreciated chapter of American music history. The story of how a small Alabama town produced so much iconic soul, R&B, and rock music is inherently compelling, and the film benefits from rich archival footage and candid interviews with legends like Aretha Franklin, Keith Richards, and Mick Jagger. However, as a documentary it follows a fairly conventional talking-heads-plus-archive format without pushing the boundaries of the form. The cinematography is competent and atmospheric but not visually distinctive. The subject matter is novel enough to earn above-average marks across the board, but the execution doesn't rise to exceptional in any single category. The ending, which ties the Shoals legacy to ongoing musical heritage, is satisfying but not particularly striking. A solid, above-average documentary that does justice to its subject without transcending the genre.