

If you watch the 1970 documentary “ Gimme Shelter,” you can see Jimmy right there, manning the board and calling the session to the Stones. Their producer, Jimmy Miller, had been detained at the border, so Jimmy effectively produced the session, even though he’s not credited as such. That same year, when the Rolling Stones came to town and recorded “Wild Horses,” “Brown Sugar,” and “You Gotta Move” at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, Jimmy Johnson was the chief engineer on the session. They also made two albums and toured the world as part of the band Traffic with Steve Winwood. Jimmy engineered and played rhythm guitar on a vast array of records by the likes of Cher, Lulu, Boz Scaggs, The Staple Singers, Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, Linda Ronstadt, Simon & Garfunkel, Willie Nelson, Rod Stewart, Bob Seger, Julian Lennon, Jimmy Cliff, Bobby Womack, and many more. In 1969, Johnson, Roger Hawkins, Barry Beckett, and my dad, David Hood, left FAME and started Muscle Shoals Sound Studio a couple of miles away in Sheffield. Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Clarence Carter, and many others all had hits recorded at FAME. Jimmy Johnson was the engineer.Īfter the massive success of the Sledge single, Jimmy and the rest of what became known as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section played on an astounding number of hit records, mostly in the soul and rhythm-and-blues genres. In 1965, Percy Sledge recorded “When a Man Loves a Woman” at the tiny Quinvy Studio, which acted as a bit of an overflow and demo studio for the more established FAME Studio down the road). When the recording-studio scene erupted in the Shoals in the early 1960s, Jimmy and Roger were quick to get involved and soon were in the front end of a movement that later included my dad. They were friendly rivals of my dad’s band, the Mystics. Jimmy played in a band called the Del-Rays with drummer Roger Hawkins. Dexter recorded the very first demos on a young Tanya Tucker a few years before she got discovered. Jimmy’s Uncle Dexter started the area’s very first recording studio in the back of his house in Sheffield, several years before FAME Studio opened. Both his dad and uncle had been aspiring musicians with a lot of talent and some level of local and regional success.

He was a jock, a football player, but he had a keen ear for music. Jimmy had grown up in Sheffield, just like my dad.
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That’s where Jimmy Johnson showed them how to translate their great songs and arrangement ideas into a studio recording. They also possessed a deep and steely work ethic, and they spent a lot of time in the studio. In the early 1970s, the Skynyrd boys were wild-ass redneck hell raisers, for sure, but they were very smart, especially their fearless leader, Ronnie Van Zant. That’s where my dad’s partner, Jimmy Johnson, produced Lynyrd Skynyrd's first recording sessions. Skynyrd was attempting to stake out its claim in the annals of rock stardom, which led them to my hometown of Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
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