Tune Records

Tune Records

Music; Culture; Florence, AL

During the 1960s and 1970s the music industry in the Shoals earned national recognition through the success of FAME Recording Studio and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Musicians such as Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, and Percy Sledge have all recorded hit songs at a Shoals recording studio. However, neither studio was the first official studio nor the first recording company in the Shoals. In fact, the first recording company in the Shoals, Tune Records, operated out of the back room of a bus station in Florence, Alabama. James Joiner, whose dad started a Florence-based charter bus company in 1939, wanted to expose the rich musical talent in the Shoals. So, with Kelson Hurtson, Walter Stovall, and Marvin Wilson, Joiner formed Tune Records and Publishing Company during the 1950s. Tune Records was the “first full-fledged record company in Alabama.” Using local radio stations, such as WLAY, to record songs, the company’s first regional hit, “A Fallen Star,” came in 1957. Joiner wrote “A Fallen Star” after watching a shooting star across the night sky, and relied on Bobby Denton’s vocals to do bring the song to life. As a result of the song’s success, musicians across the north region of Alabama traveled to Florence in order to sing for Tune Records. One teenager who cut songs with Joiner’s company was Rick Hall, who would later become Alabama’s most successful music producer at FAME Recording Studios. Due to the inability to produce another regionally successful hit, Tune Records closed down by 1960.

Jesse Brock, University of North Alabama

Text:
Greg Carmalier, Muscle Shoals: The Incredible True Story of a Small Town with a Big Sound, DVD, Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2014.
Christopher S. Fuqua, Music Fell on Alabama (Huntsville: Honeysuckle Imprint, 1991), 8.

Alabama Cultural Resource Survey

1950s

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