Magic City Nights

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Andre Millard. Magic City Nights

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Magic City Nights

NIGHTS

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“At the Dark End of the Street”

For all the similarities between the musical experiences of Birmingham and Memphis, two very important differences stood out: the relative successes and failures of recording studios and the differing attitudes toward race. Both of these differences can be used to explain why Memphis is regarded as a music city and Birmingham isn’t. If only Sam Phillips had moved to Birmingham rather than Memphis! If only those famous studios in Muscle Shoals had been established in Birmingham rather than out in the sticks! Alas, this did not happen, so Birmingham remained a backwater in American popular music. The creation of a successful recording business is founded not, as popularly believed, on great local music, but on commercial considerations such as infrastructure, geographic location, and marketing networks. There was every reason to believe that Atlanta would have become the recording center of the South rather than Memphis or Nashville. In the 1920s it was the recording center of the South — there were no studios in Memphis or Nashville at this time — but it lost this lead in the 1940s, never to regain it, and the musical development and reputation of the city of the New South suffered accordingly.13

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