Successful, Accomplished, and Very Unhappy

“Everybody who’s anybody, I’ve produced them. In the world, I’m talking about: The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Clarence Carter. They came here because I was that guy that was producing hit records,” says legendary record producer Rick Hall. He spent over five decades creating hit after hit with artists from Aretha Franklyn to the Osmond’s, Mac Davis to the Gatlin brothers. Fame Studios drew artists from around the world to the little town of muscle shoals Alabama.

“On the early years almost all of the music I produced was black artists. George Wallace was preaching against the blacks and I was in the studio recording number one records with black people with white musicians.

He was raised by his father who instilled in him a love for music and a drive for perfection.

“He was a dear man to me,” says Rick. “Whatever I am, he made it so. Do this right. Do it over again. Do –don’t do that. Change that. Fix that. I may do one song 50 times. And then come back a month later and do it 50 more times.”

Rick had been baptized when he was a boy and grew up in the church, but he turned his back on god in his 20’s when tragedy struck.

He says, “My wife was killed in a car wreck and then two weeks later my dad was killed on a tractor that I had bought him. It completely destroyed me. I became an alcoholic. I became a drunk, a bum. I gave up on God and God –I felt that God had given up on me.”

Rick eventually remarried and poured himself into record producing and song writing, eventually winning Billboard Magazine’s producer of the year in 1971. Yet his fiery temper and need for control brought strife to all areas of his life.

“You sensed the tenseness; I’ve sat here at this consul probably 50 years, 55 years. Night after night and day after day and beat people up and got beat up by people. I’m no nonsense. It was my way or the highway. When I come in the studio, it’s like death.”

His wife Linda was a Christian and knew how unhappy Rick was - despite all he had accomplished.

She says, “Rick had every kind of award every kind of accolade that anybody could have. But it wasn’t enough but he still needed the peace that only God could give. And I knew what he needed but I couldn’t convince him what he needed. So I just prayed and I prayed and I prayed.”

Rick says he knew something had to change.

“Turmoil, frustration, looking for something better and believing that I was the best in the business and nobody cared. Nobody cared. Even with all that success and all that stuff there was something missing. And I wanted to be with Jesus and when I died I wanted to go to heaven.”

Finally, at 82 years old Rick says he quit running from God. He talked with his pastor and prayed to receive Jesus into his life was re-baptized. He says his decision to turn back to God has changed everything. “I have total peace of mind now. I always had this anxiety and feeling about myself and about my future. All these things that I’ve managed to become, it was God working in my life while I was running from Him. I didn’t know it at the time but He had his hand on my shoulder.”

Rick shares his life story in the book The Man From Muscle Shoals – From Shame to Fame. He says he’s still driven to be the best, but his priorities have changed.”

“God is in control completely,” says Rick, “I’ve turned it all over to Him. My relationship with God is more important to me now than having a #1 record. Or having two #1 records. Or five. Or whatever. Because I know He –He can deliver all things to me and through me. And now I want to introduce other people to that –that feeling I’ve got.”