20 Best Songs at Muscle Shoals

Country music supergroup Western Centuries have announced their second album Songs from the Deluge to be released via Free Dirt Records on April 6th. A follow up to their well-received debut, 2016’s Weight of the World, it combines the songwriting and voices of three distinct artist into one sound representative of the diverse yet conjoined legacy of the American roots music experience.

Recorded at Royal Studios in Memphis, Tennessee, The Royal Sessions sees classic rocker Paul Rodgers – first known as the lead singer of Free, best-known as the frontman of Bad Company and later a Freddie Mercury substitute in Queen – paying tribute to his beloved '60s Southern soul. Rodgers set up camp in Memphis and surrounded himself with many veteran Memphis soul musicians, cutting a collection of deep soul covers – primarily tunes released or recorded at Stax, sometimes songs that were made at Muscle Shoals – that remain faithful to the spirit and arrangements of the originals.

These two late-'60s albums were released at the peak of Joe South's commercial success and visibility, coinciding with his hits "Games People Play" (which appears on 1968's Introspect) and "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" (which is on 1969's Don't It Make You Want to Go Home?). This Raven reissue combines both records onto one CD, with the addition of the way-cool psychedelic soul outing "Hole in Your Soul" (from the Games People Play album) as a bonus track.

Versions of two dozen of the finest compositions from one of Muscle Shoals’ most admired singer/songwriter/musicians of the 60s and 70s.