So long Frank Lloyd Wright

Second and final night in Muscle Shoals. Today we visited the Frank LloydWright  Rosenbaum House

which was stunning - if you like that kind of thing! We do and the fact that the furniture was also designed by FLW made us want to live there even more. 

All that's missing from this pic is Lou sipping a dry martinin, wearing a couture gown. Which is possible, given that Mrs Rosenbaum was a Vogue model and Lou got to go through her wardrobe!

Tragically, the house had fallen into disrepair and the roof had collapsed through leaks and termites - that also ate through 50% of the extensive book collection that once lined the walls. In fact, you could have bought the house in the 90s for $240K. No-one wanted it, so the city purchased it, spent 750k restoring it and it's now a museum. 

A lot of the furniture is replacement pieces, as Mrs Rosenbaum didn't care for  the angular designs, though she did replace them with Eames pieces. 

So that was all fab and it was then time to return to our musical odyssey, but not before buying some groceries which entertained the shop staff no end as theywere  in fits of laughter at Den's Queen'sEnglish accent!!!

We then visited the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and saw a tonne of stuff including Wilson Pickett's jacket

and Barry Becket's Wurlitzer piano which he used for the Muscle Shoals' rhythm section arrangements. 

Then Lou recorded a CD of Crystal Gayle's Brown Eyes Blue

AND THIS IS THE LAST YOU'LL SEE OF IT!

But......the sound guy turned out to be Dick Cooper, the guy who worked with Dylan on his two Muscle Shoals albums. Photo opportunity!

He told us tales of Dylan and his strangeness, including going to pick him up for a recording session and finding Dylan watching Dylan (Last Waltz), which he said was very surreal. For those interested, he now works with Drive By Truckers. http://blues.gr/m/blogpost?id=1982923%3ABlogPost%3A184957

Then we went to Fame studios (phone died, so no instant pics) and met the studio manager who is the sound engineer, 29 and only started as an intern planning to go onto work at Microsoft, but flunked English, so worked his way up over last 5 years. He has worked with too many old a new stars to mention. He talked about Rick Hall still picking out hits at 82. We watched Gary Nichols from the SteelDrivers recording some guitar and saw Spooner Oldham's electric organ. So a very cool day!

We then chilled above the river again, watched the foxes and reclined to the max on the electric sofa. Off to Muscle Shoals studios tomorrow then back on the road to Clarksdale. 

Awesome: Den meeting Dick Cooper. 

Banjo: Termites don't eat ink, so when the restorers at the Rosenbaum house opened the books, all the characters dropped out. That would make an excellent film scene. 

Diner: Mostly home cooking, but had some hot biscuits and pecan pie. 

Co-pilot: A little conflict on when to turn right. Probably still 5-5

Mozzies: Eerily quiet. What are they doing?????