Muscle Shoals, a small Alabama town with no more than 8,000 residents, would seem like an odd place for a gazillion classic hit records to be recorded, but with artists like Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, Jimmy Cliff, Etta James, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd,Traffic, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Tony Joe White, the Oak Ridge Boys, and countless others rolling in to do just that, all aided by a crackerjack group of white southern sessions players known officially as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (and unofficially and lovingly called "the Swampers"), Muscle Shoals became known internationally for its loose and undeniably funky R&B sound, a sound that generated some 75 gold and platinum hits in the late 1960s and through the '70s.