Remembering a Shoals original spirit: Travis Wammack and the music of Muscle Shoals

Guitarist Travis Wammack, known for his energetic playing style and long connection to the Muscle Shoals music scene. (Photo courtesy of Jay Johnson.)

Sometimes stories arrive when you aren’t looking for them.

I had been writing recently about the old Smith homeplace in Anderson, Alabama — about family roots and the quiet men who shaped our lives without much fanfare.

Then my cousin Jay Johnson commented on the post.

Jay is the son of Jimmy Johnson — one of the original members of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and a co-founder of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. And like his dad, Jay is an incredible guitar player, having played in many bands, most recently with Skinny Molly.

Our conversation soon turned to the recent passing of guitarist and performer Travis Wammack, another colorful figure in the long story of the Shoals music scene.

Jay shared a few memories that capture the spirit of both the man and the place where so much American music was shaped.

“I remember his son and I were in first grade together,” Jay told me. “Even then Monkee was a character, singing ‘Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog’ every day in class.”

That early classroom memory carried a deeper realization.

“I learned then that his dad Travis was a great guitarist — and a fabled snake hunter,” Jay said.

Wammack became known for a style that stood apart from the laid-back precision of many studio players who worked in the Shoals.

“To me Travis was like the Ted Nugent of Muscle Shoals,” Jay said. “Exciting shows with an over-the-top technique, much more aggressive than the laid-back style most studio pickers employed. His shows were charged and powerful.”

Even among strong personalities and talented musicians, Wammack earned respect.

“Travis and my dad did not work together very often, but there was always a great mutual respect between the two,” Jay said. “My dad always spoke highly of Travis.”

For me, the story carries a personal thread.

Jimmy Johnson married my dad’s youngest sister, Sandra, when I was young. They later divorced, sometime in the mid-1970s.

But in the years that followed, whenever I saw Jimmy, he always spoke. He would ask about my dad and tell me how much he enjoyed being around him.

I remember thinking how remarkable that was — that a music legend remembered. The man who pretty much discovered Lynyrd Skynyrd, worked with the Rolling Stones, and so many other music icons. When Dorinda and I visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 2018, we saw one of Jimmy’s guitars on display there. Talk about a wow moment.

Jimmy Johnson passed away in 2019.

Jay Johnson, left, with his father, Jimmy Johnson, one of the original Swampers and co-founder of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. (Photo by Andy Keenum.)

The Shoals has always had a way of producing musicians whose work traveled far beyond North Alabama. Artists from around the world came to a small building at 3614 Jackson Highway in Sheffield because of the sound created there. The roots of that sound trace back to FAME Studios and producer Rick Hall in the 1960s, when artists like Aretha Franklin and Percy Sledge helped put the Shoals on the musical map.

I had the opportunity to interview Rick Hall by phone the night he received a Grammy Trustees Award in 2014 for his lifetime contribution to music. What an honor to talk with him.

If you haven’t watched the documentary, “Muscle Shoals,” you need to give it a play. Fascinating stuff.

“Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers.”

Jimmy Johnson, right, with Ronnie Van Zant, center, of Lynyrd Skynyrd during the early days of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. (Courtesy Muscle Shoals Sound Studio archives.)

Yet the people who built that reputation often carried themselves with quiet humility.

Jay believes that spirit continues today.

“We still have many local young musicians in the area who are carrying the torch,” he said. “We are still a little ‘sleepy’ town after all these years, but still sporting a wealth of local musicians that can rival any area in the world, in my view.”

It’s a reminder that the Shoals story is still being written.

And sometimes, like many good stories in Alabama, it begins with family.

A few photos Jay shared capture both the personal and historic sides of the Shoals music story.

Jay Johnson with his father, Jimmy Johnson, outside the Half Brick pub in Worthing, England, ahead of a duo gig. Jimmy Johnson was one of the original Swampers and co-founder of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. (Photo courtesy of Jay Johnson.)

Jimmy Johnson, left, in the studio with Mick Jagger and Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones during the band’s Muscle Shoals recording sessions. (Photo courtesy of Jay Johnson and the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio archives.)

(Coming March 27 in my Gulf Coast Media column: how the sound born in the Shoals still finds its way to the beaches of south Alabama.)