This is part 3 of the story of my recent cruise on American Serenade...
Sailing the rivers of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama.
If you haven't yet seen the previous two videos...
Where we sailed out of Nashville, and headed down the Cumberland River...
There should be a link to the first video in the upper right corner of your screen.
In my previous video, part 2, we spent the day visiting Paducah, Kentucky...
And that's where we pick up the story today.
This is a time lapse video of our cruise ship leaving Paducah...
The front bow section closed up...
And here at the confluence of the Ohio River and the Tennessee River...
We split off to the right to take the Tennessee River to our next destination.
The weather wasn't looking too bad at this point.
Those big, puffy white clouds look really cool in a time lapse video!
You can see them moving, which you can't really do in real life.
We're coming up to the Clark Memorial Bridge...
Carrying highway 60 over the Tennessee River...
And the weather is about to take a nasty turn!
Watch some nasty looking storm clouds move in from the left side of your screen.
That is where the recording ended!
I had to run outside and bring that camera in when conditions got really bad.
Here we are now, about an hour later, after it was all over.
That was a crazy thunderstorm, and we were in the middle of it!
Of course, it posed no threat to the ship at all.
The ship kept sailing, it was just rain and clouds and wind...
Nothing the ship can't handle...
And I was glad that I had gotten it on time lapse video when it hit, so that everybody could see it.
Now we've reached the Kentucky Dam, and we're in the lock...
That will act as an elevator for our ship...
And raise us up to the level of Kentucky Lake.
We had actually been here the day before, sailing in the other direction...
We're re-tracing this part of the path we took the day before.
But as soon as we get through the lock...
Instead of going over to the Cumberland River, which was the way we came here...
We'll sail along Kentucky Lake and on to the Tennessee River to get to our next destination.
While we were in the lock...
One of our sister ships was waiting for her turn to use the lock in the opposite direction.
Look ahead on the left, you'll see American Melody...
She's going to pass us on our left as she heads in to the lock we just got out of.
Here it is in real time, as she passed by.
I shot this with my new Canon camera, the R8.
Which allows me to shoot 4K video and use all my old Canon lenses...
So I can zoom in and get shots like this.
Back to the time lapse, a few hours later, on Kentucky Lake...
And we're heading towards a good looking little bridge...
Carrying Highway 68 over Kentucky Lake.
That's the Eggner Ferry Bridge...
Named after a ferry boat that used to get people across the Tennessee river...
Back in the days before there was a bridge...
And actually before there was even a lake!
The lake only came to be when Kentucky Dam was completed in 1944.
And this is the new version of the bridge...
Built in a hurry after a big ship ran in to the old bridge in 2012...
Causing that bridge to collapse.
When I woke up the next morning, the river was completely fogged in!
But thanks to radar and other modern technology...
Fog doesn't stop the ship from sailing safely.
They put a deck hand up at the bow to be one more set of eyes for anything ahead...
And about once every minute and a half...
The ship's fog horn lets any other river traffic know that we're coming.
The fog didn't last long.
This was the view from the GoPro I had up at the bow of the ship...
Recording this time-lapse video as we arrived at our next destination, Savannah, Tennessee.
The ship tied up to some trees in this park...
The gangway extended out to the boat ramp...
And that's all we needed.
A ship like this doesn't need a dock.
We can stop at little towns like this that don't have the facilities to handle big ships.
Savannah is the county seat of Hardin County, Tennessee...
But it's a pretty small town.
Population: only about 7000.
During the Civil War, Hardin county was the site of the Battle Of Shiloh...
And Union General Ulysses S. Grant commandeered a home...
Known as the Cherry Mansion, for use as his headquarters during the battle.
This is a picture of it from the 1970s...
Now look at how all those trees have grown during the last 50 years!
This is the Cherry Mansion today, as seen from my drone.
While we were in Savannah for the day...
A lot of my fellow passengers went on Civil War related excursions...
Like visiting the site of the Battle Of Shiloh...
But I opted instead to take the free shuttle in to town...
And explore Savannah a little bit on my own.
This is the county courthouse...
And just down the street they have a nice little museum...
That gives you a good look at the history of this area.
Everything from the nomadic people that came here about 12,000 years ago...
To the native Americans known as the mound builders...
To the Europeans who settled the area in the 1800s.
Since this is a river town, there's a lot at the museum about the steamboat era...
And even more about the Civil War.
There were fossils that had been found in the area...
And outside, I found this interesting...
You're probably thinking that's a piece of lumber...
I guess it was at one point.
Now it's a petrified piece of lumber, about 75 million years old.
Touch it, and it feels just like a rock.
I was impressed with the hospitality at the museum.
Not only did they offer samples of this little delicacy...
Which is popular in this part of the country...
But also, they were serving up some whiskey...
And a few other beverages that people in this area like to drink.
I've never seen that at a museum before!
But that's how they do it in Tennessee.
Across the street, at a park...
There was a band giving a free concert under a gazebo.
I got a kick out of sitting down and listening to a few songs...
And these guys were really good!
One thing that really surprised me as I walked around and explored Savannah...
Was that gasoline there costs only a little more than three dollars a gallon.
I didn't realize there was anywhere in the United States where gas was still that cheap.
After exploring downtown Savannah...
I put my drone up in the air to get video of all the people having fun in their boats on the Tennessee River.
I like the challenge of trying to catch up to the boats with my drone.
And it's fun when they spot the drone and wave.
I admired these people a lot.
I think this family really knows how to have fun on the river on a hot July day!
The ship sailed all night, and it was another foggy morning...
As our ship arrived at our next destination, Florence, Alabama.
But the fog cleared right when we arrived...
And once again they just tied up to some trees in a park...
And extended the gangway out for us to get ashore.
I happened to be invited up to the pilothouse for a look around...
It's unusual to see a forest of trees out in front of the ship!
It was a little hazy in Florence on this particular day...
And as I was shooting this aerial video...
Just to give you a little look at things here along the Tennessee River in Alabama...
I see there was a couple of trucks pulled over to the side...
After an accident on the bridge.
I was a disk jockey in the 1970s & 80s...
So, I was really excited to visit this area because...
It's home to some very famous recording studios that most people refer to as Muscle Shoals.
And American Cruise Lines offers a really great excursion to three of those studios.
This one is where it all started.
This is the FAME studio... which stands for Florence Alabama Music Enterprises.
It was started in the 1950s by a record producer named Rick Hall.
He passed away about five years ago, but his wife is still alive...
And she was really interesting to meet during our tour.
But the highlight, of course, was touring the actual recording studio...
Where so many hit records were recorded, back in the day.
I guess the first really big hit recorded here was "When A Man Loves A Woman"...
The 1966 smash hit by Percy Sledge.
Another 1966 hit recorded here was "Mustang Sally" by Wilson Pickett.
A few of the artists that recorded here in the early years include...
Etta James, Aretha Franklin, and Clarence Carter.
In later years, Mac Davis, Paul Anka, and Ronnie Milsap, recorded here...
And more recently Alicia Keys and Demi Lovato.
So, it was a thrill for me to stand here in this studio and take it all in.
There was a really good documentary made about ten years ago...
All about the FAME recording studios, producer Rick Hall, and the Muscle Shoals sound.
They showed it to us on the ship the day before our visit.
The documentary is simply called "Muscle Shoals".
Check it out. I enjoyed it.
FAME studios had a house band that included four guys who...
Were basically the rhythm section for all the great songs recorded here.
And their ability to create a unique combination of R&B, soul, and country music...
Was the key to the Muscle Shoals sound.
Those four guys were known as "The Swampers".
In fact, they got a mention in the classic 1974 song "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
I can't play the song for you, because it's copyrighted, but the lyrics go like this...
"Now Muscle Shoals has got The Swampers."
"And they've been known to pick a song or two."
In 1969, the Swampers parted ways with Rick Hall and FAME Studios...
And founded their own competing recording studios, the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios.
So, that was another stop on our excursion to learn about the Muscle Shoals sound.
This is the studio they built in 1969...
And that special Muscle Shoals sound attracted musical artists from all over the world to record here.
The Rolling Stones recorded "Brown Sugar" here.
Bob Seger recorded "Main Street" here.
Paul Simon, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rod Stewart...
Simon & Garfunkel, Cher, and Cat Stevens all recorded here.
At first, the studio was pretty basic.
It didn't even have the sound isolation booths that it has now.
So, in the early days, to get a clean recording of just the vocalist...
Without the sound of the band bleeding in...
The singer would sometimes be placed in the bathroom or in the closest of the studio.
In later years, they built isolation booths.
After about ten years of recording here at 3614 Jackson Highway, and huge success...
The Swampers had a lot of money, and decided to build their ultimate dream recording studios.
So, on our little Muscle Shoals excursion, we went there too.
This place was REALLY impressive!
Not just one recording studio, but two of them.
Each studio had multiple isolation booths...
And they paid a lot of attention to acoustics when choosing building materials...
And the equipment was state of the art for that time.
Artists really liked to record here because it was extremely comfortable and spacious.
And the building had a lounge where they could hang out when they weren't recording...
And also a full bar.
So, it was a great place for artists to spend long periods of time working on an entire album.
Do you remember a 1984 song by Julian Lennon called "Valotte"?
There's a line in that song...
"Sitting on a pebble by the river playing guitar".
What he's talking about is his experience at these studios...
Which are located right beside the Tennessee River...
And during breaks from recording, Julian Lennon liked to sit here and toss rocks in to the river.
So, that was my day, touring three different recording studios associated with the Muscle Shoals sound.
As an old radio guy from the 70s & 80s, I enjoyed it a lot...
Just as I had enjoyed touring the Motown studios in Detroit...
On a previous cruise with American Cruise Lines.
That wraps up episode three of my story about this cruise on American Serenade.
Next week, in episode four...
We visit an incredible NASA facility in Huntsville, Alabama.
Where they have a museum that's every bit as good as the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington DC.
Also, our cruise wraps up in Chattanooga, Tennessee...
Where we tour the world-class Tennessee Aquarium...
And find some pretty great Tennessee barbecue food, too.
If you're interested in booking a river cruise on American Cruise Lines...
Or any kind of cruise with any of the major cruise lines...
I want to suggest that you use the services of my travel agent, Caitlin Gallagher.
She has saved me from so much trouble over the years...
And pointed me to some really great cruise opportunities.
If you're new to cruising, she may just save you from making a few rookie mistakes...
And if you're an experienced cruiser, like I am...
She's fantastic at learning what you like...
And pointing you to bargains that you might not be aware of.
For example, she recently brought a Royal Caribbean deal to my attention...
That was so good that even though I hadn't been planning to go on a Royal Caribbean cruise anytime soon...
As soon as she showed me this deal, I booked it immediately.
Visit Caitlin's web site at www.AmbrenTravel.com