SEEKING FAME: In prepping for his latest studio album, Austin Walkin’ Cane • Muscle Shoals, local singer-songwriter Austin Walkin’ Cane saved up what he refers to as a “trunk of money” so he could record at Abbey Road Studios in England when he was on an overseas tour. He was all set up and thought it would be incredible. But COVID wiped out his tour, and he had to cancel the recording session. “I was always a Beatles fan,” he says one evening at Forest City Brewery, where he was playing a gig. “I had that Abbey Road money and my buddy asked me if I wanted to go to Muscle Shoals, AL.” Knowing that FAME Studios, the place where Aretha Franklin, Solomon Burke and the Allman Brothers had recorded, was located in Muscle Shoals, Cane emailed the folks there, and they responded immediately and asked him if he would want to record on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning. “It was Monday morning when they wrote back,” says Cane. “I went for Wednesday. I got my act together a little earlier than expected and went down there. I decided to just treat it as a show. I never make song lists when I play live. I just wing it and play whatever I feel.”
WINGING IT: Cane even wrote one song, the somber “Sun Go Down,” a song about a tragic death, in his head while driving, singing the tune into his phone. Local singer-songwriter Chris Allen helped him complete the tune after Cane sent him the voice memo. “I walked in, and FAME looked like nothing had changed,” says Cane. “They had microphones in the wall to capture the sound of the room, and they have this vintage equipment. Spencer Coats worked the decks. He was a young dude who’s been working there for some time. He knew the equipment well, and he did a great job. We recorded from 10 in the morning to 5 or 6 o’clock. It was 15 tunes. I did a bunch of my tunes that I hadn’t recorded live before. I thought it would be nice to have an acoustic version. We sat around together afterward and mixed it very quickly. By 9 or 10 o’clock, we were done.”
A LOCAL ANGLE: After he got home, Cane realized he had done a few too many covers, so he went to Don Dixon’s studio in Canton to record a few more tunes that show up on the record. “We worked together for so long on so many albums that [Dixon] knows what I want and what I do that he came up with an interesting tone on the guitar and worked my voice pretty good too,” says Cane. Local photographers Ruddy Roye and Jef Janis contributed the artwork to the album, which comes out on March 17.
WHERE YOU CAN HEAR HIM: walkincane.com.
WHERE YOU CAN SEE HIM: Austin Walkin’ Cane performs with Alex Bevan at 8 p.m. on Saturday, March 18, at the Beachland Ballroom.
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This article appears in Feb 22 – Mar 7, 2023.
