[clarification needed] In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, as Europeans entered the area in greater number, it became a center of historic land disputes.

Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration during the Great Depression, the Tennessee Valley Authority was established to create infrastructure and jobs, resulting in electrification of a large rural area along the river.

The Ford Motor Company did build and operate a plant for many years in the Listerhill community, three miles east of Muscle Shoals; it closed in 1982 as part of industrial restructuring when jobs moved out of the country.

[citation needed] The area of Muscle Shoals was a part of the historic Cherokee hunting grounds dating to at least the early eighteenth century, if not earlier.

[15] Meanwhile, Francisco Luis Hector de Carondelet, governor of the Spanish Louisiana, was in conversations with the Indian confederation to establish a fort in 1792.

[17] In 1797, John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, complained to Andrew Jackson that "The prevention of a settlement at or near the Muscle Shoals is a manifest injury done the whole western country."

At Sevier's behest, Jackson attempted to persuade Congress and President John Adams to fund a new expedition to take control of the site, but to no avail.

Jackson and General John Coffee obtained cession of the land from both the Cherokee and Creek (who had continued to dispute possession) by treaty, without permission from the federal government.

Secretary of War William H. Crawford refused to recognize the cession, and reconfirmed Cherokee ownership, leading to personal enmity between him and Jackson.

The political struggle over the lands was eventually won by Jackson and his backers, who gained passage in Congress of the Indian Removal Act in 1830.

[20] During World War I President Wilson authorized a dam on the Tennessee River just downstream of Muscle Shoals to help power nitrate plants for munitions.

The Michigan car manufacturer and industrialist proposed leasing the uncompleted hydro-electric dam at Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River in Alabama.

"[22] Edison and Ford hoped that a new monetary system could be created where dollar bills were issued directly to workers and manufacturer, with the money being backed by the goods they produced rather than the gold and silver held in bank vaults.

They recorded such recent hit songs such as "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood and "I Loved Her First" by Heartland, continuing the city's musical legacy.

The studio in the Alabama Avenue building closed in 2005; as of 2018[update] it houses a movie production company, which also hosts tours and concerts at the venue.

[27] Muscle Shoals encouraged the cross-pollination of musical styles: black artists from the area, such as Arthur Alexander and James Carr, used white country music styles in their work, and white artists from the Shoals frequently borrowed from the blues/gospel influences of their black contemporaries, creating a distinct sound.

He stated that the Muscle Shoals radio station WLAY (AM), which played both "white" and "black" music, and where he worked as a disc jockey in the 1940s, influenced his merging of these sounds at Sun Records with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash.

[citation needed] After hearing that song, American songwriter Paul Simon phoned his manager and asked him to arrange a recording session with the musicians who had performed it.

After arriving in the small town, he was introduced to the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section ("The Swampers") who had recorded this song with Mavis Staples.

Once things were sorted out, Simon recorded a number of tracks with the Muscle Shoals band, including "Kodachrome" and "Loves Me Like a Rock".

[29] When Bob Dylan began to plan the recording of an album that would feature his new-found faith in Christ, he recruited veteran R&B producer Jerry Wexler and they agreed to use the Muscle Shoals studio.

In 2008, State Line Mob, a Southern rock duo group formed by singer and songwriters Phillip Crunk (Florence native) and Dana Crunk (Rogersville native), released their first CD, Ruckus, and won two Muscle Shoals Music Awards for 2008 for (Best New Artist) and Best New Country Album) of the year.

Groups and artists include Drive-By Truckers, The Civil Wars, Dylan LeBlanc, Gary Nichols, Jason Isbell, State Line Mob, Eric "Red Mouth" Gebhardt, Fiddleworms, and BoomBox.

A number of rock, R&B and country music celebrities have homes in the area surrounding Muscle Shoals (Tuscumbia), or riverside estates along the Tennessee River.

[32] After FAME studio founder Rick Hall died in early 2018, The New Yorker concluded its retrospective with this comment: "Muscle Shoals remains remarkable not just for the music made there but for its unlikeliness as an epicenter of anything; that a tiny town in a quiet corner of Alabama became a hotbed of progressive, integrated rhythm and blues still feels inexplicable.

[34] An editorial in the Anniston Star concludes with this epitaph, "If the world wants to know about Alabama – a state seldom publicized for anything but college football and embarrassing politics – the late Rick Hall and his legacy are worthy models to uphold".

[35] The original location of Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Sheffield has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since June 2006.

[37][38] In the same year, the Muscle Shoals Music Foundation was formed to raise funds to purchase the building and to complete major renovations.

[39] A grant from Beats Electronics, a manufacturer of headphones owned by Apple Inc., and founded by Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine, provided an essential $1 million.

They were given the nickname The Swampers by music producer Denny Cordell during the Leon Russell sessions because of their "funky, soulful Southern 'swamp' sound".