"The Epitome of the 'Record Man'"

"The big break came in 1961, after the partnership had been dissolved, with Hall keeping the Fame name. A local singer named Arthur Alexander came in with a song he had written, a mid-tempo country-inflected R&B ballad called You Better Move On. Hall liked it, put a small group of musicians together for a recording session, and took the tape to Nashville, 120 miles away, where he licensed it to Dot Records, Pat Boone's label. The song was the first of Alexander’s run of hits and entered the repertoire of many British groups, notably the Rolling Stones, who recorded it in 1964.
When Hall received a cheque for $10,000 as the initial proceeds of Alexander’s success, he built a full-scale studio in nearby Muscle Shoals, where musical lightning would strike over and over again. Jimmy Hughes's Steal Away; Maurice and Mac's You Left the Water Running; Staton's I'm Just a Prisoner; Clarence Carter's Patches and Etta James's Tell Mama were among the Hall productions that attracted world attention to the Muscle Shoals sound.

Richard Williams at The Guardian writes an obit for record producer Rick Hall.