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As music taste goes, good luck finding better than Dave Hood.

When Hood broke into the recording industry, Muscle Shoals, AL, was barely a musical outpost. By the time he and his partners sold Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, it was a landmark. The string of hits from the late ‘60s to mid ‘80s is staggering. And anchoring the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section on bass, Hood shaped tracks for the likes of Aretha Franklin, Etta James, The Staple Singers, Wilson Pickett, Paul Simon, Traffic, Bob Seger, Willie Nelson, Rod Stewart, Jimmy Buffett, Oak Ridge Boys, Glen Frey ... you get the idea.

"Before we started at Muscle Shoals, R&B was soul music," recalls Hood, at home in Muscle Shoals looking out a window at the Tennessee River. "We added rock ‘n' roll to it. It seems to have had a pretty big impact."

Uh, you think?

"Before technology improved, it was the deficiencies that gave recording studios their individual sound," he says. Those deficiencies attracted The Rolling Stones to Hood's "cracker box" studio to record "Brown Sugar," "Wild Horses" and "You Gotta Move," seminal tracks for their "Sticky Fingers" album.And the hits keep coming with recordings for Toby Keith, Frank Black and John Hiatt. This year he bridged the generation gap playing on the breakout solo album from the psychobilly lead singer of the Drive-By Truckers, Patterson Hood, his son.

My Music:

Satellite Radio : "I like hearing things I haven't heard before, that's why I don't have an iPod. I'd have to program it with songs I've already heard."

Frank Black/The Pixies : "I recorded on his last two solo albums, but before that I didn't like the Pixies too much. My kids used to play their records, and I thought, ‘what is that junk?' But I think I get it better now, and I like it."

"Turn Around" by Jonny Lang : "It has a real R&B sound like an old Al Green track."

Derek Trucks : "What a powerhouse."

John Mayer : "He's really a much better guitarist than people think."

"Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" by Outkast : "I just didn't think (hip hop or rap) was very musical. But after I listened to Outkast's double album, I decided it was great."

"Love" by The Beatles, a remix of the Abbey Road recordings : "I didn't think I was going to like that. I thought, ‘you can't go change the Beatles' songs. That's like changing the Bible,' but I really liked it."

"A Blessing And A Curse" by Drive-By Truckers : "I didn't like them at first. I thought they couldn't play, they couldn't sing and they didn't know how to tune their instruments. But I've been amazed at the songs they've written. The last album sounded like a Rod Stewart thing."

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