Watch TrueSouth

Season 9 kicks off in the Shoals, a cluster of towns in north Alabama, defined by their relationship to the Tennessee River: Florence, Tuscumbia, Sheffield and Muscle Shoals. Native people said that river sang. That's one of the stories locals tell about how the Shoals became the music recording capital of the US. Power generated by Wilson Dam, which now spans that river, drove the rise of tee-shirt manufacturing in the Shoals. Trowbridge's Ice Cream and Sandwich Shop, founded in 1918, the same year construction on that dam began, is Florence's flagship. Over in Sheffield, at George's Steak Pit, Elaine Goodlowe has stood tall by that hickory-fueled pit for more than 40 years. In the Shoals, those story threads knit people and places together.