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Annette Snell: The Soul Diva aboard Flight 242

This story is about Annette Snell, the woman who might have become the next Aretha Franklin but for her death on Southern Airways Flight 242.

By Clifford Davids

It was well north of midnight on April 4, 1977 when a giddy and triumphant Annette Snell laid down the final vocal track of the recording session. The guys at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama had assured her that the new song was going to power up the charts and reach the top ten–and she knew they could make it happen. After all, this was the group who had helped Aretha Franklin become the “Queen of Soul” a decade earlier, recharging her stalled career with monster hits like “Respect” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”

Snell hugged all the guys, waved goodbye, and left the studio with just enough time to grab her things before heading out for the Muscle Shoals airport. The newly recorded song was still ringing in her head when she boarded Southern Airways Flight 242, reluctant to leave but happy to be heading home. She could feel the weight of the long years of hard traveling as she climbed the worn metal aircraft stairs into the DC-9 jetliner–but she knew that she had finally locked in.

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Snell was still young, but she had already been in the game for close to 15 years. She had come up in the early 1960’s, paying her dues amid the rough and tumble of the rhythm & blues scene in Miami, Florida. She started by doing background vocals with the Mar-Vells, and then moved up as the lead singer for the all-girl group The Fabulettes. But she craved more, and after moving to NYC in 1968 she made her way to Nashville, Tennessee.

In the mid-1970’s she recorded a series of three well-received 45’s for Buddy Killen at his Soundshop Recording Studios in Nashville. Each song placed on the Billboard soul charts: “You Oughta Be Here With Me” (#19, 1973): “Get Your Thing Together” (#44, 1974); and “Just as Hooked As I’ve Been” (#71, 1974). The songs cemented her reputation as a gutsy, forceful vocalist of uncommon passion and power. But she felt that the creative surge was just beyond her reach. She was still waiting for that one big hit…

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Aretha Franklin

And then everything fell into place. Her producer and agent worked out a deal to have EPIC Records release her first album. They arranged for recording time with the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio and their killer rhythm section known as “The Swampers”—the very guys that had helped resurrect Aretha Franklin. They had also provided the musical muscle and swagger for The Rolling Stones (“Brown Sugar”), Bob Seger (“Night Moves”), and Lynyrd Skynyrd (“Street Survivors”) among so many others. Located on the Tennessee River in northwest Alabama, the studio stayed busy serving up their signature sound that blended country, gospel, and rhythm & blues like a fine malt whiskey.

Her first 45 produced at Muscle Shoals was called “Promises Should Never be Broken,” and they said it was strong and true. The producers scheduled her for a follow up session with the Swampers for the first Saturday in April–when she returned they ended up working straight through the weekend. She finished with a final flourish early Monday morning, ecstatic about what they had done. Snell had booked the first flight home that morning, and as she settled in to her plane seat felt a sense of deep contentment, thrilled to be finally making her way.

Flight 242 made a stopover in Huntsville, AL and then took off for Atlanta, GA. It ran into immediate trouble, losing both engines in a hellacious hail storm before it literally fell from the sky. After the fiery crash in New Hope, Georgia, the word quickly went out to all of Annette’s friends and family that she had been on the plane. The tight-knit music community was devastated. The authorities were never able to identify her body–just a partial bridge that matched her dental records. Some people were convinced that she had survived, certain that they had seen her on TV wandering dazed around the crash site. But they were sadly mistaken–she was among the 72 victims on that tragic afternoon.

There is one remaining mystery surrounding her death. They said she hand-carried the recording from the final session at Muscle Shoals onto the plane. It would have been the original master tape, and it represented her crowning achievement of drive, dedication, passion, and perseverance. I can picture her tightly clutching on to that precious reel as the plane swiftly dropped from the sky, praying for her family and hoping that she might somehow survive the crash. She did not walk away that day, and the song she carried with her–the one they said was going to make her a star–was never heard again.

More Dallas-Hiram Patch content:

Shock and Awe: The Redstone Arsenal aboard Southern Airways Flight 242

The Daughter of Flight 242′s Copilot Finally Speaks Out

A Forgotten Hero of Southern Airways Flight 242: Fire Chief John Clayton

Remembering Georgia's Worst-Ever Plane Crash

Visit the Flight 242 Traveling Display

Old Wounds Still Fresh as Plane Crash Anniversary Looms


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