 |
Above, left to right: Rachel Edwards, Debbie Bond and Rick Asherson pool their talents at the Alabama Blues Project.
Below: W.C. Handy is honored with a statue in Florence. Diana Lambdin Meyer photos
|
|
This could be just a fun, impromptu jam session among friends, which it is, but it is so much more. The little frame house is home to the Alabama Blues Project, a non-profit effort to educate the public about blues music in the state. Edwards is an up-and-coming blues singer, nurtured by the mission of the Blues Project to highlight Alabama’s participation in this distinctly Southern art form.
Such scenarios are a part of daily life in Alabama where a passion for music has literally touched the world. This passion will be honored throughout 2011 in the state’s self-declared celebration of the Year of Alabama Music.
The Sound of Alabama
Music in Alabama is as soul stirring as Edwards’ evocative voice and as varied as life itself. From little jam sessions on front porches around the state to world-class performing facilities and hundreds of Grammy awards in between, Alabama’s contribution to the performing arts and cultural understanding goes deeper than the typical music lover often understands or appreciates.
The Native Americans of this region tell of a legend about a beautiful woman who lives in the river that sings, a reference perhaps to the sound the Tennessee River makes as it tumbles over the rocks and stones near Muscle Shoals. The Cherokee people called it “the singing river,” and it is an important aspect of their cultural identity.
Perhaps a more definitive starting point to Alabama musical history is the birthplace of W.C. Handy in Florence. Handy is widely known as “the father of the blues,” and his father, an evangelical minister, told his son “I would rather follow your coffin to the grave than see you become a musician.”
The blues, a blend of African and European music, had been sung for centuries before Handy’s birth in 1873, but he was the first to put it to paper, record and publish the genre while gaining legal rights for other blues musicians. He defined the music as “the sound of a sinner on revival day.”
His birthplace is a two-room cabin that includes the piano on which Handy composed one his most famous pieces, “St. Louis Blues,” and a George Gershwin-autographed copy of “Rhapsody in Blue,” which was a gift to Handy.
The W.C. Handy Music Festival, scheduled this year for July 23–31, takes over Florence with parades, lectures, special church services and music. From children’s piano recitals to all-night jam sessions, music literally fills the streets and the air of northern Alabama for a week, and much of it is presented free of charge.
Something in the water
Perhaps it was Handy’s presence in the region or maybe there is indeed something in the Tennessee River that inspires musical creativity, but either way, a musical phenomenon occurred here in the 1950s that would eventually encompass everyone from Elvis to the Beatles to the Rolling Stones.
A young man named Buddy Killen, who attended high school in Florence in the late 1940s, moved to Nashville, worked at the Grand Ole Opry and later became a successful music producer and publisher, working with artists like Dolly Parton, Rascal Flats and Reba McEntire.
About the same time, a Muscle Shoals DJ, Sam Phillips, left Florence and went to work at a radio station in Memphis. Phillips, founder of the legendary Sun Studios in Memphis, is widely credited with discovering Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and an endless list of musical superstars.
Killen and Phillips were local heroes, and a group of young musicians–led by visionary Rick Hall–were inspired to make better music in Florence. In 1959, Hall and his partners started the Florence Alabama Music Enterprises (FAME), recording local artists and providing backup for anyone who wanted to use the studio. These were the roots to the now famous Muscle Shoals sound.
Eventually, 12 commercial studios in Florence and Muscle Shoals were cranking out the hits. From 1970–83, the region was recognized as the hit-recording center of the world. In 1977, 40 percent of the Billboard Top 100 in all genres was recorded in these studios.
The Rolling Stones, Bob Seger, the Beatles, Sonny & Cher, Paul Simon, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers, Otis Redding, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton all recorded here. Gospel, rock, blues, country and pop artists wanted to come to northern Alabama to make music.
According to University of Northern Alabama music historian Terry Pace, music producers liked the Florence/Muscle Shoals area for two reasons: Lauderdale County was a dry county, so the musicians were able to focus entirely on their work and not get in any trouble; and it was remote enough so that the music superstars could come here and not be recognized or disturbed as they worked.
There are still studios doing some fabulous work for the likes of Lone Star, John Michael Montgomery, LeAnn Rimes, Rascal Flats and more, but it’s not what it was in the 1970s. According to Pace, the economic crisis of the mid-1980s hit the Muscle Shoals recording community hard. The studios had focused almost entirely on the recording process and had not developed enough of a name in songwriting and publishing.
Hall of Famers
The impact of Alabama musicians and songwriters on the world at large becomes undeniable when visiting the Alabama Music Hall of Fame in Tuscumbia. From Lionel Ritchie to Chuck Leavell and American Idol winner Taylor Hicks, their Alabama roots and contributions to the music industry come alive here. Climb up on the tour bus used by the group Alabama, record your own song, become your own DJ as you play songs written, produced or performed by those from Alabama. A summer concert series brings even more big names to northern Alabama.
Jazz lovers will find a hall of fame of their own in Birmingham where the likes of Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington and Pinetop Smith are honored.
Each year, nearly 200 music festivals take place throughout Alabama featuring all genres of music and talents of an untold number of regional musicians. Add to that the nightclubs, performing arts venues, church services and front porch jam sessions, and clearly someone is always singing somewhere in Alabama.
Diana Lambdin Meyer is a contributor from Park Ridge, Mo.
