Frank "Doc" Adams

From August 2009 to the spring of 2011, SMRC director Burgin Mathews recorded over 150 hours of oral history interviews with jazz musician and educator Dr. Frank E. Adams, Sr. (1928-2014). Adams’s and Mathews’s book Doc: The Story of a Birmingham Jazz Man (University of Alabama Press, 2012) drew its text directly from the resulting transcripts, presenting the life story of a beloved music elder in his own distinctive voice.

The Southern Music Research Center is proud to feature in its archive the Frank "Doc" Adams Oral History Collection, featuring audio excerpts from Adams's and Mathews's original interview tapes. Topics include Adams's earliest musical experiences; childhood and teenage tours with 1930s vaudeville shows; working with Fess Whatley and Sun Ra; reflections on Adams's teaching career; and more. Adams's narration is particularly significant for its glimpses into some of American music's all-but-forgotten personalities and places, including Sammy Green from New Orleans, Banjo Bill Reese, William Wise Handy, and such Birmingham venues as the Frolic Theater and Grand Terrace Cafe.