Nights at the Woodland Club

By the time he graduated high school, Cather had become a regular at the Woodland Club, a roadhouse on the outskirts of Birmingham, where for fourteen years saxophonist Frank Adams led the house band. On occasion, Cather might sit in with the band on the electric organ, a racially integrated collaboration rare for its time and place.

More often, Cather would bring along his reel-to-reel recorder, setting it up onstage and capturing the band's performances. From those tapes comes the recording below, a vital glimpse of those Woodland Club nights. Here, vocalist Dot Adams (wife of bandleader Frank) sings "Stars Fell on Alabama" from the Woodland Club stage.