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Doc Williams Interview
Interview with Doc Williams (1914-2011), conducted over the phone by Darwin Lee Hill. A full print transcript is included, along with the audio.
Uncle Bob Helton's Blue Ridge Boys
Uncle Bob Helton and his Blue Ridge Boys at Montgomery radio station WMGY, circa 1940s. Left to right: Luke Sheahan, George Mayhew, Cuss Thorpe, "Uncle" Bob Helton, Duff Sherer, Todd Williams, and Kilroy Entreken. Helton’s band performed and…
Paw Perkins and the Pea Pickers Poster
Poster for Paw Perkins and the Pea Pickers at the Jasper (Alabama) City Auditorium. Featuring the Phillip Sisters, Roving Ramblers, and Dixie Slim. Date unknown. Courtesy John Horton.
Slim Byrant
Interview with Slim Bryant, recorded by Darwin Lee Hill, May 24, 1996. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1908, songwriter, singer, and guitarist Thomas Hoyt “Slim” Bryant made his first recordings in 1928 as a member of the Harmony Boys string band. He…
Big Jim Folsom campaigns in Elba, Alabama, 1966
Big Jim Folsom campaigns in his hometown of Elba, Alabama, for a third term in the Governor's office, April 1966. Two members of his band can be seen behind him. Folsom would lose the election to Lurleen Wallace, whose husband George had defeated…
Sponsor Letter to Fan, Happy Hal Burns
Letter from the American Snuff Company to a fan of Birmingham’s Happy Hal Burns. (See previous image).
Happy Hal Burns, 1955 Publicity Photo
Happy Hal Burns (Harold Frank Byrnes) was a popular, longtime Birmingham radio personality and a mentor to many of the city’s “hillbilly” and country acts, including Hank Penny, Sidney “Hardrock” Gunter, and Gordon Edwards “Country Boy Eddie” Burns…
Big Jim Folsom, Jamelle Folsom, and the Meat Grinders, 1962
Governor “Big Jim” Folsom, with his wife Jamelle and his 1962 campaign band, the Meat Grinders.
Big Jim Folsom "conducts" the Meat Grinders, 1962
Governor “Big Jim” Folsom, accompanied by his wife Jamelle, “conducts” members of the Meat Grinders, his 1962 campaign band. Twice elected to the Alabama governor’s office, Folsom lost the 1962 election to George Wallace, a former protege whose long…
Big Jim Folsom and his Strawberry Pickers, c. 1946
Gubernatorial candidate James E. “Big Jim” Folsom on the campaign trail with his Strawberry Pickers, c. 1946. The larger-than-life, two-time Populist governor made rural string-band music central to his folksy image, barnstorming the state with the…