Browse Items (32 total)
- Subject is exactly "Sun Ra
- Blount, Sonny"
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Ad: Sonny Blount on WSGN (1935)
Newspaper advertisement for Sonny Blount (Sun Ra) and his Orchestra on radio station WSGN.Birmingham Age-Herald, August 23, 1935. Though no Sun Ra recordings are known from this era, the reference here to "His Famous Recording Orchestra" is notable.
Ad: Sonny Blount Orchestra at Highland Park Country Club (1935) (2)
Newspaper advertisement for Sonny Blount (Sun Ra) and his Orchestra at Birmingham's Highland Park Country Club. Birmingham Age Herald, July 20, 1935. On a recent tour north, the group had played Cincinnati's Castle Farm, a lavish venue known for…
Ad: Sonny Blount Orchestra at Highland Park Country Club (1935)
Newspaper advertisement for Sonny Blount (Sun Ra) and his Orchestra at Birmingham's Highland Park Country Club. Birmingham News, July 14, 1935. On a recent tour north, the group had played Cincinnati's Castle Farm, a lavish venue known for hosting…
Ad & Article: Fess Whatley Presents Sonny Blount (1934)
Press coverage in the Kingsport [TN] Times anticipating Fess Whatley's presentation of the Sonny Blount Orchestra. On the heels of his own successful 1934 summer tour, Whatley organized and promoted a tour along the same route, featuring the band of…
Flyer: Sun Ra at the Chukker
Flyer for Sun Ra's three-night engagement at Tuscaloosa, Alabama's The Chukker, April 1992.
Near the end of his earthly journey (Sun Ra departed the planet in May 1993), the bandleader performed three nights in his home state, at the Tuscaloosa…
Near the end of his earthly journey (Sun Ra departed the planet in May 1993), the bandleader performed three nights in his home state, at the Tuscaloosa…
Sun Ra (1914-1993)
Homegoing Program for Sun Ra: bandleader, composer, poet-philosopher (1914-1993), Birmingham, Alabama.
Sun Ra at Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, 1980
Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, 1980. Sun Ra sits at keyboard. J. L. Lowe stands in white tuxedo.
Courtesy Carol Clarke.
Courtesy Carol Clarke.
Frank Adams Describes the Culture of Sun Ra's Birmingham Band
Frank Adams elaborates on his early experiences with Sun Ra. Adams joined Sonny Blount’s band as a teenager in the 1940s, before Blount left Birmingham for Chicago and became famous as Sun Ra. When this interview was recorded in 2012, Adams was the…
Frank Adams on Leaving Fess Whatley's Band and Joining Sun Ra's
In this interview excerpt, Frank Adams describes a conflict with high school bandleader (and legendary disciplinarian) John T. “Fess” Whatley – and an unexpected invitation from Sun Ra, the otherworldly bandleader then known as Sonny…
Frank Adams Compares the Bands of Fess Whatley and Sun Ra
As a high school student in the 1940s, Frank Adams played in both the bands of Fess Whatley, Birmingham's celebrated "Maker of Musicians," and Herman "Sonny" Blount, later famous as Sun Ra. In this interview excerpt, Adams compares the experience of…
Sun Ra at City Stages, 1989
Herman "Sonny" Blount left his earthly home of Birmingham in 1946 for a long and influential career as Sun Ra; in 1989, he returned to the "Magic City" for the first annual City Stages music festival. At the festival's opening "Street Strut" parade,…
Frank Adams on Sun Ra's Induction to The Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame
Adams recalls an encounter with Sun Ra at Ra's induction, in 1979, to the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in Birmingham, Alabama. Born in Birmingham in 1914, Herman Poole "Sonny" Blount would become famous as the iconoclastic, visionary jazz bandleader and…