Thursday, August 26, 2010

Hello Robert:

Still basking in the glow of the Bama win over UT. I have lived among the loud mouth Orangebloods (they put our loudmouth fans to shame, trust me) for nearly 20 years, and have been forced to hear they’re never ending parade of “if only Colt had played” BS. He didn’t, wouldn’t have mattered any way, and Alabama won the National Championship. End of story. Roll Tide, 2 more weeks to go.

Bob Brennen gave me these. His family owned WBAM in Montgomery, and WVOK in Birmingham, both 50,000 watt clear channels stations back in the day. Their annual Big Bam shows, and Show of Stars were traveling medicine shows and featured Lou Christie, Roy Orbison, The Animals. I met Peter Noone in Dallas a few years ago at WFAA, and told him about seeing him at a couple Big Bam shows with my older sister. He said he remembered them fondly, and loved the people in the south. Great guy.

One picture is of Bobby Moore and the Aces and yet another of the late, great Otis Redding, playing at a hall in downtown Montgomery. Last one is the Dave Clark Five at the Garrett Coliseum.

I thought you’d like to see these mini walks down memory lane.

Dave


One of Elvis' first appearances in Montgomery at a 1955 WBAM BIG BAM show.
L to R: Scotty Moore & Elvis
image courtesy of Bob Brennan via Dave Muscari



3 de Diciembre de 1955, "Talent Search of the Deep South", WBAM, Montgomery, AL



L to R: Dan Brennan, Elvis & Bill Black
image courtesy of Bob Brennan via Dave Muscari

3 de Diciembre de 1955, "Talent Search of the Deep South", WBAM, Montgomery, AL



ELVIS & BILL BLACK
image courtesy of Bob Brennan via Dave Muscari


3 de Diciembre de 1955, "Talent Search of the Deep South", WBAM, Montgomery, AL


An image of Otis Redding playing a venue in downtown Montgomery~ courtesy of Bob Brennan via Dave Muscari



courtesy of Bob Brennan via Dave Muscari


courtesy of Bob Brennan via Dave Muscari


courtesy of Bob Brennan via Dave Muscari


Dothan transplant & ZERO,NW FL citizen BILL J. MOODY!
courtesy of Bob Brennan via Dave Muscari

Montgomery's Bobby Moore & The Rhythm Aces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Moore_%26_the_Rhythm_Aces
courtesy of Bob Brennan via Dave Muscari

Dave Clark Five at the Garrett Coliseum.
courtesy of Bob Brennan via Dave Muscari



Robert Register Your Mother set me a little "dunce" chair right up in front of her desk so I could avoid disrupting her class. I had no one in front of me or beside me & I was parked DIRECTLY in front of her desk. Learned a great lesson that being at "THE HEAD OF THE CLASS" reduces distractions.

Sally Bedsole Zeigler Robert, I didn't know you had Mama for English. What were you doing to get "in Dutch"? Talking and not paying attention? I never heard her complain about you at the supper table, so I'm thinking you couldn't have been misbehavin' too bad. (...I heard plenty about Gerald, though, the year he had her. They were like oil & water. Ha!)

She would have been 44 the year we were in the 10th grade. 16 years younger than we are now. Astounds me that I'm now older by 9 years than she was when she died in 1972!




Here's some music to go along with the reminiscing.
http://www.ripete.com/oceanboulevard.html



NETTIE QUILL
from Carol:

here's my copy of the nettie quill
it was taken by a local lady photographer
well known around here. pic is almost too big to scan
My dad and his cousin still tell a story about a
race between the NQ and another steamboat
to Dixie Landing on the AL near baldwin/monroe county line.
Cuzn Leslie's book is called Gone to the Swamp
by Robert Leslie Smith and as UA press published it I'm
sure there's a copy up there somewhere. Interesting local lore.



Captain Johnson of THE NETTIE QUILL
from CAROL~
Finally got a scanner. Here's a pic of one of the Nettie Quill's captains,
Cap'n Johnson. Will get his full name for you. He was in Monroe County,
in a community known as Franklin, upriver from Claiborne. He was called
Boat Papa by the family.

My Reply:
Carol~
Found an article about Franklin in the '66 The Monroe Journal Centennial Edition.
It's located on Route 41. The first post office was at River Ridge which is about a mile north of Franklin of Hwy 41. The first postmaster was Leslie Johnson.
Here's a quote from the article:
"About two and one half miles from Franklin was Johnson's Woodyard. This was a busy shipping point on the Alabama River. Freight and passenger boats traveled regularly. About all that remains of the site now is one busy warehouse, a freight track and a track car which was pulled by horses."

Johnson Woodyard Landing is a couple of miles northwest of Franklin on the Alabama River.

best,
r

Thank you so much for these images!

Monday, August 23, 2010



Jeff Lemlich The B-side of the Del Rios' 1969 45.


Robert Register The latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine was mighty kind to THE
KILLER. During the middle of the Rolling Stone interview with Chuck
Berry, Chuck's agent calls him & interrupts the interview to discuss
the possibility of a concert with Jerry Lee Lewis.Jerry Lee's new
album, MEAN OLD MAN, received a four star review,qu...ote,"the
74-year-old's voice is in prime form- pitch perfect and tough as nails."
Phoebe Lewis,Jerry Lee's daughter, wanted to join us in Dothan for THE
SONGWRITER'S ROUNDTABLE on September 10, but she'll be with THE KILLER
in NYC promoting the new album.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e22vFxBcEvI


Gary R. Mullen & Taylor D. Littleton
are having a book signing @ ALABAMA BOOKSMITH on Thursday, Aug. 26 @ 4 P.M. They will be signing their book

Philip Henry Gosse: Science and Art in Letters from Alabama and Entomologia Alabamensis

http://www.alabamabooksmith.com/event/gary-r-mullen-taylor-d-littleton-philip-henry-gosse

The book includes 233 watercolors of Dallas County insects which have never been published.
"There remains, as the principal memento of these months in the south, still unpublished, a quarto volume entitled Entomologia Alabamensis, containing 233 figures of insects, exquisitely drawn and coloured, the delightful amusement of his leisure hours in the schoolhouse and at home. His powers as a zoological artist were now at their height. . . . His figures are accurate reproductions, in size, colour, and form, to the minutest band and speck, of what he saw before him, the effect being gained by a laborious process of stippling with pure and brilliant pigments. It has always been acknowledged, by naturalists who have seen the originals of his coloured figures, that he has had no rival in the exactitude of his illustrations."
—Edmund Gosse, The Life of Philip Henry Gosse, 1890


Monday, December 08, 2008

Hey y'all~

I recovered from the defeat yesterday by going down to King's Landing on the Alabama River in Dallas County and traveling a little over ten miles up the road to Pleasant Hill just like Philip Henry Gosse did in 1838.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Henry_Gosse

I discovered Gosse at Young Jr. back in '64 when I got a hold of a copy of Lucille Griffith's HISTORY OF ALABAMA 1540-1900 as recorded in DIARIES, LETTERS, AND PAPERS OF THE TIMES.

Gosse came to Dallas County to teach school in 1838.
http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1659
He kept a journal and published it in 1859.
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=fCg5AAAAMAAJ&dq=%22philip+henry+gosse%22+%22letters+from+alabama%22&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=ZP7ifAxVDH&sig=DceFYWPgm5_2UZvvvzT79F_-El8&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Sea Anemones by Philip Henry Gosse, 1860

I saw lots of critters on my journey.



While watching a large kingfisher glide down Six Mile Creek, I heard a cry of "GAW! GAW! GAW!" behind me.
I thought I was back on 30th Avenue cause it sounded just like a Tarzan movie!

No ghettoppottamuses were in sight.
It was only an anhinga.

image courtesy of www.geometer.org/costarica/animals.html

Driving along a dirt road beside the Alabama River I saw a herd of deer up ahead. I slowed down to a creep. By the time I got to them there were only three does and two fawns left but they walked around my truck like I was in a national park.

I also saw a beautiful specimen of a Great Egret.



image of THE GREAT EGRET courtesy of www.naturalsciences.org/.../Great%20Egret.html

After a satifying Philip Henry Gosse pilgrimage on the backroads to Pleasant Hill, I decided to take a little side trip over to Carlowville.
I'd seen an image of St. Paul's Episcopal Church on the Internet & I wanted to inspect the cemetery fence constructed from native stone.

image courtesy of flickr.com/photos/auvet/2311491046/

Imagine my surprise when I looked on the church sign and saw that our fellow Young Jr. Baby Criminal LOUIE DEAN SKIPPER was the PREACHER!

Wow! Louie Dean, you've come a long way since the Chukker.

I always thought Louie Dean was brought up Jehovah's Witness & y'all all know what you get when you cross an Episcopalian with a Jehovah's Witness.

You get someone who wakes up every Saturday morning and starts walking around knocking on his neighbors' doors but DOESN'T KNOW WHY!

image courtesy of www.blackbird.vcu.edu/.../skipper_l/index.htm
Congratulations,
REVEREND Louie Dean!

I've got to include a few excerpts from an article by Hamner Cobbs which appeared in
the July '64 issue of THE ALABAMA REVIEW.
It's entitled GIVE ME THE BLACK BELT.


Mr. John Lee of Perry County gave us a good sample of refined humor of this type a few years ago. Driving into Marion one day, he encountered an old Negro friend, coming from town in a spanking new buggy. They stopped and chatted, and Mr. Lee observed, "Why, that's a fine new buggy you got. What make is it?" A Columbus buggy, he was assured, which was the same kind Mr. Lee drove. "The very best," said Mr. Lee,"and where did you get it?" "Well, boss, I took it up at Mr. Little Wilbourne Brothers." "If you don't mind telling me, how much did it cost?" "Well, boss, I don't rightly know. I just know that when them white folks is good enough to give me credit, I sho' ain't goin' to embarass them by askin' how much somethin' costs!"

... I reminds me of what Sam Jones, that River paddler, told his same lawyer friend a few months back. Sam was paddling the lawyer alone this time, and the lawyer, knowing Sam to be a tidy man with his money- a man who often lent various sums- asked him in a jocular vein about a little loan. "Shore boss, how much do you want?" "I want $25, Sam." "Well, I can shore let you have that, but they's two things I always axes anybody who gets money from me, whether they be colored or white, and you gotta agree to answer them two things." "Sure, Sam, what are they?" "Well, I axes them: first, when is you goin' to pay me back; and I axes them, second,
is you goin' to pay me back?"