What's COOL@HOOLE: Highlighting the collections, events, items, happenings, ideas, new acquisitions, discoveries, initiatives, and everything else that's Cool @ the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library at The University of Alabama.
This
bread-shaped gem is a detail of the official Alabama vs. Sewanee
football game, held at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama on October
17, 1925. This item is from our extensive collection of University of
Alabama published materials, ranging from course catalogs and yearbooks
and everything in between, including an extensive collection of
University of Alabama football programs.
The detail here is from the November 14, 1959 game against Georgia Tech, which was played at Legion Field, also in Birmingham.
What is the significance of these two teams together? Well, we used to play Sewanee and Georgia Tech all the time, and in fact, our fight song, Yea Alabama, features the first line that says, "Let the Sewanee Tiger scratch, Let the Yellow Jacket sting!" And while we don't sing those lyrics anymore, but start with a rousing "Yea Alabama! Drown 'em Tide!", it's true that the first references in the song are to two schools we just don't play anymore. A fitting blog post today, what would have been Coach Paul Bryant's 99th birthday! Roll Tide Roll!
Writer, publisher, teacher, and poet Anne George was born on this day, December 4th, in 1927. She passed away in 2001, leaving a literary legacy that reaches far beyond her home state of Alabama.
Anne was born Anne Carroll Bell in Montgomery, Alabama. She was raised by her grandparents initially and moved to rural Lowndes County as a young girl. It was in her childhood that she became enamored with the detective stories -- from the magazines in her grandparents' house. Upon graduating high school, she attended Judson College in Marion, Alabama and graduated in 1949 from Samford University with a degree in English and Spanish.
She married and moved to Birmingham, where she taught English for over two decades. During that time she attended graduate school at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, earning an MA in English and Education in 1971. She also pursued a doctoral degree, and during that time founded Druid Press with her fellow student Jerri Beck. After ten years in the publishing business, they sold the press and Anne began writing full time.
She is best known for her Southern Sisters mystery series. This popular series began as a short story based on herself and a cousin. The first book in the series, Murder on a Girls' Night Out, was accepted for publication less than a week after she sent it to her agent. She eventually published seven books in the series, with such titles as Murder on a Bad Hair Day, and Murder Shoots the Bull. All of her writing is greatly influenced by her surroundings -- making Birmingham, Alabama center stage for her mysteries.
She was also a successful poet, publishing two volumes of her work. Though she is gone, she is not forgotten by her legions of fans who identify with and idolize Patricia Anne and Mary Alice, two unlikely sleuths full of Southern charm and humor.
Anne George, as an Alabama author, is included in the Hoole Library's Alabama Collection.
This groundbreaking and inspiring folk singer and champion of African-American history and music passed away yesterday. Odetta was born Odetta Holmes in Birmingham, Alabama on December 31, 1930.
When she was just six years old, she moved to Los Angeles with her family. She received classical voice training as a child and performed with a madrigal group (secular music from the Renaissance and early Baroque period -- all vocal) in junior high school, but by the time she finished high school, she became much more interested in other forms of music. She began her adult musical career in a touring production of the Broadway musical, "Finian's Rainbow", a Irish-ish musical with a score that included gospel and blues elements.
After the tour ended, her career blossomed when she performed as a folk singer in San Francisco in the early 1950s. She performed regularly and was close with folk legends Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. She was already well established when the folk music scene became extremely popular and commercial in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Odetta's passionate and soulful voice, and her ability to captivate her audience deeply influenced the career paths of latter day folk performers Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. She was a major influence on singers like Janis Joplin and Bruce Springsteen.
And while she did become involved in acting and in other areas, she remained for her entire life a passionate advocate for folk music and its importance. She said, "The folk repertoire is our inheritance. Don't have to like it, but we need to hear it. I love getting to schools and telling kids there's something else out there. It's from their forebears, and its an alternative to what they hear on the radio. As long as I am performing, I will be pointing out that heritage that is ours." Her passion for African-American folk music still serves as a hallmark of the Civil Rights and Black Pride movements. She was a champion of African-American history and culture both thought and in action -- through her powerful voice and through learning, performing, and sharing these important songs with an audience around the world.
In 1999, she was recognized with the National Medal of Arts awarded by President Bill Clinton, and in 2004, she was a Kennedy Center honoree. In 2000, the Library of Congress honored her with its Living Legend Award.
Sound recordings by Odetta can be found in the Hoole Library's Sound Recording Collections.
"If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and a soul like Odetta's would come along, the centuries would pass so quickly and painlessly we would hardly recognize time." --Maya Angelou
Lionel Hampton would have been 100 years old this week. He passed away in August of 2002 at the age of 94, a musical legend and performer for a remarkable eight decades.
Hampton was born on April 20, 1908 in Louisville, Kentucky. After his father was killed in World War I, Hampton and his mother moved to Birmingham, Alabama. They later moved north to Kenosha, Wisconsin, then to Chicago. His earliest musical experiences were in Birmingham, playing drums in a Holiness church. He started his professional musical career as a drummer, touring with bandleaders in the 1920s, then moving to Los Angeles in 1927.
Everything changed for Hampton in 1930, when during a recording session with Louis Armstrong. It was in this session that Hampton would first play the vibraphone -- the instrument he made legendary. When Armstrong asked him if he knew how to play, he said "yeah, I can play that" (based on his experience with a xylophone), and he recorded "Memories of You" on vibes with Armstrong.
Hampton went on to play in the 1930s with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, and soon after was recording under his own name for RCA Victor -- recording sessions with musicians like Dizzie Gillespie. In 1940 he assembled his own big band, with members including such legends as Dexter Gordon, Charles Mingus, and the legendary singer and Tuscaloosa, Alabama native, Dinah Washington. Though he is most widely known as a vibraphonist, he is often remembered for his wild drum performances. Most performances included him working the drums, vibes, singing, and playing piano.
Hampton's legend lives on as a dynamic band leader and vibraphonist -- and it is he that was responsible for making the vibraphone what it is today. And his passion for music and life is reflected in the legacy he left behind both in recordings, and in his good works in politics and in the community.
The W.S. Hoole Library's sound recordings include several by Lionel Hampton from the Wade Hall Sound Recordings. Images from a few of the albums are featured here.
Here's an early television recording of Hampton and his orchestra with his hit, "Flying Home".
