The man behind the album covers: Remembering the Artist Tom Wilkes

Elite Hotel (LP 12978, 1975) and
Blue Kentucky Girl (LP 9615, 1979)
Covers by Tom Wilkes
From the Wade Hall Sound Recordings Collections

The award winning artist, designer and photographer Tom Wilkes passed away last week. He leaves behind a massive catalog of album covers -- work that he did over a career that spanned more than four decades and includes these two covers by Alabama native, Emmylou Harris.

Wilkes made his name as the Art Director for the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967, creating iconic psychedelic images that forever branded the festival in our memories and our imaginations. He went on to a long and successful career that brought us album covers such as the Flying Burrito Brothers' Gilded Palace of Sin, and Beggars Banquet by the Rolling Stones. His creative genius will be missed, but will surely live on.

Let's celebrate once again Alabama's amazing musical legacy with Emmylou Harris, from the album Elite Hotel -- Together Again.

Farewell to Odetta

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

A Lucky Birthday for Alabama's Eddie Floyd -- Knock on Wood!

Happy Birthday to Alabama-born soul singer and songwriter Eddie Floyd. Eddie Floyd was born Eddie Lee Floyd on June 25, 1935 in Montgomery, Alabama and though he has an album coming out next month -- his first in six years-- he is probably best known for his work on the Memphis-based Stax Records label in the 1960s and 1970s - first as a songwriter, then as a surprise mega-hit singer!

Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, Floyd founded the the group The Falcons, which was a forerunner to future Detroit vocal groups such as one of the most famous Detroit bands (who got their start in their native Birmingham, Alabama!), The Temptations.

The 1959 hit by the Falcons, You're So Fine has been said by some to have been the first true Soul song. Wilson Pickett (yet another Alabamian -- he hailed from Prattville) was later recruited into the group and sang lead on the group's next success, I Found a Love. Pickett left shortly after to begin a a solo career, and The Falcons disbanded.

Floyd signed on with Stax Records as a songwriter in 1965. He wrote some hit songs including Comfort me, and also worked as a songwriting team with guitarist Steve Cropper to write songs for Wilson Pickett, who by now was signed to Atlantic Records (Atlantic distributed Stax). The Pickett recording sessions were a great success and yielded several hit songs, including the Floyd co-written Ninety-Nine and a Half (Won't Do) and 634-5789 (Soulsville USA).

In 1966, Floyd wrote the song Knock on Wood, and recorded it himself though it had been intended for Otis Redding. Music producer Jerry Wexler convinced Stax president Jim Stewart to release Eddie Floyd's recording of the song and Knock On Wood launched a solo career that has spanned over four decades.

Knock on Wood is one of those remarkable songs that has a life of its own -- having been recorded by over one hundred different artists including David Bowie, Count Basie, Cher, and Ike and Tina Turner. The song became a #1 Disco hit for the recording artist Amii Stewart in 1979. Here are a few versions - including Eddie Floyd's, Amii Stewart's version and a couple of others for your entertainment. And be sure to visit the Hoole Library to learn more about Alabama's incredibly diverse and rich musical history -- the images featured here are from items the Wade Hall Collection of Southern History and Culture and the Ed Hall Sound Recordings Collection. Here's to a very cool birthday, Mr. Floyd -- and good luck with your new album!
Please enjoy this mega-hit's legacy with versions by Mr. Floyd, two by Amii Stewart, Buddy Guy, Cher, James Last and David Bowie! (Note that while I can't embed the best one - which is from 1966 and probably from the television show, Hulabaloo, you can access it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSH4Nk5bPcE)

Happy Birthday to Alabama's own Clarence Carter!

Patches [sound recording] / Clarence Carter. (Detail)
New York : Atlantic, c1970. Sound disc : 33 1/3 rpm, stereo. ; 12 in. From the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library Wade Hall Sound Recording Collection, LP 14010

January 14 is the birthday of Clarence Carter, a native of Montgomery, Alabama. Carter was educated at the Alabama School for the Blind in Talladega and Alabama State College in Montgomery with a Bachelor's Degree in music. He released his first album, This is Clarence Carter, forty years ago in 1968.

Carter's career spans four decades, with his most known hit being th 1970 song, Patches, which reached #2 on the UK charts and #4 on the US pop charts and was nominated for a Grammy in 1972. Carter was inducted in the Alabama Music Hall of fame in 2002.

Carter recorded Patches, and several other songs in Muscle Shoals -- where recording artists of all stripes - pop, jazz, rock, soul, and country, made hits using that famous Muscle Shoals sound. Carter reinvented himself for a whole new audience in the 1980s and 1990s with songs like Strokin'. His most recent album was released in 2007 entitled, The Final Stroke.

The W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library's holdings include excellent resources for those interested in learning more about Alabama's rich and diverse musical history. Materials from the Wade Hall Collection of Southern History and Culture, as well as our sound recording and sheet music collections and manuscript collections and of course materials from the Alabama Collection, provide a wealth of information on Alabama music.

Speaking of Sound Recordings, be sure to stop by and see Hear Hair Here: Hair Do's and Hair Don'ts from the Hoole Special Collections Library.

Hear Hair Here! Hairdos and Hair Don'ts from the Hoole Library's Sound Recording Collections

Please visit the Hoole Library and check out some of the biggest and wildest hair in the music industry. We were looking for a little levity, and found some in the incredible album covers in our collections. Most of the covers come from the Wade Hall Sound recording collections, and others from the Ed Hall collection (no relation!). The most difficult part was selecting from the thousands of sound recordings we hold at the library. Among the categories featured are "The Pantheon", "Just for Men", and "The Higher the Hair, the closer to God". The exhibit will be in the Hoole Library lobby through the Fall 2007 semester.