Sounds Like Alabama!

The Year of Alabama Music at Hoole! Sounds Like Alabama

The Alabama Tourism Department has named 2011 the “Year of Alabama Music” and the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library is jumping on the celebration band wagon. Our new exhibit is opening soon -- one that will that will show music of all genres and from all corners of the state of Alabama that are held in our collections. We're calling it Sounds Like Alabama: Alabama's Contributions to American Popular Music from the Hoole Library's Collections.
You can learn more about Alabama music and the exhibit through a series of Twitter (@coolathoole) and on the Cool@Hoole Facebook page (Like Cool@Hoole: The Blog of the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library) posts, we will feature songs written by Alabama natives that have gone #1 on the Billboard charts, along with tidbits about various artists and songwriters. So follow us daily to get your toes tappin’ to some true Alabama sounds of every conceivable stripe.

Here’s a preview of just a few of the songs from the past century that might be featured in our tweets and posts! Enjoy!!!

Here’s a preview of just a few of the songs from the past century that might be featured in our tweets and posts! Enjoy!!!

1920: St. Louis Blues, written by W.C. Handy and performed by Marian Harris:

1944: Smoke on the Water, written by Zeke Clements and Earl Nunn, performed by Red Foley. This song also went #1 when performed by Bob Wills in 1945.



1955: Wallflower, written by Hank Ballard, performed by Etta James.

1966: When a Man Loves a Woman, written by Calvin Lewis and Andrew Wright, performed by Percy Sledge. This song also went #1 in 1991 when Michael Bolton covered it.

1978: Too Hot Ta Trot, written by Lionel Richie, performed by the Commodores.

1980: Tennessee River, written by Randy Owen, performed by the band, Alabama.

1993: Nuthin’ But A G Thang, written by Frederick Knight, performed by Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg

2002: The Good Stuff, written by Craig Wiseman, performed by Kenny Chesney.

Alabama Music Exhibit Coming Soon! Tweet!

Be sure to follow @coolathoole on Twitter and look for cool blog posts here about our upcoming Alabama Music exhibit!

Alabama's Storyteller, Kathryn Tucker Windham

We recently said goodbye to renowned storyteller, author, photographer, and radio personality, Kathryn Tucker Windham. She will be greatly missed, but she will live on in our hearts and through her stories. The Hoole Library houses over twenty different works, including sound and video recordings as part of our Alabama Collection.

Born in Selma, Alabama and raised in Thomasville, Ms. Windham inherited her gift of storytelling from her father, a local banker, at a very young age. From early on, she also showed a keen interest in writing. At the tender age of twelve, she began writing movie reviews for the Thomasville Times.

Her career as a reporter would continue to grow, and she began to work as a freelance journalist in Thomasville after graduating from Montgomery’s Huntingdon College in 1939. Windham became a police reporter and features writer for Montgomery’s Alabama Journal. Her work as a reporter in a very masculine profession was groundbreaking and inspiring to women writers all over Alabama and beyond.

Ms. Windham also had a lifetime love of photography, a passion and talent she put to use as a courthouse reporter and editor for the Birmingham News. Later, she would begin publishing books of her photographs and including them in works. She is well known for many, many things, but many think of her 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey when they think of her. Everyone loves her ghost stories. Inspired by an inquiry about “Jeffrey,” a friendly ghost residing in the Windham’s home in Selma, Windham began a series of collections of ghost stories, the first being 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, published in 1969. She followed up with collections of ghost stories from Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, more Alabama ghosts, and Southern ghosts.

She has been featured as a teller at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee over twelve times. She authored a book, My Name is Julia and created a one-woman play of the same name, which she performed in period costume about another great Alabamian, Julia Tutwiler. The play was debuted at the Birmingham Public Library in 1981.

There is a special place in my heart for Kathryn Tucker Windham -- as her stories were the foundation for the first major exhibition I did at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library. In Fall, 2000, just after coming to The University of Alabama, I worked with MFA candidate in the Book Arts, Suzanne Gray, on her MFA Thesis exhibition, Piano Lessons and Other Recollections, a book of stories by Ms. Windham, which was printed, illustrated, and bound by Suzanne Gray as her thesis project. The exhibit featured Suzanne's work as well as a selection of Ms. Windham's books, and included a tombstone pinata which I keep in my office to remind me of that exhibit and the opening.

Detail from Piano Lessons and other Recollections, stories from Kathryn Tucker Windham
Major Tiara Press, 2000. From the Hoole Library Book Arts Collection
Prefaces by Lori Allen Siegelman and Suzanne Gray.
This book was letterpress printed by Suzanne Gray from photopolymer plates and lead types on Frankfurt paper using Adobe Garamond and Garamond Italic typefaces. ... Twenty-six of the 125 copies are bradel bound with hand-colored illustrations and are in protective containers. They are lettered A to Z. Ninety-nine copies are quarter-cloth bound and numbered 1 to 99.
Illustrations by the printer; decorative papers by the printer and Suzanne Moore.

Students, scholars, and storytellers alike will return to Ms. Windham's stories and books. They are here for you to enjoy! I like to think that maybe Kathryn Tucker Windham herself is here with us sometimes -- I'd love nothing better to catch a glimpse of her and Jeffrey in the stacks, making mischief. She of all people, would appreciate that notion -- inscribing her books to her legions of fans, young and old, like this:

Makes your eyes light up. Your tummy say, "Howdy!"

Stove Pilot. Eleventh Edition, September, 1955. Alabama Collection. TX 715.U54

A couple of pages from the fantastic community cookbook, Stove Pilot, part of the Hoole Library's Alabama Collection and in the Wade Hall Collection of Southern History and Culture. Stove Pilot was done in several editions, compiled by the Women's Club at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama for the benefit of overseas recovery. The recipes are enchanting and humorous and the drawings are even better. The recipes for Shoo-Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy are side by side, and in the right order -- making those of us who are old enough to remember, or those artificially aged by our professions to hum a little tune made famous (??) by Dinah Shore, Ella Fitzgerald and June Christy. So if you are thinking about baking this weekend, no cake! Go to the oven and make some ever-lovin'....

"I never get enough of that wonderful stuff!"

Old Timey Summer Fun!

These images, all from the Wade Hall Photographs Collection, and all available online in our Digital Collections give us just a little taste of summertime nostalgia. Take the time to take a swim, or a boat ride, go on a picnic, play with your dog, or go for a drive and stop for a BBQ sandwich -- or a 40 cent Southern fried chicken platter (the "Pig Stand" featured above was in Binghamton, New York)!! Enjoy!

Aftermath of the 1932 Tornado Outbreak in Alabama

These five images are from the Roland Harper Photographs Collection -- photographs by Roland Harper of aftermath of the deadly tornado outbreak in the deep south on March 21 and 22, 1932. The destruction and loss of life was staggering, with the state of Alabama being the hardest hit.

The Roland Harper Photographs collection, 1878-1966 contains over 7500 photographs, as well as negatives and albums. Subject include botanical and geological subjects, as well as images of farms, people, houses and everyday scenes. The photographs cover thirty-one states, the bulk of the collection are from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, New York, California, Arkansas, and Maryland. These images are a powerful and essential resource in understanding the natural history of this region, providing accurate, precise, and well-documented snapshots of a time and place.

The papers of Roland Harper are also housed in the Hoole Library. Sixty three linear feet of materials from Harper, include his diaries, correspondence, research notes, writings, publications, personal and family materials, cemetery records, scrapbooks, as well as photographs, materials relating to race relations, and a substantial collection of transportation timetables and clippings. Some of the photographs and other materials from the collections are available online through our Digital Collections.

These images can in no way allow us to understand the tragedy of those 1932 tornadoes, where 268 people in Alabama alone lost their lives.

The devastation from the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak in Alabama is beyond comprehension. The University of Alabama, while in the center of the city of Tuscaloosa, was physically untouched. There are areas all around the campus that are damaged and destroyed. And we have lost members of our UA community to these storms.

These images from the 1932 tornadoes are a testament to the resilience of Alabamians -- we will be back, with the help of countless supporters from all over the world, and we will be stronger and better than ever. Please continue to help in any way that you can.