Marion County native Sonny James was a country music singer widely known by his nickname, the “Southern Gentleman.” During a 30-year career beginning in 1953, he recorded numerous chart-topping country [more]

Florence native, rhythm and blues singer and songwriter Arthur Alexander played a significant role in the development of north Alabama’s Muscle Shoals music recording scene. In 1961, Alexander recorded “You [more]

Born Gordon Edwards Burns, Country Boy Eddie sold Garden Spot Seeds door to door at the age of 13 to buy his first fiddle. Eddie eventually found his way onto [more]

Singer Percy Sledge was one of the most identifiable voices in the genre of country-soul, which emerged from Muscle Shoals in the mid-1960s. In 1966 Sledge recorded his most iconic [more]

Bessemer blues legend Henry “Gip” Gipson has been the proprietor of Gip’s Place for over sixty years. This juke joint first started in 1952 when Gipson began hosting barbecues in [more]

Montgomery native Willie Mae, Big Momma, Thornton was an influential African American blues singer and songwriter whose career extended from the 1940s to the early 1980s. She is best known [more]

Birmingham native Hugh Martin was an acclaimed composer, lyricist, and playwright whose career spanned the golden age of musical theatre and film. He is best known for his contributions to [more]

Ruby Pickens Tartt was one of the foremost chroniclers of folklore, folk music, and narratives of African Americans in rural Alabama.  She helped to fill the manuscript and music collections [more]

Birmingham native Erskine Hawkins was a prominent African American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer during the Big Band era of the 1930s and 40s. His Erskine Hawkins Orchestra was a popular [more]

Born Herman Blount in Birmingham in 1914, Sun Ra was a prodigious and renowned musician who reinvented jazz throughout his life with his Sun Ra Arkestra. He also pioneered a [more]