Although Alabama has no official state nickname, it’s often referred to by its “unofficial” nickname, “The Heart of Dixie”. The motto began in the late 1940s and early 1950s as [more]

Adele Hall Ward, best known as Vera Hall is considered by many to be the foremost singer of the blues and African American spirituals. She recorded a large body of [more]

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]

Only two weeks before his assassination, on March 21st 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. sought refuge from the Ku Klux Klan in a small shotgun house while visiting Greensboro, Alabama. [more]

Birmingham, Alabama, native Fannie Flagg, who is best known for her novel Fried Green Tomatoes, had a long career as an actress and comedian before dedicating herself to writing. Published [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]