No’Ala Shoals, July/August 2015 by No’Ala Studios

THE BIRTH OF THE BLUES | HALLEY PHILLIPS: RADIO ROYALTY | THE STORYTELLERS

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CERAMICS, DIGITAL & ELECTRONIC ART, DRAWING, FIBER ART, GLASS, JEWELRY, METALWORK, MIXED MEDIA, PAINTING, PHOTOGRAPHY, PRINTMAKING, SCULPTURE, & WOODWORK

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July/August

features William, Willie, and the Birth of Blues Professing his love for the blues: How a chance meeting with W.C. Handy inspired Dr. Willie Ruﬀ to follow his dreams around the world and back.

46 16 Terrance Brown and Tiﬀany Bostic-Brown have a story to sing.

Storytellers Four virtual shows and four area performers tell their stories—and ours—to the world. by roy hall

Photo by Matthew Fried/Yale University

by sara wright covington photos by patrick hood

by allen tomlinson photos by patrick hood and shannon wells

Producer and recording engineer Jimmy Nutt waxes lyrical on his musical inﬂuences and the future of the Shoals sound.

Walk With Me

by allen tomlinson

Willie Ruﬀ plays the French horn at the Beinecke 50th Anniversary concert at Yale University.

Welcome to the Nutt House

74 Radio Royalty A Shoals musical dynasty thrives under Big River Broadcasting's Halley Phillips, granddaughter of legendary Sam. by sara wright covington photos by danny mitchell

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no’ala advisory board

editor’s letter « Allen Tomlinson

The lazy, hazy y day ys of sum mme er—welcome to the Entertainment issue of No’Ala, the issue we traditionally devote to the people who work so hard to enhance the quality of our lives in the Shoals. The days might be longer this time of year, the air so thick we can wear it, but there’s nothing lazy about these folks—they are working hard to help the Shoals area retain its image as a hip, cutting-edge place to live.

Jeremy Britten Anne Bernauer Vicki Goldston Leslie Keys Tera Wages Ashley Winkle

We pride ourselves on being an area steeped in a rich musical heritage. Willie Ruff, one of the founders of the W.C. Handy Music Festival, grew up here and achieved some wonderful things; you’ll meet him in this issue. Halley Phillips, granddaughter of the legendary Sam Phillips, is profiled, as is Jimmy Nutt from NuttHouse Studios. You’ll meet actors, videographers and podcasters who use North Alabama as their base; singers Terrance Brown and Tiffany Bostic-Brown are here, as is the new director of the Shoals Symphony at UNA. If anyone tells you that there’s nothing going on in this area, show them this issue: we have some pretty serious entertainment industry credentials! That’s probably what we love most about this area. Because we have witnessed people with talent do so well—many times our own neighbors—we know that it’s possible to succeed, and we’re a little more willing to try it ourselves. It’s a recipe for success, and it seems to be a little stronger around these parts! Music and entertainment aren’t the only things that make this such a great place: we are once again calling for nominations for our 2016 Renaissance Awards. If you know someone whose work has made a difference in our area, please let us know. We’d like to bring some recognition to those who work so hard and often go unnoticed. Email your suggestions to info@noalastudios.com before November 1, please! When we travel, we hear that people outside our area envy us for our locally owned retail stores, restaurants, and services. We’re not a town full of national chains and big box stores; we’re full of unique places, staffed by creative makers. A big shout-out to our advertisers, who make this magazine possible, and a request for our readers: please shop locally and spend your dollars in your own backyard. That just makes it better and better, for everyone. Now grab tea, find a shady spot somewhere, and take a look b a big glass of sweet te at this issue. ue. Enjoy!

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contents

Welcome to the Nutt House

everything else 10 12

Calendar Selected Events for July/August 2015

No’Ala is published six times annually by No’Ala Studios PO Box 2530, Florence, AL 35630 Phone: (256) 766-4222 | Fax: (256) 766-4106 Toll-free: (800) 779-4222 Web: noalastudios.com

Cryin’ Out Loud “The Ace of Spades” by sara wright covington

A Favor for Eleanor Chapter One: Eleanor allen tomlinson

Market

“Character Notes” by roy hall and david sims photos by patrick hood

100

The Vine

“Mix It Up”

Hitting All the Right Notes

Kudos by roy hall

102

by amy c. collins

104

Food for Thought “Sentimentally Semi Homemade” by sarah gaede

106

Parting Shot by patrick hood

JULY/AUGUST 2015 Volume 8: Issue 4 ••• Editor-in-Chief C. Allen Tomlinson Chief Operating Oﬃcer Matthew Liles Creative Director David Sims Advertising Director Heidi King Features Manager Roy Hall Graphic Designer Rowan Finnegan Web Designer Justin Hall Editorial Assistant Tara Bullington Videographer Justin Argo Proofreader Carole Maynard ••• Contributing Writers Amy C. Collins, Sara Wright Covington, Sarah Gaede, Roy Hall, LuEllen Redding, David Sims, Allen Tomlinson ••• Contributing Photographers Amanda Chapman, Armosa Studios, Matthew Fried, Andrew V. Gonzalez, Patrick Hood, Eric Maldonado, Michael Marsland, Danny Mitchell, Percy Mitchell, Rachel Neal, Peter Svenson, Ginger Zolynsky ••• Contributing Illustrators Rowan Finnegan •••

Making beautiful music together: Shoals Symphony Conductor Dr. Daniel Stevens believes the Shoals and the Symphony are a match made in musical heaven.

Standard postage paid at Florence, AL. A one-year subscription is $19.95 for delivery in the United States. Signed articles reflect only the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors. Advertisers are solely responsible for the content of their advertisements. © 2008-2015 No’Ala Studios, All rights reserved. Send all correspondence to Allen Tomlinson, Editor, at the postal address above, or by e-mail to allen@noalastudios.com. Letters may be edited for space and style. To advertise, contact us at (256) 766-4222 or sales@noalastudios.com. The editor will provide writer’s guidelines upon request. Prospective authors should not submit unsolicited manuscripts; please query the editor first. No’Ala is printed with vegetable-based inks. Please recycle.

by lu ellen redding photos by patrick hood Connect with us on Facebook: No’Ala Mag Twitter: @NoAla_Magazine and Pinterest: NoAlaStudios

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calendar

Friday, July 3 Florence First Fridays The exciting monthly event gathers artists of all kinds— musicians, painters, sculptors, photographers, handcrafted jewelry creators, and more—for a community-wide celebration. 5:00pm-8:00pm; Free; Downtown Florence; firstfridaysflorence.org Saturday, July 4 Shoals Spirit of Freedom Celebration The Independence Day Celebration features performances by nationally known musicians, food vendors, and activities for the entire family, and culminates with one of the largest fireworks shows in the Southeast. All day; Free; McFarland Park, 200 Jim Spain Dr; (256) 383-2525 Monday, July 6 – Thursday, August 6 Mostly Blues Exhibit The Kennedy-Douglass Center features paintings, photos, drawings, and sculptures, all with a musical theme, in honor of the W.C. Handy Music Festival. Mon-Fri 9:00am-5:00pm; Free; Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts, 217 E Tuscaloosa St; (256) 760-6379 Friday, July 17 – Sunday, July 26 W.C. Handy Music Festival A week-long tribute to the “Father of the Blues,” the Handy Music Festival features over 100 great jazz and blues performances throughout the Shoals. Various locations and times. For a full roster of events, visit wchandyfest.com Tuesday, July 21 America Sings In honor of Handy Fest, the Florence Camerata performs spirituals, sacred music, gospel standards, and other works from the American popular songbook. 7:30pm; Adults $15, Students $8; First Presbyterian Church, 224 East Mobile St; florencecamerata.com Friday, August 7 Florence First Fridays The exciting monthly event gathers artists of all kinds—musicians, painters, sculptors, photographers, handcrafted jewelry creators, and more—for a community-wide celebration. 5:00pm-8:00pm; Free; Downtown Florence; firstfridaysflorence.org Thursday, August 13 – Thursday, September 17 Works by Ted Metz and Robin Nance Metz Sculpture, paintings, and collaborative ceramic works by the Montevallo, Alabama-based couple. Mon-Fri 9:00am-5:00pm; Free; Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts, 217 E Tuscaloosa St; (256) 760-6379 Thursday, August 27 – Sunday, August 30 The Homecoming Based on a novel by the creator of The Waltons TV series, this family-friendly musical is set on Christmas Eve, 1933, in a small town in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Thurs-Sat 7:30pm, Sun 2:00; Admission charged; Shoals Theatre, 123 N Seminary St; (256) 764-1700; shoalstheatre.org

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cryin’ out loud » Sara Wright Covington Because we seldom speak of him, there have been times when I have wondered if it was all just a dream, until I see the worn spot on the sofa, the scratched paint on the backdoor, and the waist-high, cloudy smears from a dog’s wet nose on a window, which I eventually Windexed away. Even now, years later, he is gone, but he is everywhere.

THE ACE OF SPADES We once had a very unruly dog—a Great Dane to be specific. Ace, as he was named by my formerly avid-poker playing husband, was really more of a wildcard than an ace, an irony never lost on me. His unpredictable behavior was the common source of our laughter, elation, exasperation, and downright embarrassment during the eight years he was alive. As the writer, I could paint this story any way I like. But I choose to paint it truthfully, although the truth sometimes still seems as raw as the gnawed-off edges of the dog bones I still find squirreled away here and there. Ace was not a good dog in the traditional sense—you know, obedient, adaptable, friendly to strangers, etc.—those weren’t really his strong points. Obedience school was pretty much over for us when he laid down in the floor of Pet Depot and refused to participate. It’s likely his anxiety contributed to his inability to adapt to new situations and people easily. He was taking puppy Prozac by the time he was two, and his considerable size made his downright panic at the first rumblings of a thunderstorm seem all the more ironic. If you are familiar with Great Danes, then you are aware they aren’t really meant to be outdoor dogs, another juxtaposition of the big breed. He was happiest at home with just us, resting his long, skinny bones on the sofa, his rear end seated like a person would sit, front legs stretched to the floor. Ace’s nature was probably best described as antisocial, an unusual trait for a Dane, but as I am also an introvert by nature, I can relate. Although Ace was a bit ornery, he was anything but a dull dog. His facial expressions spoke volumes of wordless stories, and he could sulk for days if provoked. Prior to our own flesh and blood children, that dog had been our only child. I suppose for most people, love for an animal is easy and unconditional. My husband loved him inexhaustibly, while I confess my feelings for the dog vacillated somewhere between affection, annoyance, and downright contempt at times. Ace was exasperating. During the puppy phase—which lasted nearly one-quarter of his lifespan—he destroyed shoes, books, pillows, and various other items of tangible worth—all of which belonged solely to me and me alone. It is hard for me to admit there were times I actually took the dog’s preference for my husband over me quite personally; but to be fair, he was my husband’s dog first, and it is very true a dog can have only one master. After surviving the puppy years, we ripped up our entire second floor of carpeting, because it was simply beyond rescue. Ace had a dog house built just for him that was the size of a child’s playhouse, and the only way he would step foot inside was if collared, drugged, and dragged, which sort of eliminates the point. Even during those dreaded rainstorms he feared so much, he couldn’t be degraded enough to step foot inside, and pawed at our door until we finally let him inside the house. There were certain people he simply wouldn’t tolerate, glaring and growling in their presence, until we realized that advance notice was required for all company. He frightened more than one visitor off our porch, and like any good watchdog, he abhorred the mailman. Animals are like people, I think—often taken for granted until they are gone. Unconditional love for anything leads to a vulnerability no emotional wall can ward off. And the heartbreak of that thing’s loss, even when prepared for, is simply inevitable. We were not prepared. And though we are over the shock of it, the pain has progressed to a dull ache that we bury beneath the everyday busy and bustle of life just going on. Our young daughter, nearly two when we lost him, questioned where he went and we simply told her “he went to live somewhere else” and never spoke of it again, not to her and not to

each other. But he hangs heavy in the silence of everything we don’t say. I remember the early days after he was gone and the phantom, haunting sounds I know I heard—the metallic click of his quick, light steps, his dreamy whimpers as he snoozed, the thud-thudding that a 130 pound mini-horse makes when clambering down from forbidden furniture as he hears his master’s car in the drive—they were all spectral mementoes of a giant black dog who was, at times, just a little too much. Because we seldom speak of him, there have been times when I have wondered if it was all just a dream, until I see the worn spot on the sofa, the scratched paint on the backdoor, and the waist-high, cloudy smears from a dog’s wet nose on a window, which I eventually Windexed away. Even now, years later, he is gone, but he is everywhere. I dream about Ace sometimes. The dreams are always as varied and vivid as they are absurd. Sometimes he comes galloping around the corner of our old yard all clumsy and cartoon-like, leaping through autumn leaves and then bounding straight into the blossoms of some summery shrub, nonsensically blooming in the mid-November of my dream. The unreal, exaggerated bright colors of our dream yard light it up ridiculously as if it were a stadium, but despite the cheery colors, I always feel some unseen sense of foreboding from just beyond the fence. In another version of the dream, his loss has been some grand gaffe. He has run away, gotten lost, and returned home after all this time, and sits pawing and barking outside our backdoor, unkempt from his long excursion and indignant at our locked door. There are other varieties of my dog dreams, but the universal feature of them all is that through some great miracle of misunderstanding, he has come back into our lives and we welcome him with open arms back to his worn spot on the sofa, where he will stay surly and sluggish, just as if he has never left. In wide-eyed disbelief we embrace and exclaim to each other, “He came home! He’s back!” But he won’t come back, I realize, as I’m startled out of my reverie. I still occasionally find his short, black hairs clinging to a cushion or an old blanket, all course and needle-like, unlike the docile, downy fluff of a German shepherd or collie. Those little hairs remind me of the tiny grains of sand I once found in a long-lost suitcase, souvenirs of a seaside vacation from a summer past, and it just seems too sad to sweep them away. So I leave them as they are, which is sentimental and silly, two traits I can’t seem to shake even as I age. Perhaps we will have another dog someday, when more time has passed. We’ll likely teach him to sit, stay off the furniture, and lay quietly at the feet of our company.

ǻ Ë r

FROGS Eɴ ǋÞǣǼŸƼÌ Řsǣ ğȖĶɴ ˠ˥ ˚ ˠ˨ ōON Ř_Ķsǣǣ Ë ĶĶ ǼÌsŘǣ ǢǼ Ǽs ȕŘÞɚsǋǣÞǼɴ

ÝŘ ǼÌÞǣ OĶ ǣǣÞO sɮ ŎƼĶs Ÿ¯ ŷĶ_ NŸŎs_ɴʰ ^ÞŸŘɴǣȖǣ ǼÌs µǋssĨ ¶Ÿ_ Ÿ¯ ǻÌs Ǽǋsʰ ¯ǋȖǣǼǋ Ǽs_ Eɴ ǼÌs Ķ OĨ Ÿ¯

¶ǋs Ǽ ƼĶ ɴǣʰ Ǽǋ ɚsĶǣ ǼŸ Ë _sǣ ǼŸ EǋÞŘ¶ ǼÌs ƼĶ ɴɠǋÞ¶ÌǼ rȖǋÞƼÞ_sǣ E OĨ ¯ǋŸŎ ǼÌs _s _ ǼŸ ǣ ɚs ǼÌsŘÞ Ř ^ǋ Ŏ ʳ ǻÌs O ǣǼ Ÿ¯ OÌ ǋ OǼsǋǣ ^ÞŸŘɴǣȖǣ ŎssǼǣ ǼÌǋŸȖ¶Ì ÌÞǣ Ǽǋ ɚsĶǣ ǼŸ ǼÌs ȖŘ_sǋɠŸǋĶ_ Ķs _ǣ ǼŸ _sE Ǽs Ř_ OŸŘǼsǣǼ Ÿɚsǋ ɠÌŸ ǼǋȖĶɴ ÌŸĶ_ǣ ǼÌs ǼÞǼĶs Ÿ¯ ˆµǋs ǼsǣǼ µǋssĨ ǻǋ ¶s_Þ Řʳˇ

I’ve no doubt at all that we will love this new dog too, but I know in my heart there will never be another wildcard like our Ace.

www.athens.edu/athenianplayers july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

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scene

Marty Abroms and Stephanie Coleman Joel Anderson, Dan Hendricks, Jay and Michele Brubaker

Jan Scoﬁeld

Mack Mauldin and Hadley Skalnik

Barb Hendricks, Dan Hendricks, Ken Kitts, and Dena Kitts

Tracy Prater and Sarah Shapiro

Mary Armstrong, Tracy Marcu, and Maray Daniel

Jennifer Smith © Photos by Jessica Pajaron, Skip Martin, and Shannon Wells

Above: UNA Derby Days

Below: Riverhill School Home & Garden Expo

may ,  · coby hall, the university of north alabama

may ,  · florence

Jenny Hovater, Genevieve Gorder, and Juli Powell

Woodward Watkins, Jennifer Cornelius, Genevieve Gorder, Gary Doty, and Gabe Basinger

Robin Wade and Genevieve Gorder Genevieve Gorder and John Moody

Mina Assajeri, Olivia Cross, Genevieve Gorder, and Ruthie Mitchener

Melissa Overton, Tracey Marcu, Genevieve Gorder, and Mary Armstrong

* Names for photos are provided by the organization or business featured.

Genevieve Gorder and Benji Wilson

Carolyn Edwards, Sonia Robertson, Genevieve Gorder, and Kenny Barnes © Photos by Xx

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text by allen tomlinson » photos by patrick hood additional photos by shannon wells

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If you’ve ever wondered what it sounds like to hear angels sing, there’s someone you need to listen to. When Terrance Brown and Tiffany Bostic-Brown sing—especially when they sing together—it doesn’t matter who you are, or what your interest in music might be: you’ll stop and listen. Part of the reason is that their voices are so perfectly matched, but part of it is that their voices are so expressive, so rich, and so strong. If they happen to sing a song from Porgy and Bess—perhaps the song “Bess, You Is My Woman Now”—it might make you cry. There’s power in that music, and there’s power in their ability to convey the depth of the emotions written in the notes. It’s…well, it’s angelic. Lucky for our region, these two share their talents generously. Both Terrance and Tiffany are Assistant Professors of Music at the University of North Alabama. They teach at the university, they teach private lessons, they perform, and they work to encourage other young musicians to follow their passion. “We met in graduate school at LSU,” said Tiffany, who is originally from northern Virginia. Terrance is from a small Alabama town called West Brockton (so small that “it doesn’t even have a stoplight,” he said with a laugh). The Browns earned their doctorates from LSU and taught private lessons, and Terrance taught at Dillard University in New Orleans while Tiffany was a member of the opera company and worked in administration there in Baton Rouge. All the while, they were performing as well. “When you’re a performer, it’s a part of your soul,” said Tiffany. Those performances have included some pretty spectacular venues. The couple is in demand for their performances of excerpts from Porgy and Bess, but love the memory of singing the Brahms Requiem at Lincoln Center (in 2011) as part of Distinguished Concerts International at Avery Fisher Hall. That certainly isn’t all they’ve done; their performances span the country, and will include singing with the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra this fall in a performance of Vaughn Williams’s Sea Symphony. If you’ve heard them sing, you understand why they are in such demand. But there’s so much more to this talented couple, and it begins with a story they want you to know about. Early on the morning of September 15, 1963, as parishioners were gathering for Sunday school at the 16th Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, a bomb planted by members of the Ku Klux Klan discharged and killed four young girls (Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Denise McNair), injuring more than 20 others. It was one of the darkest points of the Civil Rights move-

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

“The Muscle Shoals area is so deeply rooted in music. We see a lot of undiscovered talent. Because music is so prevalent, it’s not an unusual idea to consider it as a career.” Tiffany Bostic-Brown

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ment, and 14-year-old Carolyn Maull (McKinstry), who was just feet away from the worst of it, wrote a book as an adult, While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement. That book sparked something in the Browns, and they decided it was a story they wanted to tell. But they added another component: they tell the story and use it as a means to raise scholarship money for young singers. “The Muscle Shoals area is so deeply rooted in music. We see a lot of undiscovered talent,” said Tiffany. “Because music is so prevalent, it’s not an unusual idea to consider it as a career.” So, as a mentorship program, the Browns created Solas, a vocal ensemble of 18 singers who tour, and whose repertoire relies heavily on African American spirituals. Then, with the help of Kevin Thomas and Greg Patterson, they created Walk With Me, a musical narrative that tells the story of the 16th Street Baptist Church and that fateful day, 52 years ago. Terrance produced the musical, and Tiffany selected the songs; narration tells the story. (Carolyn Maull McKinstry narrated one of the first performances, which was a highly emotional experience for her, for the singers, and for the audience.)

With the help of local attorney Tim Corley, a non-profit foundation was created, and the Walk With Me Foundation now actively raises money to provide mentorship for high school singers. Education is Walk With Me’s core value, and their goal is to choose five high school students each year and provide private instruction to teach them how to refine their voices and perform. (This year, their funds allow them to mentor two students.) Students are chosen through audition and through recommendations from area choral directors and teachers, and although the finalists are not chosen based on social or economic circumstances, you can tell the Browns are delighted when they are able to help someone who otherwise might not have the chance. “It’s mostly to provide encouragement,” said Terrance, “especially because many times families are reluctant to encourage a child to make a career this way. We want to show them what’s possible.”

Walk With Me has been performed twice in north Alabama, and the hope is that it can be broadcast to a larger audience, possibly even through a televised performance for public television. Solas performed it for the ﬁrst time in the Shoals in 2013 as part of the UNA history department’s presentation of the 50th anniversary of desegregation in Alabama; their second performance was later that year at the Ritz Theatre in Sheﬃeld, followed by concerts in Tupelo, Hattiesburg, and Starkville, Mississippi. Additional programs are planned, and the group is revamping its program and practicing.

Preceding page: Solas, the performing ensemble for the Walk With Me Foundation, performs locally and tours the South. Facing page: Soprano Tiﬀany Bostic-Brown is the featured guest artist for the Solas ensemble, and co-founder of the Walk With Me Foundation. Above: Baritone Terrance Brown performs with the Shoals Symphony at UNA.

Add a 14-month-old child, Copeland, to the mix, and you’d think this couple would have their hands full. But three years ago the Browns began talking to the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra about performing with them. “We could never

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

Tiffany Bostic-Brown

line it up until this year,” said Terrance, “but ﬁnally we were able to schedule an audition. We sang two songs each for the audition committee, and then sang a duet—and were hired.” The couple will perform on September 18 in the season premier, singing Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony. Based on Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, the Browns describe the orchestral work as “rich, full, patriotic, and very melodic,” even though it was written in the early 1900s and is considered a fairly contemporary work; the duo will be joined by the Huntsville Community Chorus and the full Huntsville Symphony Orchestra, now in its 61st season.

The Browns are heavily involved in the music program at UNA, of course, helping to stage the recent production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. Plans are underway to perform Viardot's Cendrillon (Cinderella) and Sondheim’s Into the Woods in the next season, great news for vocal students and area audiences alike.

Above, top: Terrance Brown, musical director for the UNA Opera/Musical Theatre program, provides direction to the cast of The Magic Flute. Above: Tiﬀany Bostic-Brown performs on the Norton Auditorium stage for the UNA Faculty Grand Recital. Facing page: Terrance Brown is the conductor/artistic director for the Solas ensemble, and the co-founder of the Walk With Me Foundation. For more information visit www.walkwithmefoundation.org.

 | noalastudios.com | july/august 

“When you become a parent, you have to become better at delegating and prioritizing,” said Tiﬀany, but it certainly hasn’t slowed these two down. “When we do what we love, it makes us happy in our spirit,” she said, “and that makes us better teachers, better parents, better friends, and better performers.” If you have a chance, make time to listen to these two with their angelic voices. It’s apparent their spirits are very happy.

“When we do what we love, it makes us happy in our spirit, and that makes us better teachers, better parents, better friends, and better performers.”

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text by allen tomlinson photos courtesy of matthew fried and michael marsland/yale university and the w.c. handy museum

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This is a story about two men, both sons of the Shoals, both of whom made an impact on the musical world. Separated by a generation, their paths had crossed; born in Alabama poverty, both overcame the circumstances of their childhood and achieved some wonderous things. Because of their intelligence, their persistence, and a little bit of luck, both achieved what many black men from Alabama were not able to achieve. This is a story about William, Willie, and the Birth of the Blues. William Christopher Handy birthed the blues and made his fortune as the first black man in America to own a music publishing company. Willie Ruff took jazz and the blues to parts of the world that had never heard it before. As we prepare to celebrate the 33rd annual W.C. Handy Music Festival, an event Willie Ruff helped to create, it’s fitting that we take a look at these two men, who have had such an impact on the world of jazz and the blues.

Musical Inspiration Everywhere On November 16, 1873, William Christopher Handy entered the world. W.C.’s grandfather, who had been a slave, became an African Methodist Episcopal minister after emancipation, and W.C.’s father, Charles Barnard Handy, was a minister as well. The Handy household was deeply religious, and W.C.’s father believed that musical instruments were tools of the devil. But there was music everywhere. In addition to the hymns sung in church, Handy said the sounds of nature, “whippoorwills, bats and hoot owls and their outlandish noises,” the sounds of the water of Cypress Creek and the Tennessee River washing against the shore, and “the music of every songbird and all the symphonies of their unpremeditated art,” were his inspiration. Handy picked berries and nuts to sell and made and sold lye soap in order to purchase his ﬁrst musical instrument, a guitar that he saw in a shop window. His father was furious. As a compromise, Handy’s father enrolled him in organ lessons, but that did not hold W.C.’s interest for long. Instead, he joined a local band, without his parents’ knowledge, purchased a cornet from a fellow band member, and spent every free minute practicing it.

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At the age of 19, Handy travelled to Birmingham to take a teaching exam and gain a teaching job in the city. The pay was horrible, so he quit and went to work for a pipe factory nearby. There, he observed the music made by workers as they beat shovels and pushed wheelbarrows. He wrote, “with a dozen men participating, the eﬀect was sometimes remarkable. It was better to us than the music of a martial drum corps, and our rhythms were far more complicated.” He also observed that black people in the South “sang about everything. They accompany themselves on anything from which they can extract a musical sound or rhythmical eﬀect.” He believed that this was what set the mood for what we now call the “blues.”

Above: W.C. Handy, circa 1892.

When Handy was not working, he was playing music. He organized several small musical groups, eventually moving to Evansville, Indiana, singing ﬁrst Courtesy W.C. Handy Museum tenor in a minstrel show, and working as a band and choral director. He became band master of Mahara’s Colored Minstrels and traveled extensively for three years, even performing in Cuba. (The Latin tangoes and rhythms he heard there would greatly inﬂuence him as he composed his most familiar song, “St. Louis Blues.”) At the end of three years, at the age of 26, Handy and his new bride, Elizabeth, whom he met in Henderson, Kentucky, decided to settle in Florence, Alabama, once again. In September of 1900, at the age of 27, W.C. Handy was recruited to be a faculty member at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes (now known as Alabama A&M, in Huntsville). For two years he taught, but he became increasingly agitated because the school emphasized European classical music instead of the uniquely American music he loved so much. In addition, a series of travels through Mississippi exposed Handy to the rural music of the delta plantations, where musicians played and sang accompanied by the guitar, banjo, and sometimes by the piano. Handy was able to transcribe much of the music he heard, and he realized that he missed touring; in 1902 he resigned from AAMC

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and rejoined the Mahara Minstrels, and then, in 1903, became director of the Knights of Pythias, located in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Mississippi was a transformative experience for Handy. He observed the music he heard around him, taking note of the key, the tempo, and the repetition of certain musical themes. In Clarksdale, Handy was “surrounded by crowds of country folks, (and) they would pour their hearts out in song. They earned their living by selling their own songs—‘ballets,’ as they called them—and I’m ready to say in their behalf that seldom did their creations lack imagination.” Handy’s ﬁrst popular success as a composer was in 1912, with the publication of “Memphis Blues,” a song used as the campaign song for the successful political campaign of Memphis Mayor Edward Crump. After the campaign was won, Handy changed the words and the name, to call it “Memphis Blues.” He sold the rights for $100. That didn’t make it a ﬁnancial success for him, personally, but this piece introduced a style of music—the blues—that would earn him the reputation as its Father.

Courtesy W.C. Handy Museum

I hate to see that evening sun go down I hate to see that evening sun go down ‘Cause, my baby, he’s gone left this town Fellin’ tomorrow like I feel today If I’m feelin’ tomorrow like I feel today I’ll pack my truck and make my get away St. Louis woman with her diamond ring Pulls that man around by her apron string If it wasn’t for powder and her [Incomprehensible] hair That man I love wouldn’t have gone nowhere, nowhere I got the St. Louis blues, blue as I can be That man’s got a heart like a rock cast in the sea Or else he wouldn’t have gone so far from me I love my man like a school boy loves his pie Like a Kentucky colonel loves his mint’n rye I love my baby till the day I die Courtesy W.C. Handy Museum

Top: W.C. Handy and his family, and below as an adult.

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Courtesy W.C. Handy Museum

These words, and that melody, are so well known to residents of the Shoals area. “St. Louis Blues” was one of the most beloved pieces in a catalog of work that became quite extensive throughout his life. And W.C. Handy’s genius was not just his ability to listen to the sounds of the world around him and create unique blues tunes; he was also an astute businessman. In 1913, he became one of the first black men to own his own publishing company. By 1917, Handy and his publishing company had moved to New York City, where he had offices in the Gaiety Theatre office building in Times Square. He wrote, “I was under the impression that these Negro musicians would jump at the chance to patronize one of their own publishers. They didn’t. The Negro musicians simply played the hits of the day—they followed the parade. Many white bands and orchestra leaders, on the other hand, were on the alert for novelties. They were, therefore, the ones most ready to introduce our numbers.”

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Mr. Handy thrived. In addition to his own blues works, which included such names as “St. Louis Blues,” “Memphis Blues,” “Yellow Dog Blues,” “Joe Turner Blues,” “Beale Street Blues,” “Hesitating Blues,” “Ole Miss,” “Aframerica Hymn,” “Harlem Blues,” “Basement Blues,” “Loveless Love (Careless Love),” “Chantez Les Bas,” “Aunt Hagar’s Blues,” “East St. Louis Blues,” “John Henry,” “Annie Love,” “Hail to the Spirit of Freedom,” “Big Stick Blues March,” and “Atlanta Blues,” he also composed serious music that was not considered the blues, including “Blue Destiny,” “Opportunity,” and “Gettysburg Address.” And he was a serious promoter and publisher of a number of other artists, publishing the original “Shake, Rattle, and Roll, and “Saxophone Blues,” written by a “young white man with a soft Southern accent” named Al Bernard. In the 1920s, Handy formed the Handy Record Company, and in 1925, Bessie Smith recorded “St. Louis Blues,” with Louis Armstrong, considered by many to be the best recording of this song. It was so successful, in fact, that RCA Mo-

Willie Ruﬀ speaks at the Beinecke 50th Anniversary concert at Yale University. Michael Marsland/Yale University

tion Pictures ﬁlmed a project of the same name, with Bessie Smith in the starring role, and the ﬁlm was shown as a preview to feature attractions from 1929 to 1932, just about the time motion pictures began to have sound.

Back to the Shoals Mr. Handy moved to New York, in part, to escape the racial attitudes toward black men in the South. But he frequently traveled back to his hometown of Florence, and made it a point to speak to children in their schools, to encourage them and inspire them. This is how his path crossed that of Willie Ruff ’s. Willie Ruff was born in Sheffield, Alabama, on September 1, 1931. His family lived in an area of Sheffield referred to as “Baptist Bottom” even today, a low-income part of the city that was (and still is) primarily African American. The Ruff family was poor.

Willie attended the Sheffield School for the Colored, and one day a very distinguished and successful man came to speak. It was W.C. Handy, already a publisher and musician of note, and he had a message for the young people in his audience: you can do whatever you set your mind to do. And the message went deeper than that: Mr. Handy’s words convinced young Willie Ruff that even though he came from modest circumstances, he had many things of which to be proud. In many ways, Mr. Handy changed Willie’s life. Just as Mr. Handy found inspiration from iron workers, the sounds of nature, and even the waves of the Tennessee River lapping on the shore, Willie found inspiration from things around him. He wrote that it came from Mrs. Nance, the solo bass drummer at the Sanctified Church, whose beat “gave her right arm the churning motion of a set of steam locomotive wheels,” as well as listening to the rhythms of the speech from the ladies who sat on front porches to visit, or singing at the grocery store for candy.

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Willie Ruﬀ plays the French horn at the Beinecke 50th Anniversary concert at Yale University. Matthew Fried/Yale University

When Willie was 14, he saw a way out of poverty through joining the Army, so he lied about his age and enlisted. It was musical heaven, as he was able to join the all-black band as a drummer. When he was told there were too many drummers and he would have to leave, he taught himself to play the French horn so he could stay.

huge success, capped by the fact that in 1959 they were the first Western jazz musicians to perform in the Soviet Union since World War II. Yes, that’s right—Willie Ruff and Dwike Mitchell helped introduce jazz to the Russians, and then, later, in 1981, they did the same for China. Not bad for a young man from Sheffield, Alabama!

This was 1945, and even outside of Alabama, life for a young black man had its challenges. No matter—Willie was an avid learner, and he earned his high school equivalency degree. After the Army, he decided he wanted to attend Yale University, and was accepted; under the tutelage of Paul Hindemith, his musical horizons were expanded. He went on to earn a Master of Music from Yale in 1954.

Also not bad for that man from Baptist Bottom? He’s been on the Yale faculty in the School of Music since 1971, and has also been on faculty at Duke University, Dartmouth, and UCLA. He is the founding director of the Duke Ellington Fellowship program at Yale, and he’s been the subject of three television documentaries and a feature story for National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. He researches, organizes national conferences, and loves to teach.

In the Army, Willie made friends—one of whom was Dwike Mitchell. While he was at Yale, after the Army, Willie worked with Benny Goodman and later with Lionel Hampton, and Dwike was Hampton’s pianist. The two decided to create a duo, in which Dwike, on the piano, and Willie, on the bass and on the French horn, would perform and record. It was a

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And, like W.C. Handy was before, he is a frequent visitor to the Shoals, where he still maintains a residence. He’s a familiar ﬁgure at musical events, and he loves coming to the Handy Festival to see how it’s grown since he and a small group of friends thought it up in the early 1980s.

This spring, Willie was invited to speak to the Institute for Learning in Retirement at UNA, and he brought a multimedia presentation that centered around the hundredth anniversary of Mr. Handy’s most famous work, “St. Louis Blues.” It was more than a listing of the many films and recordings that have featured this song; it was also the story of Willie’s life and included important influences, such as Tuskegee Airmen who had to fight for the same rights other white pilots already had, and the influence of a Sheffield tailor named Swopes who very quietly helped other African Americans earn their educations and who attended and later served on the Board of Directors at Tuskegee. But perhaps the most moving story he told was about that day Mr. Handy visited his classroom, almost 80 years ago, and encouraged the poor black children living in segregated Alabama. “You can do whatever you set your mind to do,” he said, “and even though you come from modest circumstances, you have much to be proud of. Your musical heritage is one of those things.” Thankfully, for us and the world, young Willie Ruff was listening.

Matthew Fried/Yale University

Professor Ruﬀ ’s memoir, A Call to Assembly, was published in 1991 by Viking Press and contains more stories and information about his spectacular life and those who inﬂuenced him. The book received the Deems Taylor Award for excellence in a book on music.

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30 »

scene

Rebecca Hamm, Christa Raney, Cheron White, and Anna Burnley Melissa Bain, Cassie Campbell, Jenifer Rogers, and Tracy Burdine Claire Patel and Sajel Speyrer Katie and Timothy Wakeﬁeld

Girlfriend Gala Committee Jenny Hovater and Juli Powell

Brandeis Short, Kaitlin Wallace, and Adrienne Bugg

Sarah Gillis and Jessica Mangum © Photos by Armosa Studios

Above: Girlfriend Gala

Below: Chinese Auction

april ,  · historic sweetwater depot

april ,  · marriott shoals conference center

Robin Thompson, Heather White, LuEllen Redding, and Sara Jeﬀery

Back Row: Barbara Burke, Michael South, Julie Wilson, Monaire Murphy, Jan Stone, Patrice Kelly, and Meghan Smith; Front Row: Connie Gilley, Andi Linville, and Julie Lane Holly Nichols and Lynne Beatty Prudy Thomas and Taska Haraway Krissy Malone, William Priest, and Nira Dale

Graham and Grace Fox with Leslie Howard

* Names for photos are provided by the organization or business featured.

Chad Greenhaw and Krista Manchester

Katherine Keith, Laura Hillhouse, and Althea Johnson Photos by LuEllen Redding

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text by roy hall

In the four centuries since Shakespeare declared the world a stage and everyone in it players, the Bard of Avon’s metaphor has taken a sharp turn for the literal. In the past two decades alone, technology has given anyone with the talent and inclination the means to become writers, directors, and actors, and in the process turned our formerly isolated living rooms and neighborhoods into TV studios and sound stages.

That very same technology has made the faraway familiar, and the professional “player’s” once intimidating dream of performing on distant stages now seems less daunting, more attainable.

In this article, we’ll introduce you to four virtual storytellers, whose productions broadcast our communities, and their tales, to anyone, anywhere with a computer and broadband.

You’ll also become acquainted with four performers, whose show business aspirations have taken them from North Alabama to sound stages and TV studios far from home.

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Made in the Shoals “Do you really live in Alabama? Why?” It’s a question Wes and Tera Wages hear a lot, in different forms, and in different accents, as they travel the country and the world with their photography business, Armosa Studios. People wonder why the husband-and-wife photographers choose to live in such an out-of-the way town, in Alabama. Wouldn’t two creative people prefer a place with a rich cultural heritage? A city with an active music scene, maybe; where they could enjoy the company of other creative professionals? Perhaps a place with great restaurants, or a renowned fashion designer or two... “We wanted to communicate to the people we meet when we travel why this area is so cool,” Wes Wages explains. “So we started shooting videos.” A collaborative effort between producers Wages and Lee Taylor and host Jonathan Oliphant, Made in the Shoals debuted in 2013 with seven short documentary-style films featuring local businesses and individuals whose work, the filmmakers believed, deserved to be exposed to a wider audience. The film series also served a dual role as classroom, inviting UNA filmmaking students on set, providing real world experience in video production.

The team brought Alex Wittscheck aboard as audio engineer, and so far have released four podcasts, each approximately half-an-hour long, exploring a diversity of subject matter. A light and fun exploration of the Shoals’ fascination with cheese straws in Episode 2 is followed by thoughtful, somber ruminations on the Civil Rights Movement in Episode 3. Going forward, Made in the Shoals will premier two new podcasts per month, one recorded live at events open to the public. To follow the continuing story of the Shoals, and to find out how to add your own voice to the unfolding story, follow them at madeintheshoals.com. Know Huntsville Huntsvillian Tom Patterson was on the lookout for some extracurricular creative fun. The native Californian needed a project to help fill the scant hours not occupied by his design studio and web development company. Inspired by his favorite podcast, “Stuff You Should Know,” Patterson imagined an in-depth, research-intensive series exploring Valleybased people, places, and things. Flush with inspiration, Tom phoned up his best friend, Joe Oruzco—a fellow Huntsville transplant from the Left Coast—and pitched the idea of a documentary-style video series exploring the depths and complexities of Rocket City. But who has time for all that?

Those ﬁrst shoots were hives of activity: one-day shoots, fast editing turn-around, talent incubators. A bold mission, and a time-consuming one, too, especially for two busy professionals with day jobs. The demanding production schedules prompted Wages and Taylor to alter the format of Made in the Shoals. Today, the series is produced as a podcast—an audio-only storytelling genre, that, while less time-intensive, is no less powerful a medium for communicating the richness of the Shoals. “Podcasting and audio can have just as much dramatic eﬀect,” according to Wages. “I wouldn’t have thought so. But the reason is silence.” Silence on the radio is awkward, but in the context of a podcast, it can be a powerful, punctuative tool.

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Instead, Know Huntsville took shape as a relaxed, informal, fun-but-informative series filmed in a concrete block storage room annexed to Huntsville brewery and tap room Brew Stooges. “I thought we’d be terrible at first, but eventually get the hang of it,” Patterson admits with a laugh. To his and Oruzco’s surprise, not only were they not terrible hosts, the lifelong friends took to their new hosting gig right off the bat. Maybe it’s their enthusiasm for the subject matter. Patterson is passionate about the city he’s chosen as his home. “Huntsville is a unique town. It’s a melting pot of artists and

Clockwise from top left: Made in the Shoals (MITS) producer Wes Wages; A still promoting a 2015 podcast exploring the Civil Rights Era in the Shoals; Co-producer Lee Taylor interviews artist Michael Banks at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library; A promotional still from the podcast premier; MITS artist symposium in conjunction with Arts Alive!

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Clockwise from top: Live on the set of Know Huntsville; Co-host Tom Patterson at the mic; Tom Patterson; Co-host Joe Oruzco.

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engineers.” Within that mix, there are a wealth of stories to be told—so many, Know Huntsville is booked with guests through early July. “We do our interviews on Sunday and Tuesday nights and I edit when I can,” Patterson says. Does Know Huntsville have an established release schedule for new episodes? Yes, Patterson laughs: “Whenever they’re done!” Know Huntsville has found its greatest audience traction so far with bands, some of whom use the audio and video from their appearance on the show for their own publicity material. And tapping—no pun intended—into the craft brew beer market has also greatly expanded their audience. Looking to the future, Patterson sees Know Huntsville expanding to reach a wider audience with the message that Huntsville is a culturally and intellectually diverse city. All the stuﬀ you should know about Know Huntsville is online at knowhuntsville.com. You’re also encouraged to like them on Facebook at facebook.com/knowhuntsville, and never miss a new episode…“whenever they’re done.”

Son of Sommerset Files Elizabeth Hagale also needed a project to sink her creative teeth into. Home post-graduation from Birmingham-Southern College’s Media and Film Studies program, the 24-yearold Huntsville native wanted to expand her theoretical knowledge of storytelling with real-world experience. A collaborative conversation with a friend and fellow budding ﬁlmmaker provided the inspiration: a mystery series about a secret UFO conspiracy. Son of Somerset Files combines the familiar genres of science ﬁctions, serialized storytelling, and family melodrama in a decidedly unfamiliar, utterly modern way. Somerset’s story unfolds across a variety of virtual platforms. The bulk of the story unfolds on YouTube, with elements from each episode augmented elsewhere online: clues are revealed on Somerset’s Tumblr site; UFO photos are available for inspection on Instagram; and the creator directly addresses her audience, in character, via Twitter.

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There’s a name for all that interactivity and multi-platform exposition: “transmedia.” And it’s a concept as fresh in theory as it is meticulous in practice. Fortunately for Hagale, her idea so inspired friends and family, they dedicated evenings and weekends, both in front of and behind the camera, including Hagale’s father, from whom she inherited her love of ﬁlmmaking. “My dad wanted to be a ﬁlmmaker, but became an aerospace engineer instead. He was the sound operator.” Premiering on YouTube the fall of 2014, Son of Somerset Files includes a total of 26 episodes, in addition to its Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram posts.

“A web show has to keep people’s attention; it has to compete with the temptation to click on ‘Related Videos,’ Hagale says.

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The experience was creatively fulfilling, Hagale says, but also an invaluable learning experience. We often look to the web for quick fixes, for easy distractions. And even though the longest of Somerset’s episodes are a mere nine minutes— barely the time a sitcom takes before its first commercial— online, time seems to expand.

Facing page: Son of Somerset director Elizabeth Hagale (top, left); Somerset star Rhiana Howell (bottom, right) and an attache ﬁlled with UFO secrets. This page, clockwise from top, left: Half Minute Horror producer Tashina Southard prepares while actor Lily Holly walks to her place; producers Keith Sims and Southard wait for crew to ﬁnish setting up for the next scene; Holly, Southard, and Sims confer about a scene.

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Son of Somerset Files is more than capable of sustaining viewers’ interest with its immersive, riveting narrative. If you’d like to dive into its sinister, slightly unsettling world, enter the world of Sommerset here: youtube.com/user/sonofsomersetfiles Half Minute Horror Keith Sims and Tashina Southard think big, in small packages. The filmmaking collaborators and creators of the Half Minute Horror YouTube series have dedicated the past six months of their extracurricular life to the premise that a group of filmmakers and actors can produce one original horror film every week for a year. And just to make it interesting, all films in the series have to do what any film does: introduce characters, impart to viewers everything they needs to know, and scare their pants off. Unlike other films, Half Minute Horror, as its name implies, has to accomplish all that in 30 seconds. Well, brevity is the soul of wit, as they say. It may also be the source of inspiration and a solid work ethic, because after a total of 33 episodes as of this writing, Half Minute Horror is fulfilling Sims’ and Southard’s mission and collecting worldwide fans all along the way. Working with a troupe of core actors, filmmakers Sims and Southard construct their films in much the same way they do their longer-form projects: they adhere to a production schedule. Their scripts, while short, tell a complete story, with a beginning, middle, and end. And the footage is edited and scored by Sims the same way a longer film would be.

Caitlin Carver Straitlaced tycoon Warren Buﬀet is about as far removed from the glitz and glamor of Hollywood’s dream machine as you can possibly get. Still, the venture capitalist’s observation that “It takes 20 years to build a reputation” applies quite comfortably to Huntsville native and actor Caitlin Carver. The Sparkman High School graduate is an accomplished dancer and in-demand actress, with 20 years’ worth of credits, stretching from north Alabama dance studios to Los Angeles TV studios, and most points in between. It’s the kind of resume you’d expect from a seasoned performer twice her age, but Carver has managed, with diligence, humility, and talent, to establish an enviable career, all before the tender age of 23. Carver’s show business journey began in a Huntsville ballet school, where her mom signed her up for classes when Carver was two and a half. A natural born performer, Carver thrived in ballet, so much so that, at age 16, she was spotted and signed by an agent in Atlanta. A few small acting roles followed, but Carver’s concentration continued to be dance; it was a love that served Carver well. It also served as a bridge to the next phase of her performing life when, in the summer following her senior year at Sparkman, Carver entered an international dance competition in Los Angeles. She won. And, like the quintessential ingenue in a too-goodto-be-true 1940s movie, a star was born.

And the beneﬁts are broader than their fan base or the creative satisfaction of pulling it oﬀ. According to Sims, creative principal of Wellspring Advertising, the experience has produced “big time improvements in my working life. A 30 second client ad is a breeze now!”

Almost immediately, Carver was cast in the Disney Channel show So Random. “I already had a dorm room picked out at Alabama,” Carver recalls, during a phone call from southern California.

The rigor and commitment of a film-per-week has also produced benefits in the collaborators’ other creative projects: Southard and Sims recently placed first in Huntsville’s 48 Hour Film Festival.

Carver had to make the diﬃcult choice: return home to her family and her ﬁrst semester of college in Alabama, or stay in L.A. The chance to work in television is the sort of opportunity that rarely comes calling twice, if you say no. With her family’s love and support, Carver said yes.

To watch a half-year’s worth of ﬁlmmaking in just ﬁfteen minutes, visit halfminutehorror.com.

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Carver’s decision to embrace her fate opened a veritable ﬂoodgate of more roles and new horizons. On the heels of her role in So Random came a recurring role on the The Fosters. The ABC Family show about two moms raising a family

Dan Beene

Eric Maldonado

Drey Mitchell Caitlin Carver

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of foster kids proved to be not only a rating success, but an inspirational experience for Carver, too. “The fans are super supportive,” Carver says. “So many of them are going through the same sorts of obstacles the show deals with. It helps them to know they’re not alone.” Knowing she isn’t alone helps Carver, too. Show business can be a difficult industry to navigate. Carver credits her parents and the lessons of humility and responsibility they instilled in her for her grace-under-pressure, a trait Carver considers quintessentially Southern. “I work really hard, and I never go out; I don’t go to parties,” Carver says, laughing. Contra the image of the club-going starlet, most weekend nights find Carver “at home, working on scripts.” That dedication to craft is as much responsible for her continued success as good, old-fashioned talent and luck. “Remaining humble. Being kind and genuine to people. Doing what you’re told to do by your boss. That’s what gets you hired again,” Carver insists. “I’ve been in situations where people with little work ethic and a lot of vanity don’t get cast again. Producers want to cast people who are ready to work.” And producers want to cast Caitlin Carver. In addition to So Random and The Fosters, Carter has appeared in numerous film roles—some released, some still waiting for release— most notable among them one directed by Hollywood legend Warren Beatty, about the slightly less straitlaced tycoon Howard Hughes. This summer, Carver can be seen in the highly anticipated Paper Towns, based on the novel by The Fault in Our Stars author, John Green, followed in the fall with a brand new ABC drama. As you set your DVRs and visit theaters, keep an eye out for Caitlin Carver. When you see her up there in the Hollywood firmament, kindly point her out to her staunchly anti-television south Alabama grandparents. For the life of them, they can’t figure out why anybody would want to move to Hollywood. Drey Mitchell Like Caitlin Carver, Drey Mitchell is a 23-year-old professional actor and dancer who discovered his calling as a child. And, like Carver, Mitchell headed south, from his home in north Alabama to Tuscaloosa to pursue his arts education.

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But Carver’s and Mitchell’s paths diverge at the University of Alabama, where Mitchell stayed to major in theatre, and then afterward, east, to New York City. Like so many before him, the arts gave Mitchell a foundation as a kid, a sense of purpose. “My first play was Macbeth, when I was 12,” Mitchell explains on the phone, between a shift at his restaurant job and a dance class. “Christy Montero at Florence Freshman Center encouraged me to act. She introduced me to musicals and encouraged me to audition for the Gingerbread Players production of High School Musical.” Mitchell sang “Summertime” a capella, brought the house down, and never looked back. “My parents hoped for a political science major, maybe law,” Mitchell says. Instead, it was to be a theatre major, with a minor in voice and dance. The young performer’s course was set, and following graduation, Mitchell purchased a one-way ticket to the world capital of the performing arts, New York City. Today’s world is unrecognizable compared to the one inhabited by the very first actor who got off a bus in Times Square with stars in his eyes. But for performers who crave a live audience, ones who want their mettle tested by the best of the best, there’s just no substitute for the Big Apple. But it’s not an easy road, and Mitchell’s has been bumpy at times. In true New York style, his very first apartment, a Craigslist find, turned out to be a scam. A little money lost and a lesson learned, Mitchell dusted himself off, phoned up some friends, and within days had a place (four rooms, four roommates, 600 bucks each), a job (at a theatre district restaurant, naturally). And a show. ”I found the audition in a [theatrical trade paper] Back Stage ad,” Mitchell says. “I got cast and immediately went into rehearsals at the Clarion Theatre off-Broadway. We had a twoweek mid-March of a play adapted from Hemingway’s ‘Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.’ A great experience, and a great way to meet other up-and-coming actors and learn about opportunities. Next came a scholarship at the West Side Dance Project: three hours of front desk work per week earns Mitchell a dance class. He maintains his theatre chops in impromptu scene study get-togethers with fellow actor friends. As for the business side of theatre—the producers’ demands, the casting directors’ expectations, the unions’ requirements—it’s all notoriously, confoundingly byzantine,

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but Mitchell is a quick study. Even without his union card, he’s already auditioned for the ensembles of four Broadway productions: Les Miserables, Book of Mormon, Cabaret, and Hamilton. He’s been called back for Book of Mormon. And all of that since his arrival in March. Remarkable, and evidence that Mitchell has the moxie and know-how necessary to forge a career in the professional theatre, in one of the most demanding places on earth. Eric Maldonado Detroit native Eric Maldonado always wanted to be an actor. It was a dream he kept alive as his life’s journey carried him from the Midwest, all the way to Afghanistan, where he served as a Marine, and back again to the States, and Biloxi, where he met the woman who would eventually become his wife. Maldonado’s wife brought Eric to Florence, where he enrolled in UNA’s Film and Digital Media Production program, with assistance from the post-9/11 GI college bill. “I got my first audition one summer while I was still at UNA,” Maldonado says. “I was working a landscape job when I found out about an audition in Mobile for a Nicholas Cage movie called Rage.” Maldonado made the six-hour drive from Florence to Mobile to audition for the movie. A few hours after getting back to Florence, he got the call: They like you. Come back. So, he filled up his tank and headed south again, this time determined to make it final. And he did. His very first audition, and he booked the part. Alas, before filming began, Maldonado broke his ankle and had to turn the role down. “It’s okay,” Maldonado chuckles. “It was validating.” It also confirmed what every actor who lives outside the major centers of production knows: you have to get close to the work. So, with his UNA professor’s permission, Maldonado is continuing his education online, while living in Douglasville, Georgia. A half hour outside Atlanta, Douglasville is within easy driving distance to Atlanta’s booming film and television scene. Maldonado’s first success in Atlanta was on the series Drop Dead Diva. An ABC pilot, Quantico, followed. In both, Maldonado secured the role of “featured extra.” TV production nomenclature is more complex than a physics text book, but a featured extra role is a good thing, an important stepping stone to a larger part. The details of the contract require that a featured extra appear on film, in the forefront, and

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in focus. If you play your cards right, it’s an excellent way to get noticed. And Maldonado played his cards just right: the scene in Quantico required Maldonado to shed a tear just as the camera panned past him, for a grand total of ten takes. [Warning: Don’t try this at home!] Currently, Maldonado is working on Billy Lynn’s Long Half Time Walk, directed by one of the most acclaimed directors working today, Ang Lee, and looking forward to his future. For now, that future is in Atlanta. A fourteen-acre film campus is being built in Norcross, and all the big Hollywood production companies are opening outlets in Atlanta. “Everyone says don’t go to L.A. All the people from L.A. are moving to Atlanta!” Dan Beene Dan Beene waited even longer than Eric Maldonado to pursue a career in show business. But for Beene, the waiting was painless: until he was in his 30s, he had no idea he wanted to be an actor. “I always knew I was a good mimic,” Beene reflects. “But I had no inkling I wanted to act.” Beene’s kids are ultimately to blame for their farmer father’s second career in show business. “Back in the late ‘80s, I took the kids to an audition for the Gingerbread Players,” Dan says. “My kids goaded me into auditioning. Right away, I knew I was in the right place.” Local directors and audiences agreed, and a string of Shoals area stage productions led to a film and television agent in Nashville. TV and film is notoriously youth-obsessed, but Beene insists he had it easier, arriving on the scene in his middle-age. “Film sets are better later in life, when you’re more patient. Basically, in film, you’re like a pinch hitter. You sit around forever, then you go do the greatest job ever. Sometimes it’s a half day of work for 15 seconds on screen.” And sometimes, those 15 seconds get cut. Beene’s first big movie was the film adaptation of the John Grisham bestseller The Chamber. Cast out of Nashville, Beene worked two days on one scene. “My dad and friends went to the theater with me to see my big screen debut. I knew my scene took place at night, so we waited as it got darker on screen.” And darker and darker and darker, but no Dan. His very first screen role, and it got left on the cutting room floor.

Beene fared much better in future film roles. Among his many film credits, Beene has appeared on the silver screen with Reese Witherspoon as June Carter Cash’s father in Walk the Line, in Country Strong with Gwyneth Paltrow and Tim McGraw, and, in his favorite role to date, as a cab driver who delivers a devastating message to a GI’s wife in We Were Soldiers. But acting isn’t all about creative fulfillment; it can be a lucrative profession, too—especially commercials. Thing is, most ads are made in L.A., and Beene’s home base is the Shoals. “But I grew up in California, married a girl from California, my brother still farms there. I’d sold my farm in ’97, and my wife passed away in ’99.” Beene’s Nashville agent recommended him to a Los Angeles-based agent, and in 2006, Beene spent a year in LA suburb Toluca Lake. Beene bought a Harley, caught up with his brother, and at the end of the year, was cast in a national Kinko’s ad. “It’s crazy money,” Beene says. “That one ad paid for my whole year in L.A.” The money may have been great, but Beene had to put up with a pen full of diva co-stars . “The ad was set on a chicken farm,” Beene recalls. “I had to be there at seven in the morning; the chickens didn’t have to be there ‘til ten.” Adding insult to injury, strict regulations forbid animals from getting too hot under the lights. So production assistants fanned the chickens between takes. “Nobody fanned me,” Dan recalls with a chuckle. Bright lights. Movie stars. Entitled poultry. It’s been a heckuva ride for a fella who started life on a farm, only to wind up next to Reese Witherspoon on a movie screen. Does Beene have any advice for young actors considering the plunge into show business? “You need somebody in your life who’ll tell you if you’re really good enough. If you are, you just need to be there when everybody else has given up and gone home.” Beene is back home in the Shoals now, but he’s a long way from giving up, even though he doesn’t have any film or stage projects at the moment. And that’s just fine, as far as Beene is concerned: “It’s golf season.”

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

Jimmy Nutt  | noalastudios.com | july/august 

TEXT BY

SARA WRIGHT COVINGTON » PHOTOS BY PATRICK HOOD

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

WELCOME TO THE NUTT HOUSE

on 4th Street. I confess I circled the block more than once searching vainly for some sign of rock ‘n roll-recording insignia somewhere, before finally noticing the small, notebookpaper-sized sign in the window simply reading “NuttHouse.” The NuttHouse might not look like much from the road, but once inside that old bank building, there are pictures, posters, and records from ceiling to floor all chronicling numerous successes, recordings, and an overall lifetime love affair with music. Through Jimmy’s office to the studio, there is an acorn-adorned floor mat across the threshold that says “Welcome to the Nut House,” as a formal greeting to guests.

Musician, writer, record producer, and recording engineer Jimmy Nutt has been dancing to his own tune, very literally, since he was a two-year-old child in Shreveport, Louisiana. Nutt, now 44, credits his lifelong love of sound to his early exposure to Elvis Presley’s music by his mother. “We had Elvis going on in our house all the time,” remembers Nutt. “They bought me a little guitar and I pretended I was him. Our housekeeper would say, ‘I don’t know if he has a dirty diaper or he’s just pretending to be Elvis.” Now as the owner and creator of The NuttHouse Recording Studio and Musicnutt Publishing Company in downtown Sheﬃeld, Nutt has successfully made his dreams, and the dreams of so many other musicians, come to life through sound waves he helped engineer with his very own hands. Located in downtown Sheﬃeld, the NuttHouse Studio sits unobtrusively, and, in my experience, completely unnoticed from the street, in the modest bones of an old bank building

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Before our interview, I’d met Jimmy a couple of times through the years, as he and his wife Angie are close friends of my sister’s. Jimmy is a tall guy, with intense brown eyes, strong brows, and a dark beard that make him a little intimidating upon first meeting. From what I know of him, he seems quiet and easygoing, but I drag my sister along with me to the interview just in case I need a familiar figure to help me draw him out of his shell. And to be honest, even though I am a Shoals native, I’m very much a musical neophyte, and the magnitude of the music scene in my hometown is still a bit daunting to me. As it turns out, Jimmy needs little coaxing to discuss his life’s work, and he smiles and speaks easily as he begins telling the story of how an Elvis-loving kid from Louisiana ended up producing music in the same city where some of the world’s greatest musical legends have recorded. As he sits on a stool in the control room overlooking his studio, he remembers being just a kid with a dream of being a rock star, and how meeting fellow musician/songwriter James LeBlanc as a young teenager changed his destiny. “I met James LeBlanc in the fifth grade and he was so much more advanced than I was as a guitar player,” says Nutt. “We became close friends and I really started learning from him. About the same time, my sister began dating a guy who was

MY FAVORITE PART IS JUST BEING IN THE ROOM WHEN WE CREATE REALLY GREAT MUSIC. I LOVE BEING THE FIRST PERSON TO HEAR A SONG AND BEING PART OF THAT CREATIVE PROCESS. AND WHEN I WORK AS A PRODUCER, I GET TO PLAY A ROLE IN THE PROCESS. IT’S ALMOST LIKE I BECOME A PART OF THE BAND, AND I LOVE THAT. JIMMY NUTT

The two connected, and LeBlanc moved to Muscle Shoals. “James got a writer’s deal at FAME and then told me to come to Muscle Shoals too,” says Nutt. “I came over from Austin and saw the studio and fell in love with the place. We came back one more time to visit and I asked Rodney Hall if I moved here, could I work and learn at FAME as a recording engineer. And that was enough for me. So we decided to move.”

a guitar player, and he was really good also. He taught me to play AC/DC and Van Halen. Then I started taking guitar and drum at the same time.” By the time Nutt was in high school, he was playing in a band called The Underground with LeBlanc and regularly writing songs. But it was his ﬁrst visit to an actual recording studio that would ignite his interest in the studio recording and production side of the industry. “The ﬁrst time I was in a real studio, the band I was in while in high school won a competition called the Battle of the Bands,” says Nutt. “The prize for winning was recording time at NightWing Studio in Shreveport. For the time it was a very nice studio, and I was just blown away. I was really just fascinated by it. So I kind of got interested there. So that’s how I got started, but I actually began writing songs when we were 12- and 13-years-old.” After high school, Nutt and LeBlanc left Louisiana for Texas, where they set their sights on pursuing musical careers. “James and I moved together to Austin,” says Nutt. “We rented a house and all lived together but at some point James moved back to Louisiana, and when I was 25 I got married, had a kid, and put music on the backburner.” During this time a friend of Nutt and LeBlanc’s had been recording at FAME studio when Rodney Hall, son of FAME’s founding father Rick Hall, heard about James LeBlanc’s songwriting.

After several months of working a regular job during the weekdays and working nights and weekends at FAME to learn the ropes of recording, Nutt’s hard work and determination allowed him to turn his dream into a career. “I was FAME’s engineer for about three years,” says Nutt. “I worked mainly with songwriters and did songwriter demos. And at some point I moved on and I put a studio in my house.” After a year or so of working out of his home studio, Nutt returned to FAME briefly for a few months before leaving again to begin the NuttHouse, which was originally located in a small building off Montgomery Avenue. For Nutt, owning his own studio has allowed him a life of making music, while saving him from the challenges so many musicians face while living on the road. “You know, at some point growing up I wanted to make it as a musician,” he says. “I wanted to be a rock star. But once I married and had a kid, the studio offered me a way to work with artists and create music but not be on the road all the time. And I was always fascinated by the whole process of making records anyway. I’m so happy to be doing this, because life on the road can be very difficult.” Now as the owner of the studio and building, Nutt plays many roles. He primarily works as a producer or recording engineer, but will occasionally rent the studio out to other artists. Being in charge definitely invites distraction, but Nutt has learned to manage and multitask his music-making machine. “The distractions can definitely be difficult,” he says. “In my job it’s the totality of being the manger and the owner, working with the artists, and booking. I may book myself to

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

WELCOME TO THE NUTT HOUSE

Jimmy Nutt and engineer Cody Simmons set up the studio for an upcoming session; Below, everywhere you look, you’re reminded of the studio’s banking beginnings; Facing page: Nutt and Gary Nichols at the mixing board.

mix, but I can’t ignore people who want to call and book the studio. So I do everything.” Nutt now works on everything from country to Celtic and rock to rap, and says his job has given him a true appreciation for all types of music. “I think that music is one of our best ways of communication,” he says. “It really is universal. There are Beatles fans all over the world. Even people who don’t understand English appreciate it.” Nutt believes that just as music evolves through the years, our understanding and appreciation can evolve along with it. “I love how that happens in my life,” he says. “There have been artists through my life who I have listened to that didn’t do anything for me. But I listen to them later in life and it hits me. Bob Dylan is an example. As a teenager I didn’t get it. But later in life I listened to him and realized what an amazing songwriter he was.” Nutt has worked with many world-famous artists through the years, including The SteelDrivers, Grace and Tony, Jason Isbell, The Drive-by Truckers, BoomBox, Eric Erdman, The Alabama Shakes, Dylan LeBlanc, American Aquarium,  | noalastudios.com | july/august 

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

WELCOME TO THE NUTT HOUSE

WE HAD ELVIS GOING ON IN OUR HOUSE ALL THE TIME. [MY PARENTS] BOUGHT ME A LITTLE GUITAR AND I PRETENDED I WAS HIM. OUR HOUSEKEEPER WOULD SAY, ‘I DON’T KNOW IF HE HAS A DIRTY DIAPER OR HE’S JUST PRETENDING TO BE ELVIS.’ JIMMY NUTT

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Donna Jean Godchaux MacKay, Percy Sledge, Clarence Carter, Jimmy Buﬀett, and The Dozens. Gary Nichols of the SteelDrivers and Nutt have done ﬁve productions together over the years and Nutt has also worked with the Blind Boys of Alabama and some of the original Swampers of Muscle Shoals Sound.

The road to recovery now has a fast lane.

In addition to his ever-increasing producing and engineering duties at NuttHouse, Nutt’s current projects include working on a bluegrass Bob Seger tribute album for Lonesome Day Records. He also produces a series called NuttHouse Live, where bands are videoed and recorded live in the studio and can be viewed on his website thenutthouse.com. For the past couple of years, he has taught a recording class at UNA and is currently serving as the president of the Muscle Shoals Music Association.

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Nearing the end of our interview, I ask Jimmy what his favorite part of his musical pursuits has been over the years. “My favorite part of this all is just being in the room when we create really great music,” he says. “I love being the first person to hear a song and being part of that creative process. I remember sitting at FAME when Jason Isbell was just a songwriter. He would just sit down and play every song he had written in the past month and I was the first one to hear them. And when I work as a producer, I get to play a role in the process. It’s almost like I become a part of the band, and I love that process.” Nutt has earned a reputation for being hardworking and professional, which has drawn musical talents from all over the country and the world to work with him. He believes that the Muscle Shoals documentary released in 2013 has definitely given the area momentum, but the Muscle Shoals sound that made this area famous has never left, and he is continually amazed at the talent living right here in the Shoals.

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Before I wrap up our interview, as a very last question I ask Jimmy the simplest question of the entire interview: what do you love about music? “I think music can put us in touch with our soul,” he says, leaning back on his stool. “It can be otherworldly. It’s like in the days of slavery; they sang hymns to get them through the day and that’s where blues originated—out of pain and life experiences. It can be healing, it can make you want to dance, and it can make you sad. A life without music would be unbearable I think.” ®

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scene

Erin Letson, Ashley Hovater, Cheron White, Emily Thornton, Crystal Magruder, Kelley Dewberry, and Phong Do

Live Auction

Kim Williams, Amy Thompson, Julie VanVeckhoven, Lylie Rohling, and Kim Kroger

Jennifer and Bob Bissell

Cheron & Blair White St. Joseph Faculty and Staﬀ

Above: Casino Night april ,  · historic sweetwater depot

Black Jack

Parkes Hughes, Jeanie Hughes, and Jennifer Cornelius © Photos by Evelyn Blair Photography and Abby Gregory

Below: Music and Dining with Alabama Chanin a Beneﬁt for the Florence Camerata april ,  · the factory at alabama chanin

Linda Young and Ian Loeppky Doug and Gail Evans and Christopher Joel Carter IV

Zach Chanin Barbara Johnson

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Phil Abroms, Brian Cole, and David Sims

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Doreen Brisendine

Marty Abroms, Gail Evans, Mark Smith, Susan Goode, and Anita Smith © Photos by Doug Evans

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text by lu ellen redding » photos by patrick hood

Ask anyone from the Shoals area about our history, and it won’t be long before the topic gets to music. We’re a musical town—always have been—and our impact on popular music is legendary. It’s so important to our identity that we almost always talk about music when we talk about this place where we live. But there’s something about this musical place that a lot of people don’t know. The Shoals area is home to one of just six professional symphonies in the entire state of Alabama. That’s right—one of only six. The Shoals Symphony at UNA joins Birmingham, Mobile, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, and Gadsden as having an orchestra in which the performers are paid to present music. That isn’t just remarkable for a city of our size. It’s remarkable in that it reinforces our claim that we celebrate music in all of its forms. Here’s something else about symphonic music that people don’t know: it’s not boring. In fact, according to Dr. Daniel Stevens, the newest conductor of the Shoals Symphony at UNA, we listen to classical music every day and don’t even know it. And he plans to change the perception that classical music is snobby, boring, or diﬃcult to listen to. He plans to make it fun. Stevens is a professional violist who has played venues across the country, from Idaho to Florida and everywhere in between. He is also an associate professor of music at UNA, and director of the Peery Center for Orchestral Studies. He’s young and energetic, he smiles a lot, and he works hard. His newest project is to make the Shoals Symphony approachable.

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“School systems are looking to cut back in so many ways, so if we can fill that void, it will make our community that much stronger.” DANIEL STEVENS

In his premiere season, he started out by bringing music from the movies to the symphony. Themes from Lord of the Rings, The Magniﬁcent Seven, and Harry Potter were performed by the orchestra, programming that was both familiar and beautifully performed. Traditional music—Beethoven, Wagner, and others—were also represented. Ask anyone who thinks symphonies are for snobs to listen to an orchestra perform the Harry Potter theme; the music is rich, challenging for the orchestra, and brings a smile to the faces in the audience. Symphonic? Yes. Snobby? No way! “Sometimes people enjoy classical music without realizing it,” said Dr. Stevens. “I think the more people are exposed to the music, the more familiar it becomes, and then the more enjoyable it is.” Stevens put that theory to the test again in March with “Cinema Paradiso,” which was a concert of music one might hear every day: familiar music backgrounds, the music of a favorite movie, or the music from a commercial. All of it made the listener realize that classical music is a part

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of everyday life. And if just listening wasn’t quite enough, the entire program was set to video clips that were easily recognizable and helped to connect all the pieces of the puzzle. When Stevens was hired in the summer of 2014, the symphony association board was looking for a candidate who had the skills and experience to focus on the operational and infrastructural needs of the organization, as well as the musical needs. Stevens said he thinks he got the job, at least partly, because he has a history of being able to work well with a symphony board. Often there is tension between a supervisory board and the musicians it employs because neither group is able to “get into the other’s shoes.” Stevens said he’s been able to bridge that gap. It’s not enough just to create programming that reaches beyond the traditional symphony supporter. Stevens came into the position with a strong plan for recruiting musicians, because a strong group of musicians is the core of a professional

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

“Sometimes people enjoy classical music without realizing it. I think the more people are exposed to the music, the more familiar it becomes, and then the more enjoyable it is.” DANIEL STEVENS

symphony. Heather Olsen, a junior music education major at UNA, explained by saying, “Dr. Stevens promotes growth and positive changes in the orchestra. He puts an emphasis on student leadership and unity within the orchestra. He has also raised the bar for musicianship. I think these things have led to more interest in the orchestra among students at UNA.”

them involved so they can learn about every aspect of putting on a large-scale concert. Learning the music is critical, but knowing what really goes on to coordinate the inner workings of a symphony is also critical, and the process creates ownership on behalf of the musicians. Because they are invested in the process, it becomes a richer experience for them.

In order to do that, Stevens is especially interested in giving students responsibilities for the concert process, making

In the same way, building upon the musical interests of local youth helps to create a broader audience for the Shoals Sym-

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part of its success. There are five other professional symphonies in the state, and the others have millions of dollars available to them through endowments. The Shoals Symphony must find a way to establish a more substantial financial base, to ensure long-term success. “The symphony is strong today,” said Stevens, “but it needs to be much stronger. We need to find stronger and more creative ways to start to endow the programming element of the symphony.” The Shoals Symphony has traditionally hired about 20 percent of its concert musicians, to help fill in gaps and to raise the musical bar by allowing other members access to professionals, to help them learn. As Stevens grows the string program, there should be less and less need to hire professionals, which will leave more funds available for the symphony’s bottom line.

phony. Students who are learning to play an instrument become interested in hearing others play that same instrument; those students bring their families along, and within a few seasons the local symphony has a broader and broader audience. Building an audience through programming, with music an audience will respond to, and building an audience and a pool of musicians through student involvement is just part of the process. Financial support for the symphony is a vital

One way to facilitate that will take place beginning this fall. The new UNA String Project will replace what was once called Peery Strings, a weekly orchestra group program for children elementary through high school age. It has been defunct for the past few years, but Stevens has plans to breathe new life into it with new ideas, a diﬀerent structure, and even using UNA music education majors as teachers. Florence City Schools has one of the few strings programs in the state, but it is not offered until students are in sixth grade; many younger local students take private lessons, but there is no outlet for them to work with a group or practice their skills. Kilby Laboratory School, on the UNA campus, maintains an after-school program for children who want to learn to play a stringed instrument, but most schools in North Alabama have no similar program. Stevens wants to give children with a musical interest a place to learn and practice so that he might begin to groom children to one day be college-level musicians.

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cal space of the music department. Creating a more desirable and modernized physical space attracts more students. And everything comes full circle. Community members on the symphony association board of directors and Stevens’ colleagues at UNA are all noticing the change in the organization. Carole Maynard, events coordinator for the Department of Music and Theater and former symphony board member, said, “Dr. Stevens’ energy and enthusiasm are contagious. He is so excited about his vision for the Shoals Symphony at UNA and the UNA strings program, and that excitement is spilling over into the board meetings, the symphony rehearsals, and the concerts.” Dr. Stevens’ goal, he said, is similar to that of the renowned American conductor Leonard Bernstein, “…to create an interest in the music and make it alive. Figure out how the puzzle works together.” Listeners will notice a markedly more American, less European program.

The new UNA String Project will be an outlet for those children. “School systems are looking to cut back in so many ways, so if we can ﬁll that void, it will make our community that much stronger,” Stevens said. His excitement about the new program is contagious throughout the UNA music department. Changes to the symphony’s programming aren’t the only thing changing in the Department of Music and Theater at UNA. Due to the hard work of the administration and faculty, the number of string majors at UNA is expected to more than double in the next academic year. Stevens has been able to secure increased funding for performance scholarships, helping to make the program more attractive to students. A post-graduate position has been created to help Stevens get the UNA String Project oﬀ the ground and to assist in a variety of other needs around the department. More students require more space, so there are formal discussions happening to develop a plan for renovation and expansion for the physi-

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Stevens and his wife Sarah, who holds a degree in vocal music performance, moved to the Shoals from Winﬁeld, Kansas, with their two children, Isaac (6) and Hannah (9), in the summer of 2014. Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Stevens says he credits his choice of a musical career to his brother, who is also a professional violist. Older brother, Phillip, now a member of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, outgrew a viola and left it in the hall closet. As fate would have it, the younger brother picked it up and wanted to learn to play. The boys’ parents never forced music on them, but it was encouraged, and that philosophy continues in Stevens’ own career. “Parents should support a child’s interest, but shouldn’t mandate an abundance of required practice time,” he said. “Let the child ﬁnd the passion in themselves.” Stevens said his family has been blown away at the “wonderful Southern hospitality” that they have received in Florence. After experiencing big city living and then a small, rural town, the Shoals provided the perfect compromise. “There are very few things you can’t get in Florence,” he said. “It seemed like the perfect community for us.” Many of us here do think it is perfect, here in our musical city, but the changes Daniel Stevens is bringing to our collective musical educations are welcome and make it even better. A thriving symphony and music program at UNA brings value to each of us personally and to our community as a whole, and helps us continue to present ourselves as a community truly devoted to music. The Shoals Symphony at UNA begins its season in October; we can’t wait to see what Dr. Stevens has planned next!

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In this issue, No’Ala begins something new—but what we’re beginning is not new at all. The concept of a serial story, in which one chapter of a piece of narrative fiction is published in sequential installments, has its roots in the Victorian era, and was probably made most famous by Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers, The Count of Monte Cristo, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tales of the City, and many others all were introduced to the world in installments, as serialized stories. We gathered a dozen writers from this area and presented them with a concept for a serialized tale. We would write the first chapter and hand it off to the second writer; that writer would take a minor character or a detail from the preceding chapter and develop a new chapter, and then hand the story off to the third, and so on. Our plan is to tell this story in 13 segments, with the last chapter written by the original author, to tie all of the stories together. This is a work of fiction. No one in these stories is to be taken as representing actual people, living or dead, although we will admit that sometimes local events are stranger than fiction and we have huge imaginations. It will take 26 months to completely tell this tale, so let’s get started. Eleanor has a favor she wants to ask!

a Favor for Eleanor Chapter One: Eleanor by allen tomlinson » illustrations by rowan finnegan

“Have some more mashed potatoes, Tommy. I swear, you’re going to dry up and blow away.” Tommy smiled at Eleanor and took the serving plate, although he was stuﬀed and was earnestly trying to lose 50 pounds. He plopped a dollop on his plate and began to play with it using his fork. “This is delicious, Miss Eleanor,” he said. “Oh, honey, I’m so glad you two came over for supper,” Eleanor said. She folded her hands in front of her, on the table. “But I really asked you to come because I need a big favor.” Randy put down his fork and leaned forward. “Anything, Miss Eleanor,” he said. “After all, you’ve been coming to us for over 15 years. Just ask, and we’re happy to help.” Randy and Tommy, the proprietors of “The Mane Event,” had been washing and setting Eleanor’s hair twice a week, come rain or shine, for almost as long as they had been in business. Eleanor never missed her appointment, because she was from a generation that didn’t wash its own hair; if Randy and Tommy didn’t do it, she’d be lost. Even when they took vacations, they had to make sure that Teresa, their assistant, gave Eleanor and about seven other regulars the preferential treatment they were accustomed to. Eleanor gave a big sigh. “This is really something I’ve needed help with for a long time,” she said. “I just didn’t know who to ask.”

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

A Favor for Eleanor Chapter One: Eleanor

Eleanor slipped into her chair and sat there as the boys dug in to their desserts. “At my age, I guess I didn’t have any business getting married again, but, well, I was about to celebrate my 75th birthday and I had just buried Robert, number four. I guess I was vulnerable.” She dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. “I was a fool,” she said, pitifully, “a damned fool.” Tommy reached over and took her hand. “You can never tell about men,” he said sympathetically. “Sometimes they look real good, but it’s all packaging.” He smiled at Randy. “Not everyone can be as lucky as Randy and me,” he said. “Jimmy was 20 years younger than me,” she said. “I guess I was ﬂattered to get attention from a younger man, and he just made me feel so, well, so alive .” She sniﬄed. “I know now that he was probably only interested in my money, but the sex was so good...”

“Why, Miss Eleanor, you know you can ask us anything,” said Tommy, putting down his fork. “We’d love to help you. Do you have something around the house that needs to be done?” Eleanor studied him for a moment, thinking. “Yes,” she said, ﬁnally. “Yes, I do.” She stood up and went to the sideboard to get the beautiful apple pie that had been tempting them all evening. She began to cut and serve, talking as she passed out the plates. “This has to do with Jimmy, my last husband,” she said, carefully cutting a huge piece for Tommy. “How’s he doing?” asked Randy. “Didn’t he go to Florida to visit his children or something?” “Well, he went somewhere warm, but it wasn’t Florida,” Eleanor said. “Bout six months ago.” She passed a plate to Tommy. “And he’s not doing too well.”

Randy began coughing a little, as a small piece of apple pie had gotten started down the wrong way at the thought of almost-80-year-old Eleanor having sex, but he recovered and Eleanor kept talking as if she hadn’t noticed. “It wasn’t three months into the marriage that I began to get a clue about what he really wanted. He began asking all of these questions about my assets and my holdings and the size of my bank account, you know? A few of the four husbands before him had been pretty good to me, especially number four, who left an insurance policy, and number one who the courts ordered to give me a cash settlement after it was discovered that he and his secretary had been carrying on for seven years behind my back. But I thought what Jimmy and I had went beyond money. I guess I was wrong, huh?” Tommy clucked his tongue and pushed the remainder of his pie onto the fork with the ﬁnger of his left hand. “Well,” Eleanor continued, “the ﬁnal straw was one night about six months ago when he started pressuring me to add his name to the savings account over at First National. I got so mad at him I just couldn’t see straight.” She paused for a moment. “Anyone for more pie?” she said, sweetly.

“I’m so sorry,” said Tommy. “Is he sick?” “Well, he’s not doing so well,” she repeated. “You’d think, after ﬁve husbands, that I’d ﬁnally get a good one, but....” She nodded her head and clicked her tongue as she handed a plate of apple pie to Randy. “Oh, sweetheart, is this man-trouble?” asked Randy. “Sit down and tell us all about it.”

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“No, ma’am, but that was the best apple pie I ever had,” said Randy, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “I believe I am about to pop, it was so good,” said Tommy with a smile. He really was about to pop, or at least that’s the way he felt, but it was a familiar feeling and a good one.

“Well, then,” said Eleanor, rising from the table. “Let’s go back in the back and I’ll tell you about the little job I need help with.” The boys rose from the table, and Tommy grabbed their dessert plates to take them to the kitchen. They followed Eleanor through the kitchen and down the hall, to a closed bedroom door at the end. Eleanor paused for a moment, her hand on the knob. “I’m so glad you boys are able to help me,” she said. “I swear, I just don’t know what I would have done.” She turned the knob and pushed on the door; it swung wide open. “Jimmy?” she called into the room. “Jimmy? These boys are here to take care of you now.” Tommy and Randy looked at each other, puzzled. “Well, come on in, boys,” said Eleanor, marching into the room. “Time’s wasting.” The two men followed slowly. Eleanor walked over to the bed, and moved around to the side of the bed farthest from the wall. There appeared to be a huge pile of blankets and clothes on the floor between the bed and the wall, and Eleanor was moving toward it. “Jimmy?” she said. “Jimmy?” “Uh, Miss Eleanor, is Jimmy in here?” asked Randy. He was beginning to think that maybe she was delusional, and that she was under the impression that her last husband was really in the room. “Well, of course he is,” said Eleanor, leaning down and pulling at one corner of a blanket on the floor. “He’s right here.” With a jerk, she pulled the blanket back to reveal the partially decomposed body of a middle aged man, her fifth husband, Jimmy.

“Excuse me,” said Tommy, running for the door. He ran down the hall to the bathroom and slammed the door, and Randy could hear the muﬄed sounds of him throwing up in the toilet. “You...you...you shot him?” said Randy. Eleanor turned and looked directly at him. “Have you been paying attention?” she said, in a tone bordering on impatience. “Of course I shot him—I had to.” She turned back to the corpse and covered it back up with the blanket. “You just hang on, Jimmy,” she said to the pile, “these nice boys are going to help us out in just a moment.” “Was it self defense?” asked Randy. “Hmmm,” said Eleanor, considering. “No, I don’t think so. I think it was just your average domestic dispute. He wanted to take away my money, so I shot him.” She thought for a moment more. “Yes, that was it,” she said cheerily. “Oh,” said Randy. “So—what do you want us to do?” “Well, I want you to help me bury him, of course,” said Eleanor. “I ﬁgure that you and Tommy can dig a big hole in the backyard, by the back door, and then we’ll just put him in and cover him up. It’ll be dark by then, and the neighbors will never know.” “I see,” said Randy, nervously, listening as Tommy heaved down the hall. “And that’s it?” “Sweetie, that’s enough, don’t you think?” asked Eleanor with a chuckle. “It’s got to be a pretty deep hole, so I think maybe you boys need to get started, don’t you?”

Randy stared in horror, mute. Tommy grabbed his stomach and began to retch; he was dangerously close to losing all of that wonderful meal, right here. “He looks bad, doesn’t he?” asked Eleanor, matter-of-factly. “He just gets worse and worse, and I don’t know what to do with him.” Randy’s mouth had been moving but no words had come out, but he ﬁnally found his voice. “Uh, Miss Eleanor, you do know that he’s dead, don’t you?” he ﬁnally squeaked. “Of course I do,” said Eleanor with a laugh. “He was dead as soon as I shot him.”

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

A Favor for Eleanor Chapter One: Eleanor

Randy’s eyes were still as wide as saucers, but he was afraid to upset Eleanor, especially since he didn’t know where she kept her gun. He certainly didn’t want to join poor Jimmy under all of that fabric. “Didn’t he smell?” he asked, following Eleanor out of the room. “Did he ever!” she laughed. “Course, he never smelled that great when he was alive, but he really began to stink after about three days. After I shot him, he fell down there by the bed, and he was too heavy for me to move, so I just put some blankets on him to stifle the smell. The worse it got, the more stuff I piled on him—I went through a whole closet full of clothes before it was all over. The neighbors asked me a few times what the smell was, but I told them something had crawled up under the house and died. I also made up that story about Jimmy going off to Florida to see his kids, and no one seemed to miss him, but since he hadn’t been living here all that long, I guess it wasn’t all that unusual.” They had reached the back door now, and she opened it. There were shovels and a pick on the back porch, along with a lot of other yard-keeping tools. “Uh, Miss Eleanor? I think I’ll go check on Tommy before we get started, if it’s all right with you. I think this is going to take both of us, if you know what I mean.” Randy smiled, trying to keep Eleanor calm, but he could feel his legs trembling and his heart racing. “Honey, you just go right on back there and tend to him,” she said. “I know he was a little surprised, since he hasn’t seen Jimmy in such a long time, but let him know that there‘s work to be done and time’s wasting, you hear? I’ll just mix up a little lemonade here for when you want to take a break.” “Yes, ma’am,” said Randy, heading down the hall toward the bathroom. He knocked softly on the door and then opened it and slipped inside. Tommy was sitting on the toilet, his head in his hands; he looked up, scared and startled when Randy came in. “Oh my God,” said Tommy. “Did you see that? Oh my God. What are we going to do?” Tommy looked like he was going to cry. “She wants us to bury him the backyard,” said Randy in a whisper. “We’ve got to go along with it, because I think she’s crazy and I’m afraid she still has that gun.”

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“Crazy?” said Tommy, incredulously. “You think she might be crazy? The woman shoots her husband and leaves him the bedroom for six months and you think there’s a chance in hell that she is NOT crazy?” Tommy’s eyes were wide and the vein on his forehead was pulsing the way it always did when he was under stress. “Shhh!” said Randy. “Get ahold of yourself, Tommy, we’ve got to think fast.” “Oh my God,” repeated Tommy. “Oh my God.” “OK, here’s what we’re going to do,” said Randy. “I’ll keep her occupied at the back of the house, and you sneak out the front and run over to the neighbors and call the police. Be quiet when you sneak out, and I’ll try to keep her occupied. Just call the police and tell them to get here as soon as they can, you hear?” Tommy nodded. He looked like he was going to throw up again, but he felt certain he could handle this task. “OK,” said Randy. “Ready? Be calm, Tommy, and just get the police here as fast as you can. Now you stay here for a moment and then sneak out the front.” Randy opened the bathroom door and slipped in to the hall. “Work fast,” he whispered to Tommy. Randy strode back into the kitchen, a fake smile pasted on his face. “Miss Eleanor, Tommy will be out in a second,” he said. “Now, let me grab a shovel and you show me where you want me to dig, OK?” “Sure, honey,” said Eleanor. “Let’s just step outside the back door and I’ll pace it off for you.” As Eleanor and Randy walked the back yard, Eleanor pointing out just where the digging should commence, and how deep and wide everything should be to accommodate a man of Jimmy’s considerable size, Tommy slipped down the hall and out the front door. As soon as he hit the front porch, he began running, down the sidewalk and then down the middle of the street. Imagine, for a moment, the scene. Randy and Eleanor were pacing off plots of bare yard, discussing the merits of keeping away from tree roots and possible sewer lines and matterof-factly talking about the pros and cons of having Jimmy’s final resting place in areas where he would be walked on, as opposed to places where he could rest outside the yard’s traffic patterns. Tommy, on the other hand, was flying down the street, his toupee beginning to come loose from his profuse-

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july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

A Favor for Eleanor Chapter One: Eleanor

ly sweating forehead, the pendant on a chain around his neck flung behind him, his mumu-styled shirt now soaked under the arms from sweat, bejeweled fingers on hands flung high in the air, his special patent leather boots making big clomping sounds as he pounded down the center of the street. He guided himself toward the big Victorian three doors down, simply because there were lights on inside. As soon as he reached the front door, he began pounding on it. A porch light came on, and a curtain parted. “Who’s there?” said a timid voice from inside the house. “Let me in,” sobbed Tommy. “I have to call the police. There’s a dead body down the street!” The owner of the house studied the disheveled man on the porch from behind the sheers, considering. Tommy looked more than a little wild, actually, his hair off-center, his eyes those of a madman, dressed for dinner the way middle aged overweight hairdressers in this town might dress for dinner, but in clothes most others wouldn’t have the courage to wear. (The leopard print pants were enough to cause conversation in this part of town, but that was the least of the homeowner’s concern right now.) “Please,” sobbed Tommy, his hands on either side of his face by this time. “She shot him, and she wants to bury him the backyard!” “Listen, buddy,” said the voice inside, “I’m calling the police, all right, but it’s to report a crazy person on my porch. You’d better leave right now, or I’ll call them right this minute.” Tommy stared at the front door. “I’m warning you!” the voice inside said. “I’m dialing!” “That’s what I want, for God’s sake,” said Tommy. “Call them and tell them to get over here right away!” He was yelling now, in near panic. “Tell them to send out the fire trucks and the padded wagon, because this woman is crazy. HURRY, FOR GOD’S SAKE!” Tommy’s cries were getting so loud that Randy could hear them over in Eleanor’s backyard, and he prayed that Eleanor either couldn’t or was too distracted to pay any attention. He was wrong. She suddenly stopped to listen, a frown appearing on her face that turned to anger as she began to realize what was happening. “What is Tommy doing?” she asked, angrily. “I thought I could trust you boys. Is he over at Roland Summerby’s house, telling all he knows? Is this the thanks I get for feeding you and asking you to do me one little favor?”

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Randy was frozen, looking at Eleanor and scared nearly to death. All of a sudden, he dropped the shovel and bolted, running out of the backyard and around the house to the front. “Tommy!” he yelled, running down the street toward the Victorian house where Tommy was standing, frozen, eyes wide. “She heard you! Come on, we’ve got to get out of here!” “Randy Mabry, you get your ass back here right this minute!” yelled Eleanor. “Where are your manners, boy?” By this time, people all up and down the street were peeking out from behind their curtains, trying to ﬁgure out what was going on. Father McManess even came out on the front porch of his house, and when he saw Tommy and Randy, highly decorated for their evening out but looking somewhat worse for wear by this time, he took in the situation, crossed himself and went back in his house. No one else ventured out; most could see enough from the safety of their own living rooms, thank you very much. Tommy ran back down the sidewalk and met Randy in the middle of the street. “We’ve got to go!” screamed Randy. “She heard you yelling and she knows what you’re doing!” “Oh my God,” moaned Tommy. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” “Come on, Tommy, godammit, we’ve got to get out of here and get to a telephone. She’s crazy, and she may have gone to get her gun.” The pitch of Tommy’s voice went up an octave. “Oh my God,” he said. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” Randy began to drag Tommy down the middle of the street toward their Mazda Miata, parked by the sidewalk in front of Eleanor‘s house, top down. All of a sudden, Randy froze. “What’s wrong?” whispered Tommy. He was about to pee in his pants from fear. “Shhh!” said Randy. “Did you hear that?” “Hear what?” whimpered Tommy. “Randy, sweetie, I’m scared...” “Shhh!” Randy listened intently. “There,” he said. “That.” The only thing Tommy could hear was the whirrrr, whirrrrr, whirrrr of a car’s starter, turning over and over. It was apparent that the car wasn’t going to start because it was ﬂooded. “What is it?” said Tommy “All I hear is a car.”

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

A Favor for Eleanor Chapter One: Eleanor

“It’s Miss Eleanor‘s car,” said Randy. “It’s her big old Buick, and she can’t get it started.” Tommy whimpered again. They stood still, in the middle of the street next to their car, Tommy’s toupee swaying slightly as he breathed. The noise stopped; there was a pause, and then there was the squeaking of a car door being opened and then being slammed. “Damn you, Tommy Harper,” the boys heard Eleanor yell from the back of her house. “You have ruined my life!” Tommy gasped. “I ruined her life!” he said, incensed. “What about mine?” “Shush!” said Randy. “We have to pay attention. She may have a gun...” Tommy moaned and crouched behind the Miata. He peeked out toward the house. The boys held their breath and waited. Nothing happened for several minutes, and then, all of a sudden, from inside the house, came the sound of a gun being fired. Tommy screamed. “Oh my God!” he yelled. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” Randy jumped up and ran toward the house. “Tommy, we’ve got to go see if she’s OK. I think she may have killed herself!” “No, Randy,” Tommy pleaded. “I’ll stay here, OK? You just go look in the window and see. You know I can’t handle the sight of blood. You go see, OK?” The sound had come from one of the front bedrooms, and that’s where Randy ran first. He crouched below the window, fingers on the sill, and peered intently inside. “What the...?” he finally said. “Is she dead, Randy? Tell me, can you see if she’s dead?” Tommy was about to begin crying again. “Oh dear God, please tell me she’s not dead.” “She doesn’t appear to be dead,” said Randy deliberately. “She appears to be sitting up in bed, watching television.”

“Jesus,” said Tommy. “I could use a drink.” The policemen came, thanks to the call from the neighbor in the Victorian house. An ambulance came shortly thereafter, as soon as the policeman called it; they had to break down the bedroom door to get to Eleanor, since she had locked it from the inside when she went in to shoot herself. She was in bed, just as Randy had reported, watching Wheel of Fortune and waiting to die, but the gunshot to her stomach missed all of her vital organs, and she was in no immediate danger of dying, even of bleeding to death. The remains of Jimmy, husband number five, were discovered in the back bedroom, just as Randy and Tommy had said; he was later laid to rest in the city cemetery, not in the backyard as was Eleanor’s continued wish. During the trial, Eleanor stayed restrained most of the time, and was forcibly removed from the courtroom five different times for continuing to yell at Tommy that he had ruined her life. Tommy, on the other hand, took the trial as an opportunity to travel to Birmingham for a complete new wardrobe, including a fedora hat and a walking cane with a crystal top. Randy briefly considered having a nervous breakdown but decided it was much more interesting to be the person who could tell such a great story firsthand, and he became known as “the man who came to dinner to bury the body after dessert.” Eleanor lived for five more years in the state mental hospital before she died. She was placed beside Jimmy in the city cemetery, with a great big headstone paid for by her fourth husband’s insurance policy, and at her feet were husbands two and four. (One and three were buried in their own family plots, by their first or second wives, but who was paying attention?) To the day she died, Eleanor claimed that Tommy Harper had ruined her life. She was convinced that if Randy and Tommy had helped her bury Jimmy in the backyard it would have all turned out differently, and she was furious that Tommy would betray her like that. Tommy and Randy, on the other hand, never, ever had dinner at a client’s house again. Ever.

Tommy stopped whimpering. “Say what?” he ﬁnally asked. “Tommy, I swear, she’s sitting up in bed watching television. Looks like she’s got a gun in one hand and the remote control in the other.” Randy stood up a little so he could get a better view. “Looks like Wheel of Fortune,” he said.

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Coming in September, writer Michelle Eubanks takes us to the courtroom trail—but perhaps we've said too much?

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“I GREW UP IN A MUSICAL FAMILY. I LITERALLY GREW UP CRAWLING AROUND IN THE RECORDING STUDIO.” HALLEY PHILLIPS

by sara wright covington » photos by danny mitchell additional photos courtesy of amanda chapman and halley phillips

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IMPERFECT PERFECTION IS A LOST QUALITY TODAY. SOMETHING BEING A LITTLE OFF IS WHAT MAKES IT HUMAN. THAT’S WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL SOMETHING.” HALLEY PHILLIPS

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Sitting on a vintage white leather sofa once owned by recording-royalty Sam Phillips as his granddaughter Halley Phillips sits across from me smiling is a bit surreal. Her adoring Poodle, Dakota, who is bigger than she is, sits at her feet, as she modestly discusses her musical birthright and the journey that has led her from Memphis to Muscle Shoals. Her famous grandfather, who was originally born in Florence, went on to found Sun Studios and Sun Records in Memphis and also discovered the talents of Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, just to name a very few. And although Halley is lovely and very petite, at 29 years old, she has proven she is more than worthy to be the granddaughter of such a musical giant. Halley is sweet, but has a very obvious steely determination about her, and an inescapable passion for music in her blood. And from the musical accolades lining the walls of her home, it is obvious she has made herself a force to be reckoned with in the recording world. “I grew up in a musical family,” says Halley. “I literally grew up crawling around in the recording studio. One of my earliest memories was the smell of the studio. My dad would come home and he would smell like the studio. To this day, my dad hates the smell, but I love it. I love to have that studio smell on me. It’s just memory for me. My dad grew up with some of the biggest names you can imagine. Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny cash, Roy Orbison—they would all just come over to our house and hang out. Elvis always came over after midnight because it was the only way he could get away without people recognizing him and mobbing him.”

Right: Sam Phillips (far left) with Elvis Presley and Phillip’s assistant, Marion Keisker.

Although Sam Phillips was born in the Shoals, he eventually moved to Memphis, while his granddaughter was born in Memphis and later moved to the Shoals. Halley was already working in radio at the age of 16 as a receptionist at her grandfather’s station, just to see if she liked radio. A young Sam Phillips also began his radio career in the Shoals as a disc jockey. Big River Broadcasting, which produces three top ranked stations (Q107, KIX96, and MAGIC 1340), was created by Sam Phillips and

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

I JUST LIKE TO BE A PART OF A MOVEMENT TO BRING BACK AUTHENTIC MUSIC. I FEEL LIKE THE MUSIC WE CREATE LIVES LONGER THAN WE DO, AND I JUST WANT TO LEAVE SOMETHING TO MY CHILDREN THAT THEY WOULD BE PROUD OF AND THAT I AM PROUD OF.” HALLEY PHILLIPS

Courtesy of Halley Phillips

continues to be run by the Phillips family today. “I began as a receptionist and then did network traﬃcking,” says Halley. “Then I eventually started as a sales assistant.” Now the mother of two, Halley says she began to realize that the times were deﬁnitely changing when she returned to the station after the birth of her second child. “When I came back to work after having my second son, I really felt like things were shifting,” she says. “I told my manager that I wanted to start a digital media department. Now I work with and train on the digital assets and tools of radio. I also handle the development of our mobile applications and streaming.” Now the director of the Digital Marketing Department at Big River Broadcasting, Halley has already received a prestigious Radio Wayne Award, which celebrates the elite individuals of the industry who continually set themselves apart from the pack. And although she continues to succeed in merging new and ever-changing digital technology into the radio industry, Halley believes in keeping the authenticity of the music her grandfather helped to create, and works to make

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certain that the juxtaposition of new digital technology and the original, analogue sound created by her grandfather is not compromised to computers. “It’s a careful business that I walk on,” says Halley. “People are wanting to get back to the original quality of sound. You can turn on some of the older music and realize that much of that quality has been lost.” Halley explains how technology has made it possible to manipulate sound on a computer to make it “perfect.” She argues that the imperfection of the analogue sound is what makes it so much better. “I love technology as an enhancement, but I also love when it comes to music when people listen to it instead of look at it on a screen,” says Halley. “Imperfect perfection is a lost quality today. Something being a little oﬀ is what makes it human. That’s what makes you feel something. That’s why I love recording in an old studio. If somebody is recording something emotional and their voice cracks a little, that conveys that emotion to whomever is listening to it later. That’s the beautiful thing about music. If you don’t over-perfect it, that’s what makes it beautiful.” Halley also recalls the stories of the simplicity of sound in those early days before computers and technology. Sam Phillip’s wife, Halley’s grandmother, would listen through all the records and write down the tempo of each one, and that was how they programmed the song order for the stations. Because of Halley’s early exposure to music and radio, she developed an appreciation for all kinds of sound at a very early age, giving her a versatility and insight that is highly unusual for someone her age. “I am inspired by all kinds of music,” she says. “I believe there are two kinds of music— good music and bad music. I care a lot about lyrics and how things are done sonically as well. Everything lends itself to the song. But I do tend to be more on the soul side of music. I like Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Isaac Hays. I have that Memphis soul in me.” Halley has great pride in the fact that her grandfather helped to build the bridge between Muscle Shoals and Memphis when all of the timeless music of the ‘50s and ‘60s was made, and she is working to help

And speaking of the ‘50s again, we go back to the subject of her grandfather, his inﬂuence in her life, and how he would feel about all of the new technology available to recording today. “He would have enjoyed using the technology we have now as a tool to replace something else. He was a very intelligent man,” she says. “But he never would have replaced

Courtesy of Halley Phillips

build back that bridge between the two cities. In addition to her duties at Big River Broadcasting in the Shoals, she also travels back and forth to Memphis where she works parttime in her grandfather’s old recording studio, Sam Phillips Recording Studio. She is currently working to re-launch the studio but plans to keep it as an analogue format. One of Halley’s latest projects also includes working as the executive producer of Muscle Shoals based band Local Saints. The band recorded an album in analogue and Halley is helping prepare them to launch their tour. “I love the warmth of the sound you get oﬀ of analogue,” she says. “It’s like walking into 1959. So we wanted to record a record that way without a computer. It forces people to work harder. You get there and do it till you get it right. It can be a lot more frustrating for the artists, but they come out of it better.”

Facing page: Halley Phillips and her father, Jerry. Above: The Local Saints recording their self-titled album.

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a person with a computer. I really feel very strongly about the message to stop looking and start listening. I wish that he was still alive now at this point in my life, because I know I could absorb so much more from him now.”

Courtesy of Halley Phillips

Although her grandfather passed away when she was just a teenager, Halley was still able to absorb plenty of life lessons from him in her young lifetime that have given her the work ethic and integrity that have made her into the woman she is now. Sam Phillips was a pioneer in the music industry for his time, and his legacy is remembered as being one that broke down racial and gender barriers in the recording industry. Born in Florence in 1923, Sam Phillips was the youngest of eight children on a tenant farm. “He came from nothing and he was very poor,” says Halley. “He grew up picking cotton with blacks because if you were poor, there wasn’t any segregation. I’m proud that he didn’t care what anyone said. He didn’t see any color in the 1950s.” Halley grew up with the stories of her family’s former poverty, including days with little or no food and bathing in the Tennessee River. The family’s house still stands, although Halley has never been inside. “My grandfather was very humble, and very direct and to the point. And he never forgot what he came from,” she says. Halley remembers her grandfather’s virtue of never taking anything for granted even once he became successful, and how he impressed the importance of humility on her at a very young age. “One day when I was probably around 12 years old, we went to a buffet-style restaurant and I had gotten a salad and pushed it away without finishing and got up to get something else,” she remembers. “He made me sit back down and finish that salad. He said ‘when I was growing up, there were days we didn’t eat.’ He never forgot all of the struggle he went through. That has always really humbled me as an adult.” Despite what people said and how they treated him, Sam Phillips was one of the first entrepreneurs of the industry to record mostly black artists and would then go on

Above: Halley and her family, husband Chad and sons Noah and Preston.

I STEERED AWAY FROM MUSIC FOR A WHILE BECAUSE IT WAS PUSHED AT ME. MY OLDEST IS INTO SPORTS. MY YOUNGEST IS SIX AND WILL LIKELY END UP ON A STAGE SOMEWHERE. I JUST REALLY BELIEVE IN LETTING THEM BE THE INDIVIDUALS THEY ARE.” HALLEY PHILLIPS

 | noalastudios.com | july/august 

to knock even more barriers down by creating a radio station run entirely by women. “My granddad started the ﬁrst all-girl radio station, called WHER—1000 beautiful WATTS. Everything from the management to the DJs were all women. So in the early ‘50s he recorded blacks, and in the ‘60s it was all women; he was always forward thinking. And he built something that changed the world,” says Halley. In addition to balancing her very successful career between Muscle Shoals and Memphis, Halley says the most important, challenging job she has is the one she comes home to after leaving the studio—being a mother to her two boys. “On a typical day, I usually get up about 5 a.m., get my kids ready, and then go to work at the radio station. At the end of the work day, I pick up my boys, we go to the ball park, get home late, go to bed, wake up, and do it all again the next day.” And despite the musical legacy being passed to her sons, Halley is letting them choose their own paths. “I’m just letting them do their own thing,” she says. “I steered away from music for a while because it was pushed at me. My oldest is into sports. My youngest is six and will likely end up on a stage somewhere. I just really believe in letting them be the individuals they are.” In what little spare time she has at home, Halley also does some song writing and occasionally still plays piano to help her come up with melodies. And although she took music lessons for years, she has always been more interested in staying on the production side of things. “This piano came out of studio B at Sam Phillips Recording and I learned to play on it when I was little. I spent a long time away from it, and it’s been a relearning process to play again. I like to sit down and write and come up with melodies at the end of the day, and I don’t think I’m a bad singer, but I mostly enjoy being able to help people. I like being able to see the talent in somebody and help develop that. And there are just too many people out there who are more talented than I am.” With her continued work in both Muscle Shoals and Memphis, Halley says she will always feel strong ties to both cities, but the studio will always be her home, no matter where she lives. Mostly, she says she just feels proud to have passion for music in her DNA and feels fortunate she is able to keep the Phillips family legacy alive. “I just like to be a part of a movement to bring back authentic music,” she says. “I feel like the music we create lives longer than we do, and I just want to leave something to my children that they would be proud of and that I am proud of. I love that I have been given the privilege to keep my grandfather’s and my family’s name alive. I really see it as an honor.” july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

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market » Photos by Patrick Hood »

Text by Roy Hall and David Sims

Janet already br oke her grandmother ’s heart by switching to u nsweet tea. She might a s well go all the way an d wear an asymmetrical hem to church.

Rubber Ducky Blue Dress ($108) 8 Other Reasons Silver/Gold Chain ($40) Otbt Black Wedge ($120) Jewell’s (256) 712-5988

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market

Toad & Co Muse Dress ($84) Ray Ban Jackie Ohh Sunglasses ($150) Bushnell Sahara Shoes ($125) Alabama Outdoors (256) 764-1809

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With twin boys, a growing freelance writing business, and a husband with perpetually lost car keys, Heather would kill for an assistant. Or at least another pair of arms.

Doe & Rae Dress ($59.99) Michael Kors Purse ($149.99) Chase & Chloe Shoes ($40) White Sunglasses ($10) Zoey Belle’s (256) 320-5117 Green Scarf ($6) Willowbrook Shoppe (256) 270-7181

At the end of a long week, Andi would give her left arm for the perfect martini. She'll have to settle instead for punch and petit fours at her neighbor's daughter’s outdoor wedding. Fingers crossed those are rain clouds…

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market

Helen Kaminski Natural Hat ($242) Babette Dress ($398) FS/NY Necessary Shoes ($208) Pearl Necklace ($38) Marigail Mathis (256) 764-9444

Uh-oh! I f parents to meeting Sam’s n he’s poppin ight means g Bethany the question, fi better dit gures she’d c and pull o h these pearls u jeans. Sa t her rattiest m all—but sh ’s great and e near bein ’s nowhere g one man. tied down to

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market English Factory Top ($44) English Factory Shorts ($48) Headbands of Hope Lush Crystals Glitz ($24) O’Neill Gladiator Sandals ($54) GRL Boutique (256) 349-9293

certs, Outdoor con ails, and frozen cockt oline is r a C . s o c a t fish her week pumped about he just .S at the beach mex bill hopes the A r parents’ e h t a s e v i r ar grades r e h e r fo e b house do.

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Diba.True Shoe ($77) KLd Signature Olive Shirt ($64) Dylan Shorts ($108) Necklace ($69) Audie Mescal (256) 314-6684

Meagan was excited to leave the law firm to start her own design business. After all, if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re gonna work 12 hour days, you might as well do it for yourself, in style.

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market

Gretchen Scott Lagoon Tunic ($108) SlimSation White Pants ($66) The Village Shoppe (256) 383-1133

y ainfull p s a w Claire er friends h e aware of her as th e n thought e” one—the o l t “sensib ays “played i who alw ust wait ‘til the J safe.” ar she’s sold o t they he nd heading s of house a for six month Europe king. c backpa

DO YOU SUFFER FROM:

• Shortness of breath • Numbness • Chest pain or tightness • Burning or tingling in your legs • Weakness or coldness in your legs or arms • Pain in the neck • Headaches • Heart burn, indigestion, or burping If so, these could be signs of cardiovascular disease. If you are suﬀering from any of these symptoms, Dr. Ajit Naidu and Dr. Brian Cole, Board Certiﬁed Cardiologists at the Cardiovascular Institute of the Shoals can help determine if these are serious. We give second opinions, too!

Please call 256-766-2310 for an appointment. 2415 Helton Drive, Suite A, Florence , AL 35630 • Phone 256-766-2310

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market

Hem & Thread Royal Lace Dress ($38) CoCo’s (256) 349-2133 100-Year-Old Afghanistan Choker ($300) Vintage Sunglasses ($10) Willowbrook Shoppe (256) 270-7181 Sacha London Shoes ($124) Personal Couture personalcoutureboutique.com

Bethany love sn more than lat othing e afternoons spe nt up with her gir catching lfriends, or planning a we getaway with h ekend er new boyfriend. Su mmer is the best—but, oh, the humidity…

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scene

Tony Tavis Kai and Carmen Erdmann and Marianthe Snyder

Barbara Broach Sam Granger

Dick Jordan Jeﬀ and Nancy Bowling and Andy Frith

John Moody Mike Snyder and Jeremy Britten

29th Annual Arts Alive may -,  · wilson park and the kennedy-douglass center for the arts, florence

Martha Beadle Michael Mayes (right) and customer

Peggy McCloy and Dave Smith Tosha-Paige Brewer

Jennifer Butler Keeton

Michelle Eubanks and Emily Olsen

*Names | noalastudios.com for photos are provided | july/august by the organization or business featured.

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kudos

If you want to share some good news about a friend, neighbor, or colleague—or even toot your own horn—send your kudos to allen@noalapress.com.

100 »

by roy hall

Cancer Breakthrough Student of the Year

Brooks High School senior Haley Thigpen has been named Shoals Scholar Dollar Student of the Year. A dedicated student and community volunteer, Thigpen was awarded twoyear scholarships to both UNA and NWSCC, $500, and a Mitsubishi Mirage, Haley Thigpen and Dr. Randy Pettus courtesy of Long Lewis. Begun in 2011, Shoals Scholar Dollars raises $800,000 annually to ensure area high school students have the opportunity to continue their education, by oﬀering Northwest Shoals Community College scholarships to all qualifying graduates.

Dr. Daniel Haggstrom, Florence native and son of Shoals residents Dr. and Mrs. Jerry Haggstrom, has co-authored a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrating the eﬀectiveness of targeted gene therapy in the treatment of advanced lung cancer. A medical oncologist at Charlotte, North Carolina’s Levine Cancer Institute, Dr. Haggstrom’s study reveals an 80 percent reduction in tumor size or manageability with limited side eﬀects for the once-a-day experimental pill AZD9291.

The Play’s the Thing

Ryan Moore

Ryan A. Moore has joined Florence’s PeoplesTrust Bank as First Vice President of Business and Community Banking. A 2000 graduate of UNA and a 2009 Leadership Shoals graduate, Moore currently serves on the board of directors for United Way of Northwest Alabama.

Dr. Daniel Haggstrom

Courtesy Carolinas Health Care System

Now Moore Than Ever

“We are seeing amazing results with this treatment. Patients are living longer, with an improved quality of life compared to traditional chemotherapy, and the side eﬀects of AZD9291 are very manageable,” said Dr. Haggstrom, principal investigator of the study at Levine Cancer Institute.

Florence High School students Brandon Rieﬀ, Anna Robertson, and Nicholas Bishop were honored for their original one-act plays by the Young Southern Writers Association at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in late April. The young playwrights, students of creative writing teacher Darlene Freeman, earned three of the top eight awards presented at the conference, which includes entries from students in ﬁve states.

A Legacy of Achievement

Congratulations to the deserving students, and to the Riverhill School for its impressive record of academic achievement.

Darlene Freeman, Anna Robertson, Nicolas Bishop, and Brandon Rieﬀ

Nearly half of the Academic Achievers’ top ﬁve percent at Florence High School, as well as three of its valedictorians, the 2015 valedictorian for Shoals Christian School, and Mars Hill’s salutatorian all have at least one thing in common: they are all graduates of the Riverhill School.

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

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the vine » Amy C. Collins A great way to dive into the proverbial barrel is to commit to a mixed case of wines you’ve yet to try. The next thing you know, you’re in constant search of that next divine sip, that euphoric lift akin to a runner’s high.

MIX IT UP In a recent post on my blog, PigandVine.com, I wrote, “Being in wine is all about getting into more wine.” As soon as these words appeared on the screen, I imagined one of those tongue-in-cheek eCards floating around the social media stratosphere with a Victorian-era lady holding an overturned, empty bottle of wine in the air while throwing her entire self into a barrel of cabernet. After all, the first glass is the gateway to a second. But what I’m really getting at is the discovery of wine. Once you find it interesting (beyond the benefits of alcohol), an entire world of vinous possibilities reveals itself. The next thing you know, you’re in constant search of that next divine sip, that euphoric lift akin to a runner’s high. A great way to dive into the proverbial barrel is to commit to a mixed case of wines you’ve yet to try. A good rule of thumb is to choose one bubbly, a few whites, a pink or two, a few reds, and at least one treat in a price range you feel is “special occasion,” selecting the others from the $10 to $25 shelf. The selection is white-heavy, to accommodate Alabama’s generously hot summer. The Whites Montinore Estate Gewürtztraminer 2012 is from an organically and biodynamically certified winery and vineyards in Willamette Valley, Oregon. Subtle lychee and melon fruits with floral hints on the nose, followed by great acidity and refined fruit in perfect balance with a long, beautiful finish. I love it with a creamy ash-ripened cheese, the kind you can eat with a spoon. Dom Do main ma ine Beauséjour L Domaine Les Grenettes Sauvignon Blanc 2014 from Loire Valley, France, is at the top of cu urrent favorites. R current favorites. Ripe summer fruits, a floral note and hint of lemon herb aromas greet the nose, followed foll lllow o ed on on the palate pal with peach flavors and vibrant acidity. But there’s also a richness in the mid-p mid-palate palaate pala pa t w where heree the acidity here he acid mellows and an alluring texture takes it to another level. Then the flavors rrejoin re j in jo in for forr a balanced bal a aan ncceed and lasting finish. It’s the sav blanc for non-sav drinkers that will change minds. It did dm mine. iin ne. e. Lima Vinho Verde 2013 Li L maa V m inh in ho h oV e d er dee 2 013 is a classic example of the easy, bright wine from the Vinho Verde region in north h we w west stt P Portugal. o tu or tuga gaal.. K gal. Known no as “green wine,” Vinho Verdes are often racy with lemon notes and a tiny hint o paarrklle on o tthe hee ton h off sp sparkle tongue. This one’s a little different. Made from 100 percent loureiro grape, it has a sl slig iggh httly ly ffuller ullle u lle l r bo ody dy aand nd no sparkle, but with the same great acidity that is so lovely and versatile, it slightly body gets ge ts aalong lo ongg w with itth al almo almost mo m ost everyone ev it meets. P Pr Pratsch attsc s ch G Gr Grüner rün ü er V Veltliner eltlin 2013 is one of prettiest and brightest examples of Austria’s native grape el I’ve I’ vee m met et iin et n aw awhile. whi h lee. Pe Pear ea ffruit and floral notes, a slight hint of white pepper and tremendous acidity w wi with th ham mellowing ello el owi w ngg o on n tthe he tongue that makes it incredibly easy to keep drinking until the liter bottle dry. runs ru ns d ns r y. ry Chevalier 2013 is not your typical chard. In fact, forget what you think you know Érriicc C Éric heevvaali h aliier Chardonnay Cha harrdon about the abou ab ou ut th he gr ggrape, ape, ap pe, eespecially speciall those of you who think you hate it. You don’t. You just haven’t had a great sp spe pure expression married with a little stony terroir. Green apple and stone fruit with eexample ex xam aam mp plle o off p urrree fruit u frruiit exp inty minerality mouthwatering acidity come together in one nice, delicious package. flin nty ty m iner in eral ral alit ityy an aand d mou

Villa Wolf Pinot Gris 2013 from the Pfalz region in Germany has loads of acid with ripe white peach on the nose and palate; floral notes and stony hints follow. Fifty percent is aged in stainless steel and fifty percent in neutral oak, which adds plumpness and softness without the aromatics of new oak. The Pinks Domaine de la Berthète Côtes du Rhône rosé “Sensation” 2014 is an easy pink quaffer made from cinsault, grenache, and carignan. Wild strawberry and candy with a deep pink hue, medium body, and just enough acidity to be taken seriously. Finishes dry with citrus undertones and a lip smacking, satisfying length. Domaine du Pujol rosé 2014 is my Provence, France, pick for the summer. Carignan, cinsault, and grenache blend—the same as the previous wine but with entirely different mannerisms. Light strawberry and watermelon aromas, pale pink in color with lovely, elegant acidity and herbs de Provence notes. Lioco rosé of Indica 2014 from Mendocino County, California, is made from rare 65-year-old carignan vines. Pale salmon colored with rose petals and rhubarb, watermelon, and strawberry notes. Incredibly elegant and delicate. It’s a mind-alterer. The Reds Robin K Pinot Noir 2012 Sonoma Coast, California, is an easy-priced sipper on the lighter side of pinot. Pale ruby with cherry fruit and roasted red pepper. Light bodied with good acidity and supple finish. Domaine de Chevillon Passetoutgrain 2011is a blend of 1/3 pinot noir and 2/3 gamay from the Beaujolais and Burgundy regions in France. Ripe and dried cherries on the nose with a bit of game and fresh earth followed by more delicious cherry fruit and mineral tones, bright acidity and firm, smooth tannins. A lingering finish keeps the attraction strong. Bussola Ca’ del Laito Valpolicella Ripasso Superiore 2010 is your special treat from the Veneto, Italy. A big boy wine from superstar winemaker Tommy Bussola, this amarone-style red with fresh and dried dates on the nose, dried Black Mission fig, dark chocolate, black pepper to follow. Incredibly structured and dense on the palate with firm tannins that mellow on the finish. Needs time to breathe, or drink it slow. It’ll get friendlier throughout the evening.

News, classical music and more

Follow Amy at pigandvine.com for more stories and wine suggestions.

88.7 FM Muscle Shoals • 100.7 FM Huntsville www.apr.org july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

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food for thought » Sarah Gaede Once in a while I have an attack of nostalgia and have to make something retro from the Pirates’ House cookbook, like Velveeta and Ro-tel dip, which I could eat until I fall into a coma.

SENTIMENTALLY SEMI HOMEMADE When I moved to Savannah, Georgia, in  to write a cookbook for the Pirates’ House Restaurant, a tourist mecca, to sell in their gift shop, I had years of training in classical French cuisine under my belt (literally and figuratively) from my stint as one of Nathalie Dupree’s apprentices at Rich’s Cooking School in Atlanta. I could bone and stuff a chicken for ballotine (hot) or galantine (cold) presentation, clarify stock for aspic, stuff sausage into sheep intestines, and flambé a dessert without burning my eyebrows off. We made everything from scratch—no artificial or processed ingredients allowed. The Pirates’ House specialized in local seafood, classic Southern dishes such as gumbo, jambalaya, and cornbread, and Huge Luscious Desserts, or HLDs. Their crowning glory was the luncheon buffet, featuring Forty Feet of Fabulous Food. While all the seafood we served was fresh from the docks, sometimes we relied on cake mixes, canned soup (for Miss Edna’s Seafood Bisque), and Prep, a noxious butter-flavored cooking oil, among other chemical-laden convenience items. We did flambé, with Bacardi 151 rum. One of the long-time waitresses, Mrs. Dukes, had been known to flambé a customer occasionally when her Duck à l’Orange or Bananas Foster presentation got out of hand. The complimentary birthday treat was a piece of chocolate cake, made from a mix, covered in a mound of real whipped cream, with a lit sparkler stuck in the top. We had to make an occasional run across the Savannah River bridge to buy sparklers in South Carolina because they were illegal in Georgia. It’s a miracle the restaurant, parts of which dated to the mid-eighteenth century, and which had antiquated wiring, didn’t burn to the ground. My goal was to compile a cookbook that featured all the Pirates’ House recipes from the menu and the buffet, along with recipes from employees, friends, and relatives. I spent hours in the kitchen with the cooks, and hours at home figuring out how to reduce a recipe that serves 60 to one that serves six. Red Rice took me five tries. I also tested all the recipes from friends and family, which, because many of them were sentimental favorites dating from the 1940s and 1950s, often relied on convenience foods. But you know what? They were tasty. Once in a while I have an attack of nostalgia and have to make something retro from the Pirates’ House cookbook, like Velveeta and Ro-tel dip, w h i ch I could eat until I fall into a coma, or the infamous but ever-so-yummy “salad” with miniature marshmallows, canned pineapple chunks, canned mandarin oranges, green grapes, and sour cream. My daughter the foodie craves my barbecued beef brisket, which features cream of mushroom soup and Lipton’s onion soup mix. You would too, if you ever tried it. Just in

case you are tempted, the Pirates’ Cookbook is still available on eBay for $15.00. Shrimp Seashell Salad is a good example of how a recipe evolves over time. Back then I used curly parsley instead of ﬂat leaf, because that was all we had. And there was no such thing as a grape tomato. But since they are now ubiquitous, reliably tasty, and reasonably priced, they provide a nice pop of color and sweetness. The only questionable ingredient is the powdered garlic herb salad dressing mix, but two teaspoons of it can’t possibly hurt you. The sour cream muﬃns are a perfect compliment. They are completely addictive.

Shrimp Seashell Salad • 1 pound raw medium-size shrimp, peeled (or 12 ounces raw peeled shrimp) cooked and cooled • 4 ounces dry shell macaroni* (approx. 2 cups), cooked, rinsed in cold water, and drained well • 1 cup sliced celery • 1/4 cup ﬁnely chopped Italian parsley • 1/4 cup sweet pickle relish—I like Wickle’s for the extra kick • 2 or 3 green onions, sliced • 20-ish grape tomatoes, cut in half the long way • 1/2 cup Hellman’s or Duke’s mayonnaise, depending upon your upbringing • 2 teaspoons powdered garlic herb salad dressing mix* • 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice • Freshly ground pepper to taste Combine shrimp, pasta, celery, parsley, pickle relish, green onions, and tomatoes in a large bowl. Whisk together mayonnaise, powdered dressing, lemon juice, and seasonings. Add to shrimp mixture and mix well. Refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight before serving. Serves 4 hungry people. *Publix Medium or Mueller’s Large Macaroni is what you want. They are the same size. Publix sells Good Seasons Garlic and Herb salad dressing mix. Make sure you shake the package well before opening. If you are a purist, you can order chemical-free Italian Oil and Vinegar salad seasoning from Penzey’s.

Sour Cream Muffins • 1 cup self-rising flour • 1 cup sour cream • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Grease two miniature muffins tins (a total of 24 muffins). Combine all ingredients in bowl or food processor until just mixed. Bake for 15 minutes, until golden brown. Serve hot. Leftovers may be reheated, but there probably won’t be any. You can, of course, cut the recipe in half if you have no self-control.

Call For Entries

No’Ala Renaissance Awards

Who Inspires You? Now accepting nominations for Shoals area individuals who have made remarkable contributions in the following areas: Arts & Culture Business & Leadership Education Service & Spirituality Science Submit your detailed nomination via email by December 1, 2015 to: allen@noalastudios.com Award winners will be featured in the March/April, p , 2016,, issue of No’Ala.

The Renaissance Award was created by No’Ala Studios and is presented to ﬁve Shoals area individuals, couples, or groups every two years.

july/august  | noalastudios.com | 

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parting shot » Patrick Hood

UP, UP, AND AWAY

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Money for a Home.

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