Today’s guest columnist is Bill Ivey.

I had a dream.

In my dream, time stands still, and many great Birmingham musicians are alive simultaneously.

These giants gather on 4th Avenue North in Birmingham’s old Black Business district, in the Lodge Room at the Masonic Temple—4th Avenue’s grand, seven-story anchor.

This is an incredibly diverse, brilliant group, each with Birmingham roots, that represents multiple music genres. But, at their respective cores, they are the same.

After all, there are only so many notes and chords.

There are prominent visitors.

Bob Dylan is there to visit Odetta, one of his significant influences. He is almost unrecognizable in one corner, sitting back in an old chair with his hat pulled down. He knows these people because Dylan knows all the music. Inside him resides the greatest repository of American music outside the Smithsonian. He gets it.

Odetta (Holmes) is a black woman who synthesized her mother’s love of opera with her stepfather’s passion for country music to create a unique niche in folk music. Outside of Woody Guthrie, Odetta may have had the most important influence on a young Bob Dylan.

Filmmaker Ken Burns is hanging out with the Three on a String crew: Jerry Ryan, Bobby Horton, Brad Ryan, and Andy Meginnis. Three on a String, a bluegrass/folk group, hides their brilliance behind corn-pone humor. However, they’ve played with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, are members of the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, and have entertained hundreds of thousands of fans for more than half a century.

Horton, a brilliant musician and historian, has done the soundtracks for nineteen Ken Burns’ films. Herb Trotman is hanging out with this group because, well, he’s Herb Dang Trotman, owner of the Fretted Instruments store and one of the best banjo players in the world.

And there, ten feet away, are three kids who made it big in one of the most influential crossover groups in American music history: The Temptations. The Motown Sound: Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams (from Ensley), and Dennis Edwards (from Fairfield)! How many of us who love the Temps know that these three were from the west side of our community?

Tammy Wynette is the queen of country music. We can claim her even though she is from Mississippi. As a young, single mother of three, she moved to Birmingham’s Elyton Village housing project. Tammy worked days as a beautician and performed nights in local bars. And, to no one’s surprise around here, her launching pad was the Country Boy Eddie Show! She made her way to Nashville, and the rest is history.

Tammy met George Jones in 1968, married him in 1969, and divorced him in 1975. However, they continued to record together for over twenty years. Tammy and George were superstars, the queen and king of country music.

A small mob of former students surrounds a man named Fess Whatley in the middle of the big room. These are young Birmingham Blacks he trained at Parker (formerly Industrial) High School and then sent all over the country to big-time gigs.

His protégés revere him: Erskine Hawkins, Cleave Eaton, Dr. Frank Adams, Sun Ra (Herman “Sonny” Blount), Amos Gordon, Cass McCord, James and Sammy Lowe, and Teddy Hill. Birmingham is a centerpiece of the national jazz scene primarily because of Whatley, the perfectionist taskmaster who teaches his students to sight read. As a result, bandleaders nationwide hire them solely based on his recommendations.

Prized Whatley pupil Erskine Hawkins, an Ensley native, is a brilliant trumpeter and a New York big-band leader. Hawkins and three others are known for composing the “Tuxedo Junction” jazz standard, a huge national hit. Hawkins and his orchestra introduced the song. (The street car intersection in Ensley was called Tuxedo Junction, and the name also applied to a nearby dance hall that operated in the 1920s and 1930s.)

Is it just a coincidence that Birmingham produced two American Idol winners—Reuben Studdard and Taylor Hicks—and two runners-up, Bo Bice and Diana DeGarmo? Not likely.

Birmingham DNA! Another singular talent is Parker High School alumnus Nell Carter. A Tony and Emmy winner, Nell worked her way from Birmingham to New York and eventually became a star on Broadway and television. Nell has that Birmingham DNA—just pure talent.

Midfield native Henry Panion III is an American composer, arranger, conductor, educator, and professor in the UAB Department of Music. He is a member of Alabama’s Jazz and Music Halls of Fame. Dr. Panion, to name just a few accomplishments, has conducted the Alabama Symphony Orchestra and has produced for Stevie Wonder and the Blind Boys of Alabama. His latest project is a documentary, “A Symphony Celebration: The Blind Boys of Alabama with Dr. Henry Panion III,” which premiered on public television stations nationwide in February 2024.

There’s an interesting female trio gathered in another corner. Emmylou Harris and the founders of Little Big Town, Karen Fairchild and Kimberly Schlapman. Emmylou, the songbird of Americana music, was born at East End Hospital (bless her heart). She is one of the great voices and most prolific singers of our time. Is there anyone who doesn’t want to sing with her?

Among her achievements, she has been nominated for 31 Grammys and has won thirteen. Astonishing, Emmylou was a big influence on Fairchild and Schlapman, who met at Samford University. Little Big Town has had eight number-one singles and six Grammy nominations. These three brilliant women have so much in common.

In my rambling, random dream, Chuck Leavell and Wayne Perkins are sitting together. Maybe you’ve heard of them, maybe not. However, these two geniuses are near the top of the food chain of great Birmingham musicians. Their paths have crossed many times over the last fifty years.

Chuck Leavell was a keyboardist for the Allman Brothers. And, incredibly, for most of the last forty-plus years, he’s been the keyboard player for the Rolling Stones. Big-time. In a 2007 radio interview, Chuck said his three favorite contributions to songs in his career were “Jessica” with the Allmans, “Old Love” on Eric Clapton’s Unplugged, and “Already Over Me” from the Rolling Stones’ “Bridges to Babylon” album. Again, greatness was born in Birmingham.

Wayne Perkins is one of the least known, greatest session guitar players in pop music history. At age fifteen, he dropped out of high school and began performing and doing session work in Birmingham. Soon, Wayne moved to North Alabama and the famous Muscle Shoals Sound Studio.

By age 21, while touring England with his band, Wayne was asked to contribute to Bob Marley and the Wailers’ 1973 album “Catch a Fire.” Wayne knew nothing about reggae music, but he added a guitar track that helped broaden the album’s appeal. “Catch a Fire” became a worldwide hit. Wayne has also played with Joni Mitchell, Leon Russell, and the Rolling Stones.

I see Gip Gipson sitting in a chair, leaning back against the wall. Old Henry “Gip” Gipson spent his entire adult life in Bessemer. In 1952, he started his juke joint, Gip’s Place, to provide a spot for local musicians to hang out and play music. That little rattletrap building initially drew locals, but eventually attracted musicians and music lovers from across the city and country—even from other countries.

Former UAB quarterback and current country music star Sam Hunt has come down from Nashville for this special gathering. He is visiting with Gip and will soon be picking Doc Watson’s brain. Compared to them, Sam knows he’s just a baby. He didn’t pick up a guitar until college!

“Youngsters” Jesse Phillips and Paul Janeway of St. Paul and the Broken Bones launched their band in Birmingham. They are a White Soul band, so they have to check out the Temptations guys and Odetta.

Within an hour or so, the groups begin to break up so they can mingle. Curiosity abounds. The scene is not that different from the 1985 “We Are the World” recording session: big egos, incredible talent, and great appreciation for each other and for music across genres.

Brilliance and beauty emerged out of the grit, grime, heat, and smoke. Birmingham country, rock, jazz, blues, R&B, Americana, and folk—a unique Birmingham furnace.

The ashes of that fire contain the blood, sweat, and tears (no pun intended) of mill and mine workers, the pain of difficult race relations, the anguish of extreme poverty, the joys of church music and boisterous revivals, and just good old God-given talent. Greatness.

We have so much in common. Why can’t we all just get along?

In my dream, we do.

Note from the author: This piece was inspired by an article sent to me by my long-time friend, Mickey Parham: “Country Music and Me: My Great Migration in the Wrong Direction,” The Free Press (Evan Gardner, 9/30/23). Gardner is a Black country music lover. Gardner’s quote: “But country music isn’t truly white, because nothing in America is entirely white or black or anything else, and nothing that endures–nothing of value–is about race at all. It goes beyond that.”

Bill Ivey is a retired coach and History/Government/Economics teacher who has a BS in Business from the University of Alabama and a Master’s degree in History from UAB. He coached basketball and track for 25 years, including a 3-year stint as the women’s basketball coach at UAB. After retiring from the public school system, he founded a nonprofit that assisted young male basketball players who had graduated from high school but had “slipped through the cracks.” He also founded and ran the Birmingham Basketball Academy until 2020. He and his wife Cathy lead the Carolyn Pitts Class for Social Justice (Sunday School), which meets online every Sunday morning.

David Sher is the founder and publisher of ComebackTown.  He’s past Chairman of the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce (BBA), Operation New Birmingham (REV Birmingham), and the City Action Partnership (CAP).

Click here to sign up for our newsletter. 

Invite David to speak for free to your group about how we can have a more prosperous metro Birmingham. dsher@comebacktown.com