Alabama Troubadour (Hardcover, 1st ed)

From Bon Secour near Mobile Bay to Sloss Furnace in Birmingham, Alabama Troubadour celebrates Alabama through a collection of songs, essays, and photographs presenting eleven unique sites as they exist at the beginning of the millennium. Veteran musician Karren Pell, a modern-day troubadour, takes the reader along as she travels the state, writing songs about the towns and cities she visits. Her lyrics combine the history, legend, and ambiance of each site. Her essays reveal the cultural significance of these diverse places, beginning with their earliest history and chronicling their development through the twenty-first century. The trip begins in Enterprise at the Boll Weevil Monument, where Pell explains the Southern economic revolution that inspired a civic monument to what would otherwise be considered a pest. We travel north to Tuscaloosa to attend a catfish fry at Betty and Jim Barnes's Catfish Cabin and savor the ribs at Dreamland Barbecue. Pell's song and essay illustrate the importance of the communion of good food and folks, and the common reverence for catfish and barbecue, at the altar of the Southern table. After visiting the Ave Maria Grotto, the Cross Garden, and other unusual sites, we come to the end of our journey near Cherokee at the Key Underwood Coon Dog Cemetery. The lyrics to "A Good Coon Dog" express the love between the hunter and the hunting dog. The accompanying essay, "The Coon Dog Cemetery," explores the history and experience of hunting in Southern culture, as well as the importance of the Coon Dog Cemetery in that history. The black and white photographs provide visual interpretation and clearly, yet artistically, document the sites at the beginning of anew millennium. During a time of change, Alabama Troubadour offers a personal rendering of the continuity of life for the uncommon people and places in Alabama.