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Photography
Photography

Exploring the West Pearl River near Slidell

On the morning of the Fourth of July, I went on a swamp tour with Cajun Encounters out near Slidell, Louisiana, along the West Pearl River and the Honey Island Swamp. While we didn’t see any black bears, we did see many water birds and alligators.

Seclusion and Beauty at Arkansas’ Eden Isle

West of Heber Springs, Arkansas, the aptly-named Eden Isle development is home to the famous Red Apple Inn and restaurant. The community is really an island in Greers Ferry Lake, and visitors enjoy boating, fishing, golf, tennis and swimming.

3316 Line Avenue: Sound City and Shreveport’s Forgotten Legacy of Soul

This former theater at 3316 Line Avenue in Shreveport was once the Sound City Recording Studio in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s While not as famous as Cossimo Matassa’s, or Sun, or Stax, or Malaco, a lot of great southern soul was cut at Sound City, by artists like Eddie Giles, Reuben Bell, Ted Taylor, Geater Davis, Little Johnny Taylor, Shay Holliday, Tommie Young and the African Music Machine. Bobby Patterson ran his Soul Power label there for awhile, and Stewart Madison ran Alarm Records from the building before moving to Jackson, Mississippi and Malaco. The years were not kind to Sound City, however. Renamed Southern Star, the studio became a more country-oriented operation in the mid 1970’s before closing down during the financial crisis that wracked Shreveport in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The legacy of soul and funk music in Shreveport was largely forgotten.

Club Tay-May, Mason TN, Summer 1991

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Back in the summer of 1991, when I was hanging out with a lot of fellow UT-Martin students who lived at Gainsville just outside of Mason, a local festival gave me the excuse to be down on the Lower End taking pictures. I had almost forgotten that I had them. I even got a picture of the legendary Club Tay-May, which burned to the ground not long after. 

UPDATED: Tay-May was the big club in Mason, and had existed in several different locations, the last one being the one pictured here. Since it could hold hundreds, it routinely featured artists like Johnnie Taylor and Little Milton, and was rumored to be the place where Rufus Thomas invented the Funky Chicken! I will always be sad that I never went inside it.

The Lower End, Front Street, Mason TN, Summer 1991

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Mason, Tennessee, Front Street, The Lower End, Summer 1991. 

This was the summer that I was spending a lot of time in and around Mason and Gainesville, Tennessee. I had gotten some black and white film, and was having fun with my camera, and I was always fascinated by the “cafes” in Mason, as juke joints were called in those days. Of course, I had no idea back then that most of these buildings would be torn down and destroyed, so the pictures are maybe a little more important now than I had imagined.

The Postcard Inn on St. Pete Beach

I had expected to get into St. Pete Beach around 1 or 2 in the morning, but given the time I killed in Tallahassee kicking it with the folks at Da Plugg Music and More, I ended up getting there at 4 AM instead. My beachfront motel, the Postcard Inn on the Beach, was a boutique hotel, an old motel that had been interestingly restored. Unfortunately, due to the late hour I arrived, by the time I woke up, it was almost time to check out, so I did not get a chance to get in the water, but I did manage to snap a number of photos.