Howard Bankhead, executive director of Tennessee Valley Jazz Society

Barbara Edwards, Deputy Director of the Council, interviews Howard Bankhead, executive director of Tennessee Valley Jazz Society, Inc. and the 2013 recipient of the Council Arts Administration Fellowship Award. Under Howard’s leadership, Tennessee Valley Jazz Society has presented “Jazz Education-in-the Schools” programs since 1998. Approximately, 26,500 young people living in the metro Huntsville area have been exposed to jazz artists and jazz music. Additionally, the organization sponsors the annual Jazz-N-June Festival. (more)

Cast King and Matt Downer

This program is a rebroadcast of a 2005 interview by Anne Kimzey with musicians Cast King and Matt Downer from Sand Mountain.  Guitarist and songwriter Cast King and his former band The Country Drifters recorded with Sun Records of Memphis in the 1950s.  Matt Downer, a young musician, worked with Mr. King for a few years to learn his guitar style and to record his music and life history.   During the program Mr. King performed three of the approximately 500 songs he wrote in his lifetime. Cast King died in 2007. (more)

Bettie Champion

In this program folklorist Anne Kimzey and Bettie Champion of Mobile discuss the art of making traditional seafood gumbo, an important part of the culinary heritage of the Gulf Coast.   Ms. Champion, who learned her recipe from her mother, created the Gumbo Academy to teach interested cooks everything they need to know to make this complicated dish, from cleaning the crabs, to preparing the roux, to serving the finished gumbo over rice. (more)