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From August 3, 2006...

Photographer Spider Martin "lived large"...privately and professionally. It's that time of year again and thousands of hummingbirds are dropping into one Alabama backyard for a little love and attention. And - southern hip-hop from Bessemer's Big Creed. I'm Greg Bass and this is Tapestry.

It's been said that Spider Martin, "more than any other photographer of our time, used his camera to document the struggle for civil rights and social change in the state of Alabama." Indeed, Martin made a name for himself with his civil rights-era photos, but friends and family say there was so much more to the man and his work. We sent reporter Stacey Torch to get the whole story.

A profile of Spider Martin

A collection of Spider Martin's photography will be on exhibition at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in the Spring of 2007.

This time of year, thousands of hummingbirds are making their annual trek from southern Alaska and Nova Scotia all the way to Central America where they'll spend the winter. Large numbers will unfailingly make a pit stop at the home of one Alabama couple - where one of the duo bands the birds. Reporter Gigi Douban visited their home.

Meet a hummingbird tagger

To hear the audio portion of the Community Calendar from Tapestry, click here.

Want to know more? Activeculture.info is a one-stop source for finding out what's going on in the Birmingham metro area.

Here's your vocabulary word of the week. "Crunk". In slang, it's a mix of "crazy" and "drunk"...but long before late night talker Conan O'Brien introduced it as a substitute for the infamous seven dirty words, "Crunk" was a term used to describe dirty Southern rap - raw hip-hop music using electronic drum sounds and synthesized brass instruments. A rapper from Bessemer who calls himself Big Creed brings "crunk" to life. On his CD cover he sports plenty of bling and some of his lyrics are, well, pretty raw. But he's a study in contrasts...a "crunk" rapper who's selling CD's from here to Japan while balancing the demand of college classes, a wife and three kids, and working at his church. We had to check it out!

This is "Trying to Make a Change" from the CD "Won't Be Denied". (AUDIO MONTAGE)

Big Creed plays the High Note Lounge August 27th, but if you can't wait till then, we've got downloads of his music on the Tapestry page of WBHM.org.

Tapestry is produced by Tanya Ott and Michael Krall, with music producer Hunter Bell. Francesca Rosko tracks community events. Reporting this week by Stacey Torch and Gigi Douban and production assistance from Rosemary Pennington and Steve Chiotakis. Next week on the program, two favorite southern writers - Fannie Flagg and Sonny Brewer. I'm Greg Bass and we'll see you next week.