Tara Stallworth Lee combined two of her great passions, music and photography, into An Alabama Song. The book, released this month, shines the spotlight on some her favorite musicians and other artists from her home state. It’s an opportunity, she explained, to share things joyful and beautiful and to create her own brand of music through her photography.
Lee spoke with WBHM's Richard Banks.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Let’s start with you describing the book, itself.
Whoa! It's a book about a visual journey. I've been calling it a map, a visual musical map of Alabama. So, José Carr is my cover guy – musician, trumpeter, Birmingham jazz legend, a living legend, a fantastic friend now.
Tell me about the cover of the book. It's really colorful. José has this great jacket on. Describe that for our listeners, what we're looking at.
It's like fireworks. I've heard people say it's like pink and blue and white fireworks going off. It is very floral, too. It's a garden that he's donning. But the whole cover is his jacket, primarily. You can see a little bit of his trumpet and his crisp white shirt underneath. But yeah, it's just the most beautiful jacket I've ever seen.
Pull out another photograph and tell me what it is that you think that photograph relays about that particular person.
Okay, that's easy. I just turned right to it. This is Elaine Hudson, Hurricane Elaine. She's itty-bitty in stature, but she is a force. She wrote a song “Black Alabama Blues,” and she and I are in A.G. Gaston Park, which is in West Birmingham. She's singing that song for me and that was amazing. We were there for probably three hours, just talking and hanging out. And this was closer to the end, so we had gotten comfortable with each other.
I want the opportunity to explain this one. Can I do that?
Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, describe what we're looking at.
Okay. So, on the left is Burgin. I say “Burgin,” and most people go, “Oh, my gosh, that guy!”
Burgin Matthews, right? He produces a program for WBHM called The Lost Child. [It’s also on Birmingham Mountain Radio.]
Right. I just hope I'm not making Burgin uncomfortable. I talk about him everywhere. But this is a photo of Burgin in what I call his home office, and I love that he looks so natural and he's leaning on his desk. Behind him is a poster that's half cut off. You may not notice it. Maybe I shouldn't give this away. Anyway, it's just a little negative interest.
So, on the right-hand page is that poster. And so, it's a natural flow that I like and that's when I started to think about this book as a song. You start looking at all the photos. They're very intentionally put together on the page, and from flipping from one to the other, there are little clues.
Well, without giving too much away then, how is it that you can create a book of photography as a song?
So, I've thought about that a lot, okay. This is something that's so hard to articulate, but if you think about rhythm and you think arrangement and even choreography, if I start thinking in language like that, to me it translates into this visual sound. It's this rhythm that starts to happen.
I do a lot of collage. So, to me, it's like a linear collage. So, you're going left to right, left to right, left to the right, and they fit like a puzzle in my head, and I can hear that rhythm.
What do you hope those who see the book will get out of it?
So, I think there's something really important that keeps coming up. It’s this idea that Alabama is really great, and we do have so many beautiful things here. So, as an Alabamian and someone who is finding a love for Alabama again, I really want that for our state. And also, it's great to be connected through music. I keep having these incredible personal experiences just in talking about music.
And I think that's joyful, and it puts something really positive in the world. So, combined, it's Alabama music, and I want people connecting over those things, whatever that might be.
