Monthly Archives: August 2009

Out of Control

A recent report raises questions about the conditions at the animal control facility used by Jefferson County and the City of Birmingham.

April 30, 2009

Since 1997, Jefferson County and the City of Birmingham have outsourced the task of capturing stray dogs and cats to a for-profit company called BJC Animal Control Services. Although the city pays the majority of the cost, the county has traditionally dictated the terms of the contracts. Over the years, various Birmingham city councilors have complained that the company’s services rendered within the city limits have been less than adequate. A recent unannounced visit to BJC Animal Control by representatives of Jefferson County Commissioner Jim Carns’ office has critics once again complaining about the local animal control provider.

The first high-profile criticism of the facility surfaced in 2001, when the BJC Animal Control facility was inspected by the National Animal Control Association (NACA), an organization that provides guidelines and training for member agencies on how to humanely capture and house stray animals. The report cited several violations of NACA protocol, the most notable being impounded animals that lacked medical attention; dead animals left in cages; “very poor” sanitation of feline living quarters; animals being euthanized with intercardiac (directly into the heart) injections without first being sedated; and cages being cleaned without dogs being removed first—even when bleach and chemicals were being used. NACA also discovered that animals had been euthanized in the presence of other animals (and in view of visitors on at least one occasion). BJC Animal Control had also failed to verify that euthanized animals were actually dead, according to the report. Shortly after the report was published, BJC Animal Control director Steve Smith claimed that he had implemented new procedures to address the problems.




Critics of the current animal control facility feel that Jefferson County and the City of Birmingham should demand better conditions for animals housed there. (click for larger version)

The NACA report received attention from city councilors who had already begun to question both the shared funding arrangement with the county as well as a lack of any independent audit of BJC. City Councilor Valerie Abbott became an early and vocal critic of the BJC contract. “We have no way of knowing how much of the money [BJC] gets is profit, and how much actually goes to providing animal control,” Abbott told Black & White in March of 2004. “We’ve never had a central audit. We’ve asked for one, and what we got was a budget.” Critics fear that by its nature, a for-profit operation would be tempted to put financial gain ahead of animal welfare.

In the past, BJC has been awarded multi-year contracts that stipulated annual payments in the neighborhood of 1 million dollars. Since September of 2007, when the last contract with BJC expired, BJC’s services have been retained on a month-to-month basis while the city and county attempt to reach an agreement on new contract specifications. Such requirements would allow the contract to be bid on by other companies in addition to BJC, as occurred when the contract came up for renewal in 2004. Aside from a few officials such as Councilor Abbott and Commissioner Carns, neither the city nor the county has ever shown much interest in seeking competitive bids or enticing other companies to compete for the contract. To interested observers, the issue has never appeared to be a priority.

In May of 2004, Black & White spoke with Jefferson County Commissioner (now County Commission President) Bettye Fine Collins about NACA’s claim that BJC Animal Control had not been properly audited by an independent agency. According to Collins, “If you give a person a contract, I’m not too sure that it’s our role to audit the operation. He’s an independent contractor, and he contracts to us for a service. I don’t really know if it’s a matter to be audited. I would think that the Office of Public Examiners would require us to do that. All I can do is evaluate their performance. How the monies are spent to provide that service would not be mine to judge, I would think.”

Collins noted at the time that she had not voted to approve BJC Animal Control as the service provider, and that she believes a Humane Society would be better suited to do the job. Many humane societies, however, do not accept animals that aren’t surrendered by their owners—preventing such agencies from picking up stray animals.

Unpleasant Discoveries
In response to complaints from constituents, on January 21, 2009, Sharon Evans and Jeanette Brabston, both employed by Jefferson County Commissioner Jim Carns’ office, made an unannounced visit to the BJC Animal Control facility. Their account of what they observed was included in a February 3, 2009, press release intended to highlight what they considered to be unacceptable conditions at the facility.

Regarding the room where dogs are held as evidence in animal cruelty cases, they reported: Some of the dogs had been held there for up to a year. There were no windows—it was completely enclosed. The stench was bad. There was an exhaust unit there, but it was not turned on. Many of the dogs looked malnourished. Cages were very dirty and scattered with dried excrement. One cage had a dog that had been hit by a car. There were a few pools of blood and dried vomit in the cage.

We never saw [BJC veterinarian] Dr. Shaw tend to this dog. More than half the floor of the cage was smeared in blood. We were told that she was given painkillers and that the vet would be checking on her later. The dog did not move the whole time we were there. We asked Shelley [a BJC Animal Control employee] if the dog was OK and if they were going to treat it. Sharon [Evans] asked, “What decision will the vet make after he checks on the dog?” Shelley said that if the dog’s wounds are major, then the dog would be put down and if there were only minor treatments needed, they would put the dog up for adoption and hope that whoever would adopt the dog would take the dog to the veterinarian for the needed care.

Evans and Brabston’s report on the “Male Dog Room” reads: The dogs are never allowed out of their kennels. [When] asked how [often] the room was cleaned. Janie [a BJC employee] said that it was cleaned 2-3 times a day. With the thick, pungent smell that infused the room, it appeared the place had not been cleaned in a while. The room was extremely stuffy and hot. The smell was unbearable, and made us both extremely nauseous. There were exhaust fans identical to those in the “female” room. However, these were not on. Sharon pointed to them and asked Shelley what they were. Shelley said they were heaters, trying to explain the heat in the room. Sharon asked again “So they are both heaters?” to which Shelley replied “yes.” Sharon asked if there was any ventilation in the room. Shelley pointed to dark recesses in the ceiling and said that was the “ventilation.” There was no light coming from the recesses.

We walked around and saw a lot of malnourished dogs. Sharon saw a standing fan in the corner of the room, but it was not on.

As we were leaving, we saw two signs posted on the wall. One said “Do Not Use Hot Water” and the other said “Do Not Use Exhaust Fans.” Sharon pointed to the “Do Not Use Hot Water” sign and asked Shelley what that meant—why they did not use hot water. She replied: “We don’t want to burn the dogs,” and laughed. Sharon asked “Don’t you remove the dogs from the pen before cleaning? How would they get burned?” Shelley did not have an answer. She said, “We use bleach and cold water because it’s ‘cost-effective.’” (This is a term that we [heard] multiple times on the tour in answer to questions regarding flea treatments, antibiotics, immunizations, and basic care.) Sharon pointed to the “Do Not Use Exhaust Fans” sign and asked why they do not use the exhaust fans. Shelley said, “If we did, the dogs would get cold.” Sharon said, “I thought these were heaters,” to which Shelley said, “We run the exhaust fans in the summer.”

Regarding the “Cat Room,” Evans and Brabston wrote: When they showed us this room, they opened the door and the lights were off. There was not a window in the room. The cages were small, making it impossible for any exercise or very much movement. We asked about flea treatment for dogs and cats. They said that they provided flea treatment for dogs that were infested but if they had just a few fleas, they would bypass the flea treatment altogether. Again, she said this was “cost-effective.” We also asked about flea dipping. She said they did not do that anymore because they did not want to spread possible diseases such as mange. She explained that if one dog was dipped in the same flea bath as the previous dog, the chances for spreading disease were high.

Their report concluded with the following: When we returned to the office, we sent a picture [of the wounded dog] to the Greater Birmingham Humane Society with questions as to the normal procedure for dealing with injured animals. They were appalled and said this was not up to industry standards. The dog should have never been left alone or with other dogs because of the profuse bleeding and possible contamination. The dog should have either been euthanized immediately or isolated and treated for recovery. The picture serves as solid evidence of abuse/neglect taking place at the facility.

A Rebuttal
When contacted for comment, BJC Animal Control president Steve Smith said that he had not seen the February 2009 report from Carns’ office but that he is familiar with it. Regarding the “cruelty room” (where dogs are kept as evidence in animal cruelty cases), Smith explained, “That’s more specifically our ‘animal isolation room.’” As for the bleeding dog they photographed in a cage with vomit and dried blood, Smith said, “Let me tell you the real story. This dog was causing an imminent threat to the public. This particular dog charged the police. They shot him. The dog was brought in and examined by the veterinarian. The animal was given whatever treatment could be given to stabilize it and make it comfortable. The dog was being constantly monitored by the staff and vet. The reason the dog was being held was we were trying to find out if there was an owner involved that wanted to come in and get this animal to save its life. So that’s where we were with this and I think we were doing the prudent thing by trying to give the owner an opportunity before the animal was destroyed. When the owner indicated that they were not willing to do anything to save it, the animal was euthanized.” Smith added that the dog was euthanized later that afternoon after Evans and Brabston visited the facility.

Regarding the “Do Not Use Hot Water” and “Do Not Use Exhaust Fans” signs, Smith explained, “We clean in the mornings, [and] the odors will be unpleasant until we can clean. [Evans and Brabston claim their visit occurred around midday.] When you have this many animals confined in this small a space, you’re going to have unpleasant odors. Any shelter you go into, you’re going to have to deal with those same issues.” As far as complaints about ventilation, Smith said, “If I have done anything as the operator of this facility, I have done what I could to improve the ventilation. As you know, this is not my facility. [The building is owned by the City of Birmingham.] There is an escrow account that has approximately $150,000 to be used by the City of Birmingham and Jefferson County to make whatever improvements and do whatever maintenance to this facility that they deem to be necessary. I have made several requests to the city and to the county to look into things like improving the ventilation and to do things like painting and replacing doors that have rusted, to improve security at the facility.” (Smith stated that the facility has been the target of four armed robberies.) He also noted that the facility was built in the late 1970s and agrees that ventilation problems need to be addressed. “We have gas heat. These roof ventilations have to stay closed because you can’t maintain a comfortable temperature for the animals if you’re blowing all your heat out the roof. So, you’ve got to do a balancing act between finding a comfortable temperature for the animals and decreasing the odors and improving the ventilation. As far as the hot water goes, we have hot water for hygienic purposes and other purposes that necessitate hot water. But the chemicals that we use do not require hot water,” Smith said. “Now, periodically, we’re going to get in there with hot water or extra chemicals and do a more thorough cleaning, but as far as cleaning the kennels, the disinfecting and cleaning agents that we use do not require hot water.”

In response to Evans and Brabston’s observations of cats being confined to small cages and not allowed any exercise, Smith said that the cat cages at the facility are not small. “These are cat cages that are sold by very reputable vendors. They’re very adequate-sized cages, and most of the times the cats are penned individually. They’re fed and watered everyday, their cages cleaned out. Most of these cats are here for just seven days until an owner can come in and claim that animal. To assume that we have a responsibility to take these cats out of the cages and exercise them isn’t reasonable and feasible,” said Smith, citing a danger of employees being injured while handling animals.

“I’ll put this facility and the company’s operation against any other animal control operation in the state, be it ‘for profit,’ ‘not for profit,’ ‘nonprofit.’ Don’t make any difference. To me, what’s important is the job that’s performed. It’s doesn’t matter what type of corporation it is. Everybody has an opportunity to bid on [the animal control contract]. I think it’s important that everybody really understands [the function of animal control]. There are statutory responsibilities that determine what an animal control program should do. It’s up to a community to assess what they want. But it needs to be an informed opinion. These people need to see what other shelters are doing. And I dare anybody to prove that this operation does not meet or exceed its contractual obligations or does not do as good or better a job as any other animal control operation in the state.”

Smith said that most people do not know the difference between a humane society and an animal control organization. “There are problems that are inherent with a humane society trying to perform animal control work, because it goes against their mission,” he explained. “The goal of the humane society is to find these animals a home. When a humane society takes in unwanted animals, they can euthanize these animals immediately. They’re not going to spend their resources on animals they can’t place. We’re required by law to hold these animals for seven days. Sometimes I’m kind of thought of as a heartless individual that doesn’t care about animals and this sort of thing. But I’m a biology major. I have an appreciation for all life.” &

The Entertainer King

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The Entertainer King

Matt Kimbrell takes a final bow, no doubt laughing all the way.

By Ed Reynolds

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November 11, 2010

Matt Kimbrell was the consummate performer, a superb drummer and songwriter, excellent bass player, and decent guitarist. He was revered as supreme frontman in Jim Bob and the Leisure Suits, the Ho Ho Men, the Mambo Combo, or any other band in which he played. He was also funny as hell. He battled a heart problem for a decade or so, but finally lost on October 13 when a heart attack took his life at age 51 in the Bluff Park home he shared with his brother Mark (a world-class jazz guitarist). It’s the same house where the brothers grew up, with one room stocked with musical instruments and stacks of albums—a playground for a family smitten with music.

Matt and Mark’s late father, Henry Kimbrell—a top-notch jazz piano player who is a member of the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, as well as a long-ago local TV personality (when not writing commercial jingles such as “Jack’s hamburgers for 15 cents are so good, good, good”)—hired his sons when they were in their mid-teens to form a jazz trio that played regular gigs at local clubs.




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Matt’s musical prowess on a variety of instruments was impressive, but his stage presence and vocal stylings stood out. “I really feel like on all the Jim Bob stuff, I was kinda trying to vocally imitate Matt,” admits Mats (pronounced Mots) Roden, one of the guitarists and songwriters in Jim Bob and the Leisure Suits, a popular Birmingham band that Kimbrell formed in 1979 with Roden and another high school friend named Leif Bondarenko.

“There’s an expression in opera called ‘heldentenor,’ a rare style of tenor singer, like the Wagner stuff,” says Roden. “Matt could have done that kind of stuff if he wanted to, because he had that kind of voice. He never applied it to classical music, but he definitely had the chops for it. He had a healthy respect for classical music.”

Apart from Sun Ra, the Leisure Suits were arguably the most revolutionary band to ever emerge from Birmingham, introducing the city to punk and New Wave sounds in 1980. Music fans accustomed to classic rock played by cover bands in local bars, where patrons usually sat at tables, sucking down cocktails and politely applauding, could not sit still when the Leisure Suits took the stage. The beats they played were irresistible, and tables and chairs in local venues became relics of the past. Jim Bob and the Leisure Suits transformed the city’s music dynamic as they annihilated the barrier between audience and performer. Soon, anyone with a guitar felt confident enough to write songs, and bands performing original music began popping up all over town, citing the Leisure Suits as inspiration.

Kimbrell was a star whenever he climbed on stage. He was always laughing at his own jokes, which he was never shy to share with an audience, and he imitated a variety of characters, no matter what band he fronted.

“People used to say that one of the great things about playing in the Mambo Combo wasn’t necessarily hearing the songs but hearing what Matt had to say in between songs, because he always had great stories,” recalls Ho Ho Men and Mambo Combo bassist and saxophone player Jeffrey Stahmer, better known as Dr. Ig (short for Dr. Igwanna). “He was a fantastic comedian, and he could always get the crowd going. At Matt’s memorial service people told me they used to come to see us act like fools up there in between songs. Matt was one of the funniest guys I ever knew. He loved to be up there and be the showman. Despite his jokes, his musicianship was always solid.” Dr. Ig laughs when recounting Matt’s fearless knack for entertaining. “We were playing some frat party [once] and [the audience] was acting really dull or stupid or something, and Matt said, ‘Well, then, if you guys don’t like it, for this next one I’m going to take my pants off.’ He actually did, he’s in his underwear, right? So I was playing sax and I decided to do the same thing.”

“At the School of Fine Arts, he was really a troublemaker—but not in a bad way,” recalls Roden, laughing. “All you had to do was climb a drainage pipe and you’d be in some girl’s room. Matt used to do that all the time.” Roden was studying acting at New York University when he and Kimbrell began talking about forming a band. “People were starting their own bands in their own cities. So I called Matt and he said that he was having the same idea, so I moved back to Birmingham to start Jim Bob and the Leisure Suits with him.”

“He knew about jazz because of his upbringing, his dad taught him about all the jazz players,” says former Leisure Suits drummer Bondarenko, who filled in on drums in an assortment of later Kimbrell combos. “Every time we would go over to Matt’s house back in high school, we’d go downstairs into his dad’s workroom and there would be paintings everywhere that his dad was working on. And there’d be a keyboard there, and stacks and stacks of records and a record player, and that’s where we’d hang out.”




	A superb drummer, Matt Kimbrell was just as proficient at garnering laughs. (click for larger version)

Ho Ho Men drummer Ed Glaze recalls Kimbrell’s fearlessness as a performer. “He was incredibly funny and ferocious, absolutely fearless. He was a real force to be around,” says Glaze. “This was around ’94. Matt had a regular gig playing at a restaurant in Mountain Brook. It was a good little gig for him. One night he told me, ‘Nah, I’m not doing that place anymore. The other night there was this really drunk guy who kept yelling at me.’ At one point, this heckler yelled, ‘Hey man, why don’t you play some shit we know?” And Matt leaned into the microphone and replied, ‘Because you don’t know shit.’ He said the manager came up to him and said, ‘We need to talk.’ So Matt took a vacation from that restaurant gig. He’d always laugh at his own jokes, then suddenly quit laughing and have this deadpan look on his face. Between songs, besides just making up stuff in the songs, he was doing comedy routines. The later at night it got, the funnier he got.”

Glaze recalls when the Leisure Suits had a gig booked at St. Andrews Church on Southside. “Jim Bob and the Leisure Suits had suddenly broken up and Matt called to ask if me and Walter Kelly wanted to put a band together in two weeks to play that gig, because he didn’t want to lose that show. That’s how the Ho Ho Men started,” recalls Glaze. “We later started the Mambo Combo when Walter started going to law school. Matt eventually asked me if I wanted to be the drummer, but I don’t think Matt was really that satisfied with my drumming because he told me that I could only use two drums. He’d try to sell me on the idea of not using a full drum kit. He was like, ‘Yeah, man, basically this is like Moe Tucker’s setup for the Velvet Underground. This is like the pure soul of rock. (laughs) And you are the soul of rock, so two drums is all you need.’”

“We used to play benefits,” Glaze continues. “He needed to make a living playing music but he was real good about playing benefits even if we didn’t get paid.” One of those occasions was a benefit for Children’s Hospital. “Dr. Ig had this song called ‘Organ Donor.’

It was off-color and (vulgar). The local daily paper had a write-up of the benefit and wrote, ‘Perhaps the most appropriate song of the day was the Mambo Combo’s “Organ Donor.”‘ That song has lyrics about drinking double shots of Jack Daniels and whips and chains. And then it goes into the chorus: ‘I pulled an instant boner and became her organ donor.’”

Mambo Combo’s final show was in 2001. “We had this gig somewhere in Five Points South and it’s supposed to be a Mambo gig,” Glaze recalls. “Ig and I showed up, and the marquee out front and all the flyers on the windows announced that it would be the Matt Kimbrell Experience playing that night. We were like, ‘So, Matt what do you know about this?’ And Matt went, ‘Oh, yeah, about that. Well, man, I’m putting out my own CD of my own songs. And I thought maybe we’d pull in more people [if Matt's name was on the bill].’ There were maybe 10 people there. That was our last show.”

One of my favorite memories of Matt was in the early 1980s when we appeared together, unscheduled, on WBRC television’s Country Boy Eddy Show. We gathered at my house the night prior for an all-night rehearsal to learn “Route 66″ and the rockabilly classic “Brand New Cadillac.” Our rehearsal turned into a party, which we took to Red Mountain around 3:30 that morning, drinking and gazing out over the city while waiting for Country Boy Eddy to drive up, which he did at 4:45. When he arrived, he eyeballed us suspiciously as we approached him with our guitars. I asked Eddy if we could play on his show at 5 a.m. We were obviously intoxicated (Kimbrell quit drinking many years before he died), but Eddy smiled and said, “Sure you can. But you boys keep your language clean because I’ve got a family TV show.” We behaved, and rocked the Channel 6 studios.

Boutwell Studio co-owner and sound engineer Mark Harrelson recalls a jingle session Kimbrell worked on several weeks before his death, recording a new version of the original Jack’s Hamburgers jingle that his father wrote 40 years earlier. (Henry Kimbrell passed away some two decades ago.)

“What we got was an order for a long version of the jingle that they were going to use for some kind of corporate presentation,” Harrelson says. “All I had was a 12-second piece of audio . . the singing part (‘Jack’s Hamburgers for 15 cents are so good, good, good’) So Matt, Mark, and I got together and tried to figure out how to stretch the original out to three minutes. They put a bunch of solos in it. It was really fun. They laughed and talked about how they made fun of that jingle when it came out originally until one day their father finally said, ‘Y’all need to quit making fun of that jingle, because I wrote it.’ Matt just did what he always does, which is to come in and attack what was [originally] a tongue-in-cheek kind of thing. Matt was very serious about it, and was very good and played his ass off.”

Matt’s older brother Mark recalls the pair playing with their father as teens. “We were probably both in high school when we started playing with our Dad. We did lots of country club work,” he says. “Me and Matt also played together in bands well before Jim Bob and Ho Ho and all that. I think Dad was probably a bigger influence on me than Matt . . . Dad would encourage us, and say stuff like, ‘Love the songs but then do them your own way.’”

When asked if Matt could make their father laugh as easily as he could friends and strangers, Mark replies, “Yeah, he could. Matt had this innate ability to make people laugh, but it all came from Dad, though. Dad was the instigator and the originator of all things weird and funny with the Kimbrell boys, you know? He kind of gave us carte blanche to go ahead and be absurd.”




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Another Time, Another Place, Another Lost Act
The meaningful sound of Matt Kimbrell and Jim Bob and the Leisure Suits

It was a big deal when Jim Bob and the Leisure Suits made their live debut in Birmingham back in 1979—mainly because these locals were at least as talented as the major-label headliners for whom they opened. The Romantics had a power-pop hit with “What I Like about You,” and the band members of 3-D were former country-rockers from Long Island dressed in skinny ties. Both were sharp acts, but Jim Bob and the Leisure Suits offered a true punk vision that night at Brothers Music Hall.

Their five-song First Time EP came out in 1980. More spazzy than brash, the EP was a solid collection of songs that included two musical manifestos: “Basic Music” celebrated the band’s simple sound, and Matt Kimbrell’s “White Trash Rock” acknowledged their unlikely success.

In those early days, Kimbrell was the default frontman with his billing as Jim Bob. The other Leisure Suits—except drummer Leif Bondarenko—had similarly clever pseudonyms. The band dropped those, however, by the time their 1982 self-titled album was released. Kitsch was no longer commercial, and the band had matured beyond their name. Sadly, the ambitious album left them in that fatal gap between a New Wave band going glossy and a rock band trying to find a home for its quirkiness on college radio stations.

Kimbrell went on to front the Ho Ho Men, whom I first saw live in 1986. He was wearing safety goggles and lurching through a noise-rock rendition of an old Jim Bob tune called “Steamy Paradise.” This was another band with three ace songwriters but a lot less commercial ambition. They managed only to release some cassettes; plenty of great songs ended up lost.

Those include Kimbrell’s “This World Is Killing Me,” which was no joke—especially if you contrasted the onstage Matt of 11 p.m. with the dead-eyed Matt you’d find wandering town in a 4 a.m. stupor. But that was at the end of the 1980s. Kimbrell got his personal life together in the decades to follow. The Ho Ho Men evolved into Mambo Combo, who performed for another 10 years. By the end of the 1990s, Kimbrell was constantly in demand as a live drummer and considered one of Birmingham’s most versatile session musicians.

Kimbrell spent his final days playing to decent-sized crowds as a percussionist with Taylor Hicks. I saw Kimbrell a few years ago and mentioned an old song of his to him. He seemed touched that anyone would remember something from that long ago, which made me feel better about being nostalgic when I learned of his death. I decided to ceremoniously open an ancient, sealed copy of the Jim Bob and the Leisure Suits album. It was too warped to play. Matt would have given that a rimshot. & —J.R. Taylor

String Theory

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String Theory

Luthier Jason Taylor knows mandolins and guitars inside out.

By Ed Reynolds

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August 06, 2009
“I hate to throw wood away,” says Jason Taylor with a laugh, surrounded by numerous wood scraps and partially constructed guitars as he strums a mandolin in his instrument shop. Taylor recently opened Red Mountain Music in Forest Park, where he builds and repairs guitars and mandolins. He also offers guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, upright bass, and singing lessons (with a focus on harmony vocalizing techniques).As a luthier (a craftsman who makes or repairs stringed instruments), Taylor has a deep appreciation for different types of woods, and his enthusiasm for the aromas and textures of various woods is obvious. “Rosewood and mahogany, they both smell amazing. On some of my early mandolins, I experimented a lot with woods, but now I build them more to traditional guidelines because people want a certain thing. I’m no longer trying to change things radically in any way. Brazilian rosewood is the ultimate, but it’s endangered. When you touch it, it has a different vibe. It’s almost like hitting a piece of sheet metal; it’s got a ring to it.”




Luthier Jason Taylor will custom build guitars, mandolins, and other stringed instruments. (Photographs by Brian Francis.) (click for larger version)

Rosewood from India has replaced the Brazilian species as the coveted wood for expensive guitars, though Indian rosewood is not quite as visually dynamic. “There’s something slightly different about the colors that the Brazilian rosewood gets,” Taylor explains. “It can be orange, it can be black with reds and greens and purples; it can have all sorts of crazy colors to it. My favorite is the chocolate brown.”




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Taylor started playing guitar at age eight after learning the cello. He built his first instrument at age 16 while studying classical guitar at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. “I had wanted to build a guitar for a while and had a few tools,” he says. A family friend had a carpentry shop in his basement and taught him the process. Taylor eventually moved to North Carolina to study jazz but soon found himself smitten with the bluegrass sound so common to the area. Today, his tastes lean toward bluegrass and “old-time” music, especially traditional Irish melodies played on banjo and fiddle. Taylor currently performs with local bluegrass band Back Row Baptists.




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It takes Taylor about two weeks to build a mandolin, as opposed to five or six days to assemble an acoustic guitar. He charges around $3,500 for a mandolin, and $2,500 to $3,000 for a guitar. “It takes a lot of patience to make a mandolin; it’s a lot of work,” Taylor says. In comparison, retail stores sell guitars that range in price from cheap $100 models all the way to Martin brand guitars, which can go for more than $5,000. “By having a guitar custom made, the buyer is more involved in the creative process. You get to know the person that’s making it for you, develop a personal relationship,” he explains.

“You can choose your woods, the inlay, the style of guitar you want.”




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The most difficult step is the finishing, or varnishing, process. Bubbles can form if the shellac is not applied properly, which then involves further sanding and polishing of the instrument. Taylor says the varnish will affect an instrument’s tone, though how hard a player plucks the strings must be factored in, as well. “Whatever you put on the wood, it’s going to stop some of the vibration,” he explains. “If it vibrates a whole, whole bunch, you want a thicker finish [varnish], maybe, to lessen the vibration. But then it goes back to the player. Maybe that player doesn’t play as hard as some other guy, so maybe he needs more resonance, you know? That’s very dicey territory, especially when you talk about trying to change the little 1% details on a guitar.”

The most expensive instrument he’s worked with is a “mandocello” that is currently on display at Maralyn Wilson Gallery. (A mandocello is played like a mandolin, but the body is larger. The neck is identical to that of a standard guitar, making the pitch lower than that of a mandolin, with the eight strings tuned as a cello.) The SOS Children’s Villages, the world’s largest orphan charity, has agreed to purchase the instrument to add to their list of items available in their catalog used at silent auctions held around the country.

“When all is said and done, I’ll get over $10,000 for that instrument,” Taylor says. “It was all hand carved.”

Taylor does not put any brand on the instruments he builds. “I haven’t started using labels. Every one of them is one of a kind,” he explains. “Each will have a slightly different mother of pearl inlay pattern (on the headstock, where the tuning pegs are), and I’ll give the instrument a number . . . I hope to have 700 or so instruments made before I die, which is a whole bunch for one person to build. Maybe 400 is a better number.” &

Red Mountain Music is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 825 39th Street South, behind Zoe’s in Forest Park. For more information, call 907-5166 or visit www.redmtnmusic.com.

Luthier Jason Taylor knows mandolins and guitars inside out.

By Ed Reynolds

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August 06, 2009“I hate to throw wood away,” says Jason Taylor with a laugh, surrounded by numerous wood scraps and partially constructed guitars as he strums a mandolin in his instrument shop. Taylor recently opened Red Mountain Music in Forest Park, where he builds and repairs guitars and mandolins. He also offers guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, upright bass, and singing lessons (with a focus on harmony vocalizing techniques).As a luthier (a craftsman who makes or repairs stringed instruments), Taylor has a deep appreciation for different types of woods, and his enthusiasm for the aromas and textures of various woods is obvious. “Rosewood and mahogany, they both smell amazing. On some of my early mandolins, I experimented a lot with woods, but now I build them more to traditional guidelines because people want a certain thing. I’m no longer trying to change things radically in any way. Brazilian rosewood is the ultimate, but it’s endangered. When you touch it, it has a different vibe. It’s almost like hitting a piece of sheet metal; it’s got a ring to it.”




Luthier Jason Taylor will custom build guitars, mandolins, and other stringed instruments. (Photographs by Brian Francis.) (click for larger version)




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“You can choose your woods, the inlay, the style of guitar you want.”




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“When all is said and done, I’ll get over $10,000 for that instrument,” Taylor says. “It was all hand carved.”

Red Mountain Music is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 825 39th Street South, behind Zoe’s in Forest Park. For more information, call 907-5166 or visit www.redmtnmusic.com.

Thinking Ahead

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Thinking Ahead

The genius of Leonardo da Vinci springs to life at the McWane Science Center.

By Ed Reynolds

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February 19, 2009

Currently on exhibit at the McWane Science Center is a collection of functional, full-scale machines born from the imagination of Italian Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci. Titled Machines in Motion, the display includes 40 inventions built to detailed specifications from the drawings and notes that filled da Vinci’s 600-year-old manuscripts (the Codices). Patrons are likely to be astonished at the ingenuity and creativity of the 15th-century inventor, painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer who is best remembered for his paintings the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.

The exhibit is arranged into five sections. The first is “mechanisms,” which includes devices that showcase the basic operational principles of machines in the exhibit, specifically the transfer of motion to make seemingly impossible tasks appear effortless. The other categories represent the four elements found in nature: earth, water, fire, and air.

All machines in the exhibit are from a museum in Florence, Italy, dedicated to da Vinci’s complex inventions. The machinery is composed primarily of lime, fir, beech, and European oak woods (even the ball bearings and gearwheels are wooden) that have been processed to be as resilient as iron. The detailed craftmanship alone makes the exhibit worthwhile.




Ornithopter with Semi-Fixed Wing (Glider). Da Vinci’s ornithopter anticipated today’s hang gliders—except that here the pilot not only hangs in the middle, balancing the glider, he adjusts the angle of the outer portions of the wings through a system of ropes and pulleys. (click for larger version)

The basic mechanisms section of the exhibit is the most challenging to grasp. Familiarity with lantern pinions, rack-and-pinion devices, worm screws, and other mechanical gadgets is helpful, yet any observer will recognize a chain-drive transmission, car-lifting jack, and rope-and-pulley systems. The machines found in the categories represented by the four elements are more easily understood. The earth section includes da Vinci’s printing press design; an olive oil press; a revolving crane; an early odometer; an intricate machine for lifting large objects such as pillars; and da Vinci’s notion of a 15th-century automated robot in knight’s armor.

An ancient hydraulic saw is brought to life through the force of water onto a paddlewheel. Among the most ingenious devices is one of da Vinci’s simplest inventions—a hygrometer. The apparatus operates much like a set of scales. A chunk of wax is placed on one of two balanced trays and strands of cotton fill the other. Wax will not absorb water. However, as cotton takes on water from the atmosphere, it begins to outweigh the wax, forcing the scales into imbalance. A horizontal calibrated scale carved into the piece of wood joining the two balanced trays indicates the degree of humidity.

Da Vinci’s early parachute design resembles a pyramid, with cloth stretched across wooden beams from which a human is suspended while theoretically floating to the ground. His flying machines include a crude wooden version of a helicopter that is operated by the pilot’s arms, legs, and head. Da Vinci’s early designs for gliders are on display as well.

The weapons designed by da Vinci include an “armored” car whose odd shell is wooden, not metallic. The tank’s movement across terrain is powered by eight soldiers operating four large wheels that extend beneath the vehicle. A main turret with holes in its exterior allows a passenger to spot enemy troops; cannons protruding from the tank’s perimeter may be fired in the direction commanded. Another weapon displayed is da Vinci’s machine gun, which is a wheeled cart with 11 metal gun barrels fanning out like the prongs of a rake, designed to wipe out a larger swath of the enemy.

Unlike many McWane exhibits, Machines in Motion will probably be of greater interest to adults than children. Da Vinci never constructed any of his inventions, leaving the task to later generations. Most of the machines displayed are interactive and operational. The exhibit brings da Vinci’s sketches and words into the three-dimensional, functioning world, leaving viewers with a new appreciation for the world’s original renaissance man.

Leonardo da Vinci: Machines in Motion will be exhibited at the McWane Science Center through April 26. For additional information, call 714-8300 or visit www.mcwane.org.

The Last of the Hardest Working Men in Showbiz

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The Last of the Hardest Working Men in Showbiz

Local musician Rick Carter continues to plug away, doing what he loves best.

By Ed Reynolds




Carter and the late Gatemouth Brown in recent years, hanging out at Gatemouth’s Slidell, Louisiana, BBQ joint during a Rollin’ in the Hay gig. (click for larger version)

August 20, 2009

Birmingham guitarist Rick Carter is one weary fellow. He’s performing solo on a Sunday afternoon at a Five Points South bistro where the patrons are more interested in conversation and eating lunch than listening to some fellow strum a guitar and sing. “And I thought I was an artist,” Carter says with a touch of cynicism as he extends a hand after finishing his set. He is worked every joint imaginable in 40 years of playing music, so he simply rolls with the punches. Though evening audiences ripe on alcohol are no doubt preferable, Carter remains the consummate professional in the face of mid-afternoon apathy, even if he does keep an eye on the clock in anticipation of quitting time.

It’s no wonder he’s tired. A few hours earlier, Carter finished a set in Auburn at 4 a.m. with his popular bluegrass trio Rollin’ in the Hay, returning to Birmingham around 7 a.m. By noon he was setting up gear for the Sunday afternoon job. “I’m gonna go home and take a nap,” he sighed after finishing his set, desperate for some much-needed sleep before his rockabilly-swing band Frankie Velvet and the Mighty Veltones take the stage six hours later at Metro Bistro for their weekly Sunday night gig.

“I started playing music in 1966,” he says on a recent afternoon at his Shelby County home, where an American flag is proudly displayed in the front yard throughout the year. “The first money I ever made as a musician was in 1967, when I was 14. I was playing with my band the Invaders in a teen club at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina.” Carter’s father was a career Air Force officer. (The Hawkins B. Carter American Legion Post 235 in Fultondale is named in his honor.) The family moved to the Philippines in 1968, where Carter formed a band called The Great Wind Controversy.

I walked into my little dressing room and there stands Bob Dylan. He says, “Hey Rick, that’s pretty crafty using that Band song to finish the set.”

“We chose that name because it sounded psychedelic,” he says, laughing. “We played Steppenwolf, did a lot of soul stuff like ‘The Letter,’ ‘Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay.’ I played a Farfisa organ and we all wore matching clothes. In the Philippines, you got your clothes made because you didn’t really have access to new clothes unless you ordered out of the Sears, Roebuck catalog, and whatever you ordered took six months to arrive. So it was easier just to get a Sears catalog and tell a tailor, ‘I want that shirt or those pants,’ and the tailor would custom make you a shirt for a dollar.”

The band became fairly popular. “We got to be pretty big on all the military bases in the Philippines and we went on the Filipino TV equivalent of ‘American Bandstand.’ We were the only American band that had ever been on that show. We had to take my family’s maid with us ’cause we didn’t have a work permit to allow us to be paid by Filipinos. So they had to pay the maid and she gave the money to us.”




Rick Carter chats with a few Telluride fans at the Wooden Nickel in the late ’70s. The bar later became The Nick. (click for larger version)

By 1970, Carter was living in Selma, Alabama, where his father was stationed at Craig Air Force Base. There he started the band Truffle and added Allman Brothers songs to the set. “We played all that dual guitar stuff,” he says. “I learned every Dickey Betts lick. In Selma, there was the Ramshack where they had high school dances. But at Craig Air Force Base, you had a teen club, an officer’s club, an NCO club—all those private parties. So there really was a nice little thriving music scene in Selma.” (A rival band with whom Truffle competed for jobs was The Born Losers, which boasted future HealthSouth founder and convicted felon Richard Scrushy as a member.)

“In 1975, I got the dream job of a lifetime—playing the Ramada Inn in Selma in the house band, six nights a week with Larry Hall and The Summer Breeze,” Carter says. “We had to wear powder blue leisure suits and got to live at the Ramada Inn, and each band member had his own room. I got paid $145 a week. We walked down the hall to work. All the food was free because the restaurant was right there. I don’t think we even drank much back then, maybe beer. But we never had to pay for that. We played that gig from June ’75 till March of ’76 before it dried up, which was a heartbreaker. I knew I had to do something, so I moved to Birmingham.”

The High Life
In Birmingham, Carter landed a job selling ice cream from a popsicle truck. He started Telluride in 1977, and the band soon established a following at the Wooden Nickel, now known as The Nick. “By that summer, Telluride was doing so well that I quit my day job and started playing music full time, which I’ve done for 32 years now.” For a bar band, Telluride traveled with an impressive amount of equipment. “We were the only [bar] band that had an 18-wheeler. We wanted to have the biggest show we could,” Carter explains. “We wanted to have the biggest light system, the biggest P.A. system. People thought, ‘Man, they must be the best band around. Have you seen the size of their truck?’ We had a four-man crew that loaded and unloaded the thing. It was a full-blown production. In the ’80s, it was the show, baby! The more lights you had, the better you sounded to audiences. That wasn’t necessarily the way it should be, but that’s the way it was.”

In his home recording studio, a couple of red Miller Beer guitars are mounted on the wall like museum pieces. “When Telluride was sponsored by Miller in ’85 and ’86, you had to have all the Miller signage up [in each venue]. All the beers on the stage had to have the labels pointed out toward the audience,” Carter remembers. “We had to play the Miller guitar and the Miller bass on at least one song a night. So, we’d do ‘Bad to the Bone’ and we’d play the slide guitar parts with Miller beer bottles. It was actually very advantageous to us. We sent [Miller] our calendar, and by the time we got to the gig, they already had us set up for radio interviews, record store appearances, backstage meet-and-greets, all that kind of stuff. They would fly us up to Milwaukee and do symposiums and teach us how to do interviews and all the basic things you need to know about media etiquette or how to say the right thing and how not to sound stupid, basically. And they’d give us a nice, big check.”

“We were the only bar band that had an 18-wheeler. People thought, ‘Man, they must be the best band around. Have you seen the size of their truck?’”

Telluride was playing at Louie Louie’s in Five Points South in 1985 when a familiar-looking piano player walked into the bar. “Nicky Hopkins [former pianist for the Rolling Stones, among other bands] was in town on a promotional tour for a book called Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard,” Carter recalls. (Hopkins had played on a soundtrack album of the same name that Scientology founder Hubbard had produced to promote the novel. The book was later made into a movie starring John Travolta.) Hopkins asked to sit in with the band. After the set, he invited Telluride to play with him at a record convention in the Cayman Islands. Essentially, Telluride would be working for the Church of Scientology. Carter was skeptical that the trip would ever materialize. “Hopkins took all my contact info, and about a week later my mother called me and goes, ‘There’s a package here for you from FedEx,’ and I said, ‘Well, open it up.’ She does and it’s 12 tickets to the Cayman Islands. So I called our booking agent and told him to cancel all our shows because we’re going to the Cayman Islands. Oh, he was all in an uproar, saying, ‘You can’t do that, you can’t cancel Louie Louie’s or whatever it was.”

“The Cayman Island trip was awesome. But we didn’t know too much about the Church of Scientology at the time,” Telluride co-founder and guitarist Moose Harrell recalls in an interview from his Nashville home. “I feel like Telluride really set a standard for the way to be successful in that era, even if we didn’t hit mainstream success,” Harrell says. “We were a good, living example of what hard work and dedication can do for you. A lot of it came from Rick, he has an exceptional amount of drive. He’s always been a real professional. A lot of the stuff that Telluride did, and the way we did it, carry over into my life today, too. But we had more fun than anybody has a right to in 37 lifetimes.”

In 1994, Carter formed Rollin’ in the Hay. “Moose had quit Telluride, so we had replaced him with Barry Waldrep, who was really a bluegrass player,” Carter says. “He and I would sit around in hotel rooms and play bluegrass. So I thought if we could add a bass player, we could go out and pick up some extra money. We hit some kind of strange, odd niche, because within two or three years, that thing got huge. It just swallowed Telluride. We were doing Monday, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. And then we were getting offers for Fridays and Saturdays, and were making three times what Telluride was making per night. It was time to get off the road with Telluride. Rollin’ in the Hay was right before O Brother, Where Art Thou? and all that kind of stuff.”

Rollin’ in the Hay scored a contract with CMH Records to record for the label’s “Pickin’ On” series, which featured bluegrass instrumental versions of songs from popular bands played by studio musicians and bands like Rollin’ in the Hay. “We did right around 20 of those Pickin’




Fourteen-year-old Carter, at far right, and his band the Invaders playing the opening of a TV and radio shop in Sumter, South Carolina, in 1967. (click for larger version)

On CDs,” Carter says. “Pickin’ On the Allman Brothers, Dolly Parton, Neil Diamond, Tim McGraw, R.E.M., Travis Tritt, all kinds of things like that. But the biggest one that we did was Pickin’ On Widespread Panic. When Telluride used to play Athens, Georgia, every time we’d go into the frats, there was always these three guys that didn’t look like frat boys hanging around. And we used to do the best Allman Brothers. That was my inspiration. So, one night I finally asked these three guys, ‘Who are you guys? You’re obviously not in a fraternity.’ And they said, ‘Oh, we got this little acoustic thing going called Widespread Panic.’ And I was like, ‘Well, good luck to you.’ And then years later, I’m doing a Pickin’ On Widespread Panic CD. That one busted us loose with that jam band genre. So now, Rollin’

in the Hay is the breadwinner. We get airplay in the British West Indies, Japan, The Netherlands, Germany.”

Business, as Usual
“I got a check one time for foreign royalties for my song ‘Sail Away’ that I wrote in Selma,” Carter recalls with a grin. “Telluride recorded it. The check was for a bunch of money, so I called BMI and said, ‘Are you sure this is for me?’ It was for foreign royalties, which can come in two or three years later than the actual play period,” he explains. “We had a hit with that song in Europe and never knew it until after the fact, because if we had known that, we’d have gone over there. I bought a National steel guitar with that check, so I can always say I bought that guitar with a song. The license plate on my Corvette says ‘SONGS.’ That’s what bought it, songs and royalty checks. I wrote a song called ‘Redneck Girl’ and my wife at the time said, ‘Don’t ever play that song for anybody. That’s the stupidest song I’ve ever heard.’ So I gave it to J. Hawkins at the Florabama [Lounge]. He always played those kind of nasty songs, silly songs. He was playing at the Florabama one time and Jeff Foxworthy came in. Foxworthy has a record label called Laughing Hyena. They do all those CDs you see at truckstops and convenience stores that say ‘Truckers’ Favorites.’ Well, ‘Redneck Girl’ ended up on one of those. Turns out I get this big giant royalty check for that song, and I showed it to my wife and she goes, ‘You are kidding me! Somebody bought that?’ And I told her, ‘More than one person bought it, baby.’

“To say that I’m addicted to work would be an understatement. I love to play music but I also have always understood the business aspect of it,” Carter admits. “But you do have to ultimately have the songs. If you don’t have the songs, you’re just another band. If you want to eat, it just depends on how good you want to eat. And I always wanted to eat steak. But ultimately I always wanted to just play music. And the more I played music, the happier I was. That’s why if you play with me, you’re gonna work. Rollin’ in the Hay just did seven shows in seven days in seven cities, and I’m 55. So I haven’t slowed down in that department.”

Bob Dylan, Bo Diddley, and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown
Rick Carter’s first solo record was Loveland. He assembled a large entourage of local musicians and singers he dubbed the Loveland Orchestra that opened for Bob Dylan. “We did four shows opening for Dylan in ’93 and ’94. For the show in Huntsville, I told the band, ‘Let’s close with “The Weight.” We’ve got all these voices and everybody can sing really well, and by then everybody’s ready for Bob, so that’ll kind of secure our success as the opening act if we play that song and do it well.’ I walked into my little dressing room after we came off stage and there stands Bob Dylan. He walks up to me and says [nasal voice], ‘Hey Rick, that’s pretty crafty using that Band song to finish the set.’”

Carter developed a friendship with late jazz and blues guitar legend Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown. “We were playing in Slidell, Louisiana, at a barbecue joint, and Gatemouth had a little piece of the place [as part-owner]. Rollin’ in the Hay used to play there and Gatemouth lived nearby and used to come hear us and sometimes sit in on fiddle,” Carter says. “He used to tell me that his favorite food was grape jelly. One day he called me when he was in Birmingham playing a blues festival downtown, and told me to come eat dinner with him. So I went backstage and they were bringing the catered food in. Sure enough, they bring in a big jar of Welch’s grape jelly. We’re having catfish, green beans, and baked potatoes, and Gatemouth takes about a quarter of that jar of jelly and drops it right in the middle of that catfish. I said, ‘Damn, grape jelly on catfish?’ And he said, ‘Didn’t I tell you I love grape jelly? Grape jelly is on top of everything I eat!’”

Carter once booked bands for the Star Dome when it was a music venue (before becoming the Comedy Club). His chores included an afternoon spent babysitting Bo Diddley. “Bo Diddley and I went into Mike’s Pawn Shop at Christmas time, and there was this guy buying his son a guitar and amp. And the guy goes, ‘Damn, Bo Diddley!’ And Bo said, ‘That’s right.’ And the guy said, ‘I’m buying my son a guitar, which one should I get?’ And Bo said, ‘Well, don’t buy that red one! Get that black one, don’t buy no red guitar.’ And I’ll be damned, because I’ve seen pictures of him for years where he played that red Bo Diddley guitar. Guess he didn’t want anybody else to have a red guitar. Then Bo said, ‘Watch this. I guarantee you he’s gonna ask me to sign it.’ So the guy asked him to sign it and Bo turned to me and goes, ‘I told you.’

“Back at the hotel, he wanted some barbecue, so I went to Golden Rule. And this is a sight I’ll never forget. I knocked on the door with his barbecue, and Bo opened the door and he was in a pair of boxer shorts and cowboy boots, no shirt, and he’s go that damn cowboy hat with ‘Bo’ on it. I gave him the barbecue and he said ‘Thanks,’ and slammed the door, didn’t even ask me in.”

His career in music has afforded Carter a comfortable lifestyle. While walking through his bedroom to look at some photos in his office, I did a double take at what I thought was a casket. It turned out to be a tanning bed. “I’m the weirdest guy in the world,” he laughs. “I have a refrigerator in my bathroom upstairs, I have a tanning bed in my bedroom, and a washer and dryer in the closet in my bedroom. At my age, I don’t want to have to walk downstairs to get a Coke, and I don’t want to have to drive to the tanning bed place, and I don’t want to have to walk downstairs to get my damn clothes. They’re all right here. I’ve got my rock ‘n’ roll crib.” &