Early fests were strictly Flora-Bama affairs

Early fests were strictly Flora-Bama affairs
Robert Sutton/Bill Wilson gave fest a western outpost at Barefoot

By Fran Thompson
The first mention of the Frank Brown Songwriters Festival from newspapers in my archives was a story filed by Bob Hyer from November of 1989.
That same issue had what might still be a timely story from the late great Birney Jarvis about relations being contentious between Pleasure Island’s two cities. Orange Beach had incorporated five years earlier, the same year that Flora-Bama owner Joe Gilchrist started his songwriter’s fest with a sparsely attended and bank account draining first and last show at the Saenger in downtown Pensacola.
Birney wrote that Orange Beach Mayor Ronnie Callaway spoke to the Gulf Shores Rotary and announced that the city had $500K in the bank drawing interest and revenues of about $2 million, with $250K of that collected in taxes from the Perdido Beach Hilton (Resort), plenty enough to pay the city’s 38 employees.
A charter member of the Hell’s Angels, a Golden Gloves boxer and martial arts instructor who stopped counting his bar fights at 200, Birney drank only Busch beer before 5 p.m. and vodka after that. And he was the guy showing me the ropes around here. Just his sailing exploits and career with 14 newspapers were worthy of the autobiography Birney would eventually write.
That issue also included a story about Andy Andrews, the Country Comedian, written by Jennifer Brust and a story about Point Rest. owner David Lively raising funds so Chief Del Levis could buy a defibrillator for the Innerarity Pt. Fire Dept.
I have not spoken to Bob Hyer in years, but I know he’s around, as I still see him running with pace across the Perdido Pass Bridge, just as he used to do then.
Bob worked at the ‘Bama and was writing a book about the famed Lounge-on-the-Line. I don’t believe that book was ever published. But I would love to see Bob’s notes and combine them with my own research and memories and transcriptions from the hours of interviews that Spencer Adams and Trevor Towle conducted to produce easily the best documentary yet about everybody’s favorite bar. “
The Last American Roadhouse the Documentary of the FloraBama’’ was the title and the boys, serious filmmakers both, were in the middle of their mostly musician interviews when Ivan hit in Sept. of 2004. Amazingly, the committee was able to scrap together a semblance of a FBISF just two months later.
Bob’’s story was about Red Lane, who helped headline the first fest and was an FBISF mainstay until he passed back in 2015. It also included a few paragraphs about Randy Branch, who I befriended when I became involved with the Lower Alabama Songwriters Fest in Fairhope many years later. Randy was co-founder of that fest. He is still plugging away on the Eastern Shore selling real estate and playing gigs when the mood strikes him.
“If indeed I had one place to play as a solo artist, it would be the Flora-Bama,’’ Randy said in Bob’s story. Raise a hand if you’ve heard a musician say that before.
Bob also interviewed Hutson Brook and Kent Cuchaine and mentioned that the great blues historian/guitarist Spencer Bohren was coming over from NOLA to play.
In 1990, I misspelled songwriter/musician/nurse Darrell Roberts’ name in the story he penned about the fest. My misspelling of names would become a theme over my next 32 years of covering the fest.
The fest, after the financial debacle downtown, had moved to where it belonged – the ‘Bama main room. Darrell reported that the entire fest would be recorded and made available on cassette tapes. He mentioned Hank Cochran, Bertie Higgins, Lane, Larry Jon Wilson and Richard Gilewitz among the visiting writers.
As I remember it, Gilewitz played a 12 string and he was paid to support a certain company’s guitar strings while he traveled from gig to gig. He was the first person I heard refer to the Flora-Bama as “the kind of place where you wipe your feet on the way out.’’
I’m sure Alan Rhody also played that 1990 fest. He, like Gilewitz, was a traveling troubadour. We all looked forward to when they would come hang and play at the Flora-Bama for a few days.
Rhody’s first big hit was also the Oak Ridge Boys’ first no. 1 song. “I’ll Be True to You” spent a total of eleven weeks on the country chart and helped that Atmore based family band make the transition from gospel band to country legends.
The Oak Ridge Boys would also play a role in the FBISF’s expansion outside of the Flora-Bama to the late great Barefoot Bar (located between The Spot and Adolph’s) on Gulf Shores Public Beach in 1992.
Robert Sutton, who co-owned the Barefoot with Bill Wilson, was from Atmore and a lifelong friend of the Oak Ridge’s William Lee Golden and his son Rusty.
Robert had previously ran interference for an Oak Ridge Boys beach concert near the Gulf State Park Pier.
With Rusty booking the talent, the Barefoot started putting on shows for nine of what was then an 11 day FBISF run. There was no shush patrol and no cover at the Barefoot. Billy Dean, T Graham Brown and Jimbeau Henson were among the long list of writers who played for the price of a hotel billet and some meals.
“I give all the credit to Joe Gilchrist for turning this loose to other venues,’’ Sutton said later in the Mullet Wrapper. “It just keeps growing every year. So, we must be doing something right. The writers keep coming back. That’s how you know you are creating the right atmosphere.
“These guys are what I consider America’s poets,’’ he added. “They write about our loves, passions, wars. They chronicle everything we do. That’s what I enjoy most about sitting here and listening. It’s not the music I hear, it’s the poetry.’’
Years later, I happened to be coming into the Flora-Bama behind Jeffrey Steele, who was on a roll at the time. I wouldn’t have known all that, if I had not just heard him play about six number one hits at a packed out Barefoot. He didn’t have his wallet, and the door attendant was under strict instructions from Joe. I am proud to say I was able to fish out a fiver and send Jeffrey into the main room to meet his pals.
Other tidbits from the early FBISF days.
• Eric McDonald’s 1997 poster was a painting. Eric had already made his bones doing celebrity portraits and had a hand in portraits that hung in the White House.
• Ricky Whitley, Donna Slater, Cathy Pace and Capt. Eddie were listed among the must-see shows in 1995. The first three will be playing this year. I have seen a pic of Ricky playing guitar next to John Prine at the Flora-Bama on his facebook page. I believe Ricky has also written a ‘Bamacentric autobiography.
• In 1997, Guy Clark headlined an FBISF show at the Erie Meyer Civic Center. The table setters were not to shabby either: Sonny Throckmorton, Bruce Channel, Rock Killough and Craig Dilligham.
• Brent Burns, the official songwriter for our Visitor’s Bureau, was the MC for that show. A multiple Trop Rocker of the Year award winner, Brent tells stories before every song and he plays only songs he wrote. And he’s been doing that on this island a couple times a week since the 1970’s. How cool is that?
• Larry Butler, the first Nashcat to win a producer Grammy and the only person to win Grammy’s for producer (Kenny Rodgers’ The Gambler) and writer (Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song) added his star power to the fest when he returned to his Pensacola hometown to open LB’s Country Cafe on the grounds of Perdido Bay Country Club. The bistro’s walls were lined with memorabilia from Butler’s Nashville years.
• In 1992, ASCAP introduced a songwriter seminar and Jim Beam kicked in a $1,000 grant for the writer of a song played at the fest that best “surrounds” the Jim Beam name.
• He had played at the Flora-Bama once before. But Mickey Newbury’s FBISF debut was among the best of many great moments for the fest founder. Joe Gilchrist loved Mickey. So did Pat Richardson, who somehow tracked down the show and the fest from Richmond. “His is feeling music. He sings about things you can sink your teeth into. That have meaning. He doesn’t just sing a song. He paints it,’’ Pat said. “I told him ‘when I go to heaven, I hope the Angels sing like you.’’’
• I am not sure if it has been tweaked since then, but the mission statement for the FBISF back in 1990: “To increase recognition of songwriters and their artistic talent, to provide songwriters an opportunity to interact with their peers in an idyllic setting and to provide professional growth to aspiring songwriters.’’
• The Mobile Songwriters Assn. sponsored a writers’ night at the Seaspray Lounge at the old Gulf State Park Resort. George Rohm and Tammy Vice of the Port City Writers organized the show. Johnny Barbato (profiled on the previous two pages) was one of the featured writers in 1998. “It’s humbling that the Songwriters Fest has welcomed us aboard with them,’’ Rohm said.
• The Baldwin Museum of Art in Foley featured the Images of Musicians Art Exhibit featuring functional instrument art lamps from Nick Branch and paintings from Rhody, who designed several fest posters. Both will play the fest this year.
• Although he had played the ‘Bama before, Bill Jo Shaver and his son Eddie made their FBISF debut in 1998, and, as always with those two, it resulted in that musical magic that fest regulars live for.
• In 1998, we profiled a then 19 year old Guthrie Trapp, who would soon be slinging his guitar in Nashville. Guthrie was raised in Lillian by a music loving family and surely was playing at the fest before he was a teen. “I would still like to learn how to sing,’’ he told our Michelle McCambridge. “I’m more willing to try weird stuff and experiment with the mandolin than my voice.’’ I love what the late Larry T. Wilson, a terrific songwriter and Baldwin County High School grad, said in that story: “When you listen to his guitar playing, you don’t realize that he ain’t but 19. What’s he going to be like when he’s 30? I can tell you. He’s going to be a certified monster.” McCambridge noted that Guthrie, who now has students all over the world, was sharing guitar licks and talking music at school assemblies even then.