Nat King Cole & W.C. Handy

These two musical giants from Alabama are linked by the 1958 film St. Louis Blues. Cole played Handy in the film named after one of his best known songs and loosely based on his life. Actress Ruby Dee and several other jazz greats such as Pearl Bailey, Cab Calloway and Ella Fitzgerald also appear. Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson is in the movie, which features more than ten of Handy's songs. Cole released an album of Handy compositions to accompany the film. 

William Christopher Handy was  born in Florence on November 16, 1873. He was the son and grandson of ministers, and the family saw that he received a good education. His father Charles discouraged an interest in secular music, but Handy was able to gain local exposure to it anyway in the form of folk and popular music from a fiddler, "Uncle Whit" Walker and the marches and cakewalks of minstrel shows passing through his home town. 

Handy earned a teaching certificate, but soon was making more money at the Bessemer Iron Works near Birmingham. He joined a vocal quartet that toured as far as St. Louis, where they were stranded, and he heard some of the folk materials that would become his most famous composition. He then joined a minstrel show as the cornet player in their marching band and toured to Canada, Cuba, and many others places. After a time back in Alabama and in Mississippi, he settled in Memphis where his blues song writing and publishing flourished. By the time of his death on March 28, 1958, Handy was known around the world for his musical contributions. A U.S. postage stamp was issued in his honor in 1969. 

Handy felt the film would be "the crowning glory" of his career, as noted by David Robertson in his 2009 biography, W.C. Handy: The Life and Times of the Man Who Made the Blues [p.228]. The "biopic" was hardly accurate, but as Robertson observes, Cole looked good in the role of Handy.

Nathaniel Adams Coles was born in Montgomery on March 17, 1919. In 1923 Coles' Baptist minister father moved the family to Chicago along with so many other blacks moving north in the Great Migration. As he grew older the young Nat heard jazz legends such as pianists Earl Hinds, Art Tatum and Teddy Wilson in nearby clubs. His mother taught him piano, and he dropped out of high school at 17 and joined his older brother Eddie's jazz groups, Within a few years he had married, moved to Los Angeles, dropped the "s" from his last name and formed the Nat King Cole Trio with a guitarist and bass player. The group's lack of a drummer was unusual at the time. 

By the age of 25 Cole picked up the nickname "King" & the King Cole Trio had increasing popularity in both west and east coast venues. Their 1943 recording "Straighten Up and Fly Right" had such success the group crossed over to the pop charts. Capitol Records began marketing Cole's velvet voice with love ballads, and in 1955 the Trio disbanded. Cole's popularity continued until his death on February 15, 1965, and his recordings of "Unforgettable", "Ramblin' Rose" and others have remained popular. His 1960 release The Magic of Christmas was the biggest selling such holiday album of the 1960's. 

Cole's achievements include a short-lived variety program on the NBC television network. Due to a lack of sponsorship the show only ran for 30 episodes in 1956 and 1957. Yet the program broke new ground; never before had a black had such a prominent role on American television.

St. Louis Blues was not Cole's only film appearance. He is the uncredited piano player in the El Rancho nightclub sequence of the 1941 Orson Welles classic Citizen Kane and played the Sunrise Kid in Cat Ballou, released the year he died. In between he appeared as himself, as a singer or piano player in a variety of movies and television episodes. He had a major dramatic role alongside Gene Berry and Angie Dickinson in Samuel Fuller's 1957 war movie, China Gate. Other such roles includes Night of the Quarter Moon [1959] and Istanbul [1957].

If Cole had not died so young, perhaps he would have expanded his work in films and television. 

Nat King Cole and W.C. Handy in 1958

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama

Alabama on the Rolling Stone "500 Greatest Songs" List

Rolling Stone magazine recently released a list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time": "For the first time in 17 years, we’ve completely remade our list of the best songs ever. More than 250 artists, writers, and industry figures helped us choose a brand-new list full of historic favorites, world-changing anthems, and new classics." Let's see how Alabama artists and other state connections fared on this list. 

At number 350 is John Prine's "Angel from Montgomery". The song describes a woman in that city who is very unhappy with her life. Prine has said he probably used Montgomery because of its ties to Hank Williams. You can read the lyrics here. The song has been recorded by numerous artists including John Denver, Bonnie Raitt, Tonya Tucker and the Dave Matthews Band. 

Raitt and Prine sing the tune in 2019

Source: Rolling Stone

Number 318 is "Hound Dog" as recorded by Big Mama Thornton in Los Angeles on 
August 13, 1952. Released in February 1953, her version sold over 500,000 copies. Of
course, Elvis recorded the song in July 1956 and that version sold over 10 million copies 
worldwide and was his best-selling single. More than 250 other artists have also recorded the
tune over the years. Thornton did not write "Hound Dog", but she did write another
classic, "Ball and Chain". Thornton was born in Ariton, Alabama, on December 11, 1926
and died July 25, 1984.

Numbers 130 "Dancing in the Streets" and 257 "Heatwave" were both recorded by
Martha and the Vandellas, one of the signature Motown girl groups in the 1960's. Lead 
singer Martha Reeves was born in Eufaula, Alabama, on July 18, 1941. 

Rosaland Ashford, Martha Reeves, and Betty Kelley in 1965 

          Source: Wikipedia

Of course, Hank Williams has a couple of songs on the list, number 165 "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and number 237, "You're Cheatin' Heart". Despite his brief life, Williams wrote and recorded numerous songs and has had a tremendous influence on both modern country music and popular music more broadly as well. 
He's credited with helping to transform "hillbilly" music into country music and along with Woodie Guthrie was an early prototype of the singer-songwriter so prevalent from the 1960's until today. 

Hank Williams and his guitar on a Montgomery street in 1938

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives and History

Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" is number 218 on the list. The song was recorded at Stax Studios in Memphis on May 12, 1965. He and Steve Cropper--guitarist for Booker T and the MGs and numerous others--wrote the song at the Lorraine Hotel, where Martin Luther King would later be assassinated. Pickett was born March 18, 1941, in Prattville on the farm of his sharecropper parents; he had ten siblings. He died January 19, 2006; Little Richard delivered the eulogy. 

Steely Dan's "Deacon Blues" appeared on the group's 1977 album Aja and is number 217 on the Rolling Stone list. You can read the lyrics here. The chorus goes

I'll learn to work the saxophone
I'll play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whisky all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me Deacon Blues

The sentence "They call Alabama the Crimson Tide" has been explained by Donald Fagen, who along with Walter Becker made up Steely Dan. “If a college football team like the University of Alabama could have a grandiose name like the Crimson Tide, the nerds and losers should be entitled to a grandiose name as well.” That name "Deacon Blues" was suggested by the name of football player Deacon Jones. 

This Alabama connection reminds me of other minor ones that have popped up from time to time in popular culture, like Groucho Mark's joke about Tuscaloosa and the reference to an Auburn football game in that great elevator scene with Frank Sinatra and Angie Dickinson in the original Ocean's 11 film.

Source: Wikipedia

At least one song I found was recorded at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. "Wild Horses" was written by guitarist Keith Richards about his wife and new son as he prepared to leave with the band for an American tour. Number 193 on the list, it was recorded December 2-4, 1969, at the Alabama studio. 

I've always liked the Stones version, but I like the cover version by the British group The Sundays even better. The vocals by Harriet Wheeler really bring out the longing at the heart of the song.

Source: Discogs

Now we come to another pair of entries, both by one of the masters of classic rock and roll, Little Richard. "Good Golly Miss Molly" is number 92 and "Tutti Fruitti" is number 35. Recorded in 1956 and 1955 respectively, these two songs sent loud waves of sexual energy into popular music. 

In 1957 Little Richard--real name Richard Penniman--left secular music and enrolled in Huntsville's Oakwood College to study theology. By 1962 he had returned to popular music and continued to perform and record until his death on
May 9, 2020. He is buried in Oakwood University's Memorial Gardens Cemetery. 

Little Richard in 2007

Source: Wikipedia

Source: Discogs.com

Source: al.com

Reaching the number 1 song on the list, "Respect" by Aretha Franklin, and what do we find? Why, the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, of course!

In early 1967 Franklin had left Columbia Records for Atlantic, and recorded one song in Muscle Shoals, "I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Loved You)" and it was a hit. Producer Jerry Wexler brought the Swampers as the musicians were known then to New York City, and on February 14 Franklin recorded a cover of the Otis Redding song, "Respect". Several other songs were also recorded that day, but "Respect" would become Franklin's signature tune. 

Source: Discogs.com

John Benson Brooks' "Alabama Concerto"

John Benson Brooks [1917-1999] was a jazz pianist and composer

born in Maine. In the early part of his career in the 1940's he wrote the
music for hits by Tommy Dorsey's orchestra with vocalist Frank Sinatra
and others. Later he adapted folk music such as blues and spirituals
to the elements of modern jazz. During this later period he worked with such
jazz greats as Gil Evans, Cannonball Adderley, Gerry Mulligan and Miles
Davis. You can read a more detailed account of his professional life written by Eugene Chadbourne at AllMusic.

In 1950 folklorist, anthropologist and novelist Harold Courlander made a
field trip to Alabama and recorded blues, spirituals, hollers and children's
gaming songs. He wrote about the trip in "Recording in Alabama in 1950" in Resound: A Quarterly of the Archives of Traditional Music (October 1985). Alabama folklorist, Ruby Pickens Tartt, assisted Courlander just as; she had done for John A. Lomax on his trips to Sumter County between 1937 and 1940. 

In the mid-1950's Brooks and Courlander met and began a collaboration based on some of the material the latter had recorded in Alabama. One result was Brooks' 1958 recording Alabama Concerto that features Brooks on piano, Cannonball Adderley on sax & Art Farmer on trumpet. In 1963 a revised and enlarged second edition was published of Brooks' musical score Negro Songs from Alabama.

John Benson Brooks

Source: Discogs 

Harold Courlander

Source

This 1959 release by Adderley includes "Stars Fell on Alabama" and the presence of another saxophone great, John Coltrane. Coltrane wrote a composition, "Alabama", after the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in September 1963.

The classic "Stars" was composed in 1934 by Frank Perkins; Mitchell Parish wrote the lyrics. A 1975 version appeared on Adderley's Phenix album.

Music recorded by Harold Courlander in Alabama was released on six vinyl records between 1951 and 1960. They have also been issued on CD. 

Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 1: Secular Music (1951)

Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 2: Religious Music (1956)

Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 3: Rich Amerson—1 (1960)

Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 4: Rich Amerson—2 (1955)

Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 5: Spirituals (1950)

Negro Folk Music of Alabama, Vol. 6: Ring Game Songs and Others (1955)

Bing Crosby Sings Alabama--Twice

Bing Crosby [1903-1977] was one of the most popular singers, recording artists, and radio, film and television stars for several decades in the twentieth century. He was born in Tacoma, Washington, and by 1923 was singing with a group of high school students at dances, clubs and on the radio in the Spokane area. In the early 1930's he found some success in California and New York with various orchestras and did his earliest solo recordings and radio work.

By the time he died in October 1977 Crosby's achievements were legendary. Over 1 billion records, tapes, CD's and downloads of his songs and albums have been sold. In 1944 he won the Best Actor Academy Award for his performance as a priest in Going My Way. The next year he was nominated for the same award for The Bells of St. Mary's, becoming the first of only six actors nominated twice for playing the same character. 

In 1963 he was the first winner of a Grammy Global Achievement Award. He is one of only 33 people who have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame--motion picture acting and radio and music recording. Crosby was among the earliest to adopt reel-to-reel recording technology so he could pre-record his radio shows. He was also instrumental in the early development of videotape.

One of the final recordings Crosby released before his death was A Southern Memoir in 1975. The work is what we would call a "passion project"; Crosby recorded it at TTG Studios in Los Angeles at his own expense. Jazz pianist Paul Smith, with whom Crosby had worked before, and his Orchestra provided the music. The album had twelve tracks; seven more mostly alternate takes appeared on a 2010 CD issue. The album was the first recording Crosby made after a large abscess and a portion of his left lung had been removed in January 1974.

The Wikipedia entry on the album includes this quote about the songs:

"Record producer, Ken Barnes, wrote: "This collection of “Southern-cum-mammy” type songs was a pet project of Bing’s and his affection for the material reveals itself time and again throughout each of the twelve songs. The small-band backings arranged by pianist-conductor Paul Smith are beautifully written and very well played. Bing sings with greater spirit and drive than on his album with Basie and some of the tracks, notably “Carolina in the Morning,” “Swanee,” and “Sailing Down the Chesapeake Bay” stand comparison with some of his best-ever up-tempo performances."

The quote is taken from Barnes 1980 book, The Crosby Years.

Two of the songs on side one of the album are Alabama-related. "Alabamy Bound" is second on that side and is a 1924 piece with music written by Ray Henderson and lyrics by Buddy DeSylva and Bud Green. I've written more about the history of the song and a 1941 recorded performance by Jackie Green and the Five Spirits of Rhythm in a blog post here.

The fourth song on side one of Crosby's album is the classic "Stars Fell on Alabama." Written in 1934, the composer was Frank Perkins and the lyricist was Mitchell Parish. Perkins was a native of Salem, Massachusetts, who wrote music for a number of songs as well as film and television. Parish had changed his name from Michael Hyman Pashelinsky that he was born with in Lithuania. He came to the U.S. as a young child with his parents and briefly lived with relatives in Louisiana before the family moved to New York City.  I leave it to readers to sort out the ironies in all of this background.

Parish apparently took the title of his song from a 1934 book of the same title by Carl Carmer. Carmer came to Alabama in 1927 from New York and spent six years on the faculty at the University in Tuscaloosa. His book has chapters devoted to various aspects of the state's history and culture. One of those describes the spectacular Leonid meteor shower seen in Alabama in November 1833.

As I noted in the blog post linked above, "Alabamy Bound" has been recorded by a number of artists and so has "Stars Fell on Alabama". Singers ranging from Billie Holliday to Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Jimmy Buffett have performed it. Unlike "Alabamy Bound" and many other Tin Pan Alley songs referencing the state, "Stars" is tied to an actual event in the state's history. 

Bing Crosby ca. 1946

Source: Bing Crosby's Photos

The cover of A Southern Memoir

Source: Wikipedia

Three Alabama Music Albums

I've recently been going through the several hundred vinyl records that Dianne and I own. Talk about a trip down memory lane. In among all the albums by It's a Beautiful Day, Jefferson Airplane, Hayden and Mozart, etc., I've so far found three with Alabama connections. Let's investigate.

The Locust Fork Band formed in Tuscaloosa in 1974 and has survived to the present day. The group combines performances of cover songs with a few originals and has often played festivals, including City Stages in Birmngham in 1989 and 1998.

The album I have is Playing 'Possum released in 1978. According to the brief BhamWiki entry on the band linked in the previous paragraph, they recorded a 30th anniversary album at Workplay in Birmingham in 2004. I have run across mention of an album called Overnight Success and wonder if that's it. However, I've found little else online beyond what's discussed below. 

The band continues to perform on occasion. This 2009 appearance at the Bottletree Cafe in Birmingham benefited the Black Warrior Riverkeeper organization. I have run across references to other performances in 2015 and 2017. The group maintains a Facebook page. You can read an interview with singer Nida Threet before their set at the 2015 Blueberry Jam Festival in Fairhope here.

This release is a real obscurity, featuring a jazz duo of singer Beth Jackson and singer/keyboardist Joe Hardin. Small World Records in Huntsville released the album of mostly jazz standards. 

Small World Records was apparently a part of the Smith Music Group. Their web site, which has a 2004 date and is apparently abandoned, has this description: "Small World Records, an independent label started in 1981, is credited with over 100 releases. The back catalog is out of print and there are no current releases."

I would think I acquired this album before Dianne and I left Auburn in the summer of 1980, but maybe not. I've tried searching online various combinations of the artists' names etc but have found nothing. 

I did post a query on Facebook's Huntsville Rewound group and received some helpful responses. Jackson and Hardin attended Grissom High School and played at a popular downtown place still in business, the Kaffeeklatsch. Drank a few cups there with friends myself over the years. Hardin is currently a professor in the English Department at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. He spent 23 years as a professional keyboard player, guitarist, songwriter and singer. No one offered any more information about Jackson or about Small World Records. 

This album is the oldest in the bunch. Childhaven is a children's home in Cullman associated with the Church of Christ. The facility has a long history that you can read about here.

Dr. Jim Wright, Executive Director of Childhaven, was kind enough to give me some background details on this album in an email to me on January 31, 2018:

"Del Brock was the college age (or a upper high school?) aged son of Barney Brock.  Barney was the first superintendent at Childhaven, coming in 1950 and leaving around 1964.  Del remains in Cullman, and is a member of our board of directors.  During those years, Del directed a chorus made up of Childhaven residents.  The chorus would travel and appear in churches, as a pr and fundraising arm for Childhaven.  They made one album - which you have a copy of.  (We have copies here in our archives.  The vinyl and jackets in our collection are not clearly dated - but we are pretty sure it is around 1962 - 63 when it was produced.  Del is uncertain as to the exact age."  

If you have more information about any of these albums and individuals, feel free to tell us in the comment section!

Some More Early Alabama Songs

In June 2015 I posted an item on "Some Alabama Songs from the Early 20th Century." Since there are so many of these tunes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I thought I would look at a few more examples. There are plenty of others for additional posts as well. 

As I said then, "Alabama has inspired many songs over the decades by natives, residents and people who have never even visited the state. In June 2014 I wrote a post on some songs related to Birmingham. I'll be returning to this rich topic at some point in the future as well." So here I am. 

Discussions of each song are below. 

Source: New York Public Library 

The sheet music cover of this ditty from 1901 has several things to notice. There are stalks of wheat and in the lower left corner an outline map of the state. The tune is "That Famous Alabama Song" that has been "Sung with Great Success" by Zelma Rawlston, whose photograph adorns the middle of the sheet. 

The New York Public Library entry for the song gives this summary of the lyrics:  "A man standing on a pier looks at a boat named Alabama and reminisces about his home plantation; the ship's captain offers to take him back home and he returns to his plantation." You can find the sheet music with lyrics at the NYPL site. Frederick Allen Mills [1869-1948], the New York publisher, was also a ragtime composer in the early part of the 20th century.  

Will D. Cobb [1876-1930] was a lyricist and composer born in Philadelphia. Gus Edwards [1879-1945], a native of Germany, was a songwriter who also managed vaudeville theaters. He discovered a number of performers who went on to great fame such as Eddie Cantor and Groucho Marx. Bing Crosby played Edwards in the biopic The Star Maker [1939]. The pair also collaborated on five songs for a 1902 musical version of The Wizard of Oz. Rawlston was a popular singer of the day who often performed as a male impersonator. The page on Rawlston here has a different sheet music cover for this song with Rawlston in drag. 

Source: Mississippi State University Libraries

L.W. "Libbie" Mehr was married to Charles Mehr, who in the early 1920's opened Mehr's Music Store & Novelty Shop on 5th Avenue North in Birmingham. The store sold everything from sheet music and instruments to costumes and magic paraphernalia. Libbie helped her husband in the store and also wrote songs. "Alabama Blues" was one of those tunes. On June 10, 1922, the song was recorded by Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds in New York City.

The song was published by Williams Music House in Birmingham, then located at 1818 3rd Avenue. The photo below shows the store on 4th Avenue North, after a move, probably before 1938.

Source: Birmingham Public Library 

Murray in 1899

Source: Library of Congress

Written and first recorded in 1915, "Alabama Jubilee" is considered an American standard and has been recorded many other times since by everyone from Chet Atkins to Roy Clark, Doc Watson, Leon Redbone and Jerry Lee Lewis. You can find the sheet music and lyrics here. Issued in March of that year, the sheet music quickly sold almost a million copies. 

George L. Cobb [1886-1942] wrote the music for "Alabama Jubilee" and Jack Yellen [1892-1991] wrote the lyrics. Cobb wrote over 200 musical compositions that include ragtimes, marches and waltzes. Much more about Cobb can be found here. Yellen also wrote the lyrics to a pair of other standards, "Happy Days Are Here Again" and "Ain't She Sweet" as well as songs and screenplays for many films and Broadway musicals.

Cobb and Yellen collaborated early in both their careers, beginning in 1909. Several of their collaborations were "Dixie" songs; others included "All Aboard for Dixieland" and "Are You from Dixie?" Yellen was Jewish, born in Poland and raised in Buffalo, New York. Cobb was born in New York state. Like creators of so many Alabama-related tunes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Cobb and Yellen wrote in popular genres using popular images of the day and may never have visited the South, much less Alabama. 

Elizabeth Murray was a musical and comedy performer in vaudeville. Jerome H. Remick [1867-1931] was a musical publisher based in Detroit. You can watch a version here of the song recorded in September 2015 by the Skip Parsons Riverboat Jazz Band. 

A few other recordings of "Alabama Jubilee" can be found here.

Source: New York Public Library

The sheet music of this song gives Harry "D." Miller as the composer, but that apparently should be Harry "S." Miller. He was born in Philadelphia in 1867, but spent most of his life as a prolific composer, lyricist and playwright in Chicago and New York. Some of Miller's other songs can be found here.

I have been unable to find any information on lyricist Edith Willard. Whitney-Warner Publishing Co. was purchased by Jerome H. Remick in 1898.

The Peerless Quartet was a male singing group that started in the 1890's and toured and recorded until 1928. They recorded hundreds of songs, enjoyed years of great popularity and are considered a major influence on the barbershop quartet style of singing. A massive list of their recordings from 1908 until 1920 is available. 

 The Quartet recorded "In Alabama, Dear, With You" on two different dates. The Victor recording shown above was made in Camden, New Jersey, on September 27, 1915. The group had also recorded the song on August 12 for Columbia. 

You can listen to the Victor recording here.

The Peerless Quartet recorded three other songs related to Alabama: "Take Me to My Alabam'" (October 3, 1916), "Musical Sam from Alabam'" (May 29, 1917, and February 28, 1918). and "Alabama Blacksheep (Won't You Return to My Fold)" (October 18, 1923). I'll be covering those in future entries in this blog series. 

The 20sJazz.com site has a recording of this song by the great Duke Ellington and His Kentucky Club Orchestra. That site gives this information about the personnel involved:

"This recording was produced in New York City on November 29th 1926 featuring Bubber Miley and Louis Metcalf trumpets, Joe Nanton trombone, Prince Robinson clarinet & tenor sax, Otto Hardwick clarinet, soprano, alto, & baritone sax, Duke Ellington piano & director, Fred Guy banjo, Bass Edwards tuba, and Sonny Greer drums."

Ellington and this group made two recordings of the tune, one on November 29, 1926, and the second on February 28, 1927, both in New York City for different companies, Vocalion and Brunswick.

A page of the sheet music is below. Also note the "New Birmingham Breakdown" recorded in the following decade.

As best I can determine, the Spanish phrase on the record, "El Quiebro de Birmingham" would translate literally as "The Sidestep of Birmingham". I presume it was included for the recording's distribution in Latin America, but I've yet to investigate that assumption.

Recorded March 5, 1937, in NYC



Several songs have associated the concepts of a woman, Alabama, and a rose. I discuss several of them below. 

Source: University of Alabama Libraries


This song written by composer Roy L. Burtch and lyricist Claude L. Barker appeared in 1910. A bit about Burtch can be learned from this 1905 marriage notice. Burtch and his bride Harriet were living in Indianapolis in 1905. I have been unable to find out anything about either Barker, or the young lady to whom the song is dedicated, "Miss Anna Louise Crews, Monrovia, California." The song was published by the Wulschner-Stewart Company founded in Indianapolis by Emil Wulschner in 1888. His stepson Alexander Stewart soon joined the company, which lasted until 1914. 

The sheet music cover of another song with the same title from 1913 can be found here. The cover says that song is by Milton Weil and Stanley Murray and issued by Tell Taylor Music Company. Weil owned a music company in Chicago during the 1920's and 1930's. William "Tell" Taylor [1876-1937] was a vaudeville performer and composer of more than 200 songs, including "Down By the Old Mill Stream". He founded his music publishing company in Chicago in 1907. I have been unable to find any information about Stanley Murray.

Then there is "Alabama Rose" by country singer Bobby Bare.

Silas Sexton Steele, a native of Philadelphia, started off as a actor in the mid-1830's but moved into writing, eventually creating more than 40 melodramas, comic operas, and musical burlesques. Two collections of these works can be found here. Many of these featured songs, including the 1846 "Rose of Alabama" which continues  to be performed and recorded today. 

Lyrics of that 1846 tune as recorded by Bobby Horton:


Away from Mississippi's vale,
With my ol' hat there for a sail,
I crossed upon a cotton bale,
To Rose of Alabamy.

Cho: Oh brown Rosie,
Rose of Alabamy.
A sweet tobacco posey
Is my Rose of Alabamy.
A sweet tobacco posey
Is my Rose of Alabamy.

I landed on the far sand bank,
I sat upon the hollow plank,
And there I made the banjo twank,
For Rose of Alabamy.

Oh, arter d'rectly bye and bye,
The moon rose white as Rosie's eye,
Den like a young coon out so sly,
Stole Rose of Alabamy.

I said sit down just where you please.
Upon my lap she took her ease.
"It's good to go upon the knees,"
Said Rose of Alabamy.

The river rose; the cricket sang,
The lightnin' bug did flash his wing,
Den like a rope my arms I fling,
'Round Rose of Alabamy.

We hugged how long I cannot tell.
My Rosie seemed to like it well.
My banjo in the river fell.
Oh Rose of Alabamy.

Like alligator after prey,
I jump in but it float away,
And all the while it seem to say,
"Oh Rose of Alabamy."

Now every night come rain or shower,
I hunt that banjo for an hour;
And see my sweet tobacco flower,
Oh Rose of Alabamy.

Oh fare thee well you belles of Spain,
And fare thee well to Liza Jane,
Your charms will all be put to shame,
By Rose of Alabamy




I have also come across a 1910 song, "My Rose of Alabama" by a prolific composer of the day, Alfred J. Lawrance. I have yet to find more information about this song.