Mountain Posts
SEC Football Update, Memphis Style!
Ron Higgins was on fire over the weekend. He's one of the best writers about SEC football newspaper writers outside of Tony read more...
Why Swampland Sports Loves the BCS
Despite winning back to back national titles in football, the SEC susre seems to hate the BCS. Lately, this hatred has been read more...
SPF's NFL Draft First Round Log (Live All Day!!)
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Merlefest Streaming Live Online Right Now
The South's premier country-bluegrass-Americana get together
Alabama Beat: Words and Music in the Deep South
The three poems currently appearing in the Poetry section of Swampland are by Mississippi born Pulitzer Prize winner
Snowflakes: Southern Sweet 16
Here a quick primer for our teams in this weekend’s NCAA Tournament. East – This is read more...
Alabama's Going Green: "Let's Get Dirty"
Huntsville, Alabama, has chosen
Alabama's Going Green: A Delicate Balance
Yes, I read the article in the New York read more...
Snowflakes: Small Conference Hoops Does the Footprint Proud
It’s the most exciting time of the year for many of the smaller schools around our region. Their conferences tournaments have read more...
Alabama's Going Green
Holden Caulfield wanted to know where all the read more...
Snowflakes: Small Conference Hoops
* It will be quite a battle this weekend in the Big South for the coveted automatic berth to the Big Dance. North Carolina-Asheville read more...
Black History Month: Look Back, but Move Forward
“Look back but move forward” was the credo of civil rights activist
Water, Water, Everywhere, Nor Any Drop To Drink
Today the New York Times ran an article entitled
Let The Sunshine In
I was listening to NPR on Saturday morning when I heard the bluesy sound of an acoustic guitar and a voice that reminded me of read more...
Snowflakes: Big East Hoops
Louisville got a monster win last Saturday night when they knocked off first place Georgetown. The Cardinals are playing much better read more...
It's Not Easy Being Indie
I always thought that in my next incarnation I wanted to come back as an independent documentary filmmaker. I held on to that dream read more...
Snowflakes: Smaller Conference Hoops
One mid-major club that higher seeded teams will not want to see in the Big Dance is Davidson from the Southern Conference. The read more...
Adventures In The (Pig) Skin Trade On Super Bowl Sunday
Roving Notes On Super Bowl Sunday 2/3/08
The Day The Music Died
The day was February 3, 1959. At approximately 12:55 AM, Buddy read more...
Snowflakes: SEC Hoops
by Patrick Snow * Someone forgot to tell 2-time National Champion Florida that they were supposed to struggle this read more...
Lest We Forget: Four Spirits
January 30, 2008, marked the 60th anniversary of the assassination of India’s political and spiritual leader
Snowflakes: Small Conference Hoops
by Patrick Snow The regular season seems to get a little overlooked in many of the smaller or “1-bid” leagues in read more...
Snowflakes: C-USA/Big East Hoops
by Patrick Snow * Could this week finally bring the contest where #1 Memphis actually loses a conference game? The read more...
The Best of All Possible Worlds or Is There Balm in Gilead?
I live in the boonies, the hinterlands of Northern Alabama. For years, I made do with erratic reception from local television read more...
Six Degrees of Separation
In the south we not only claim kin we also claim friends. I have learned that behind every new acquaintance there lies the read more...
LIghts, Camera, Action! Film Festivals and Film Debuts in the South
Late winter and spring of 2008 will see the blossoming of a host of film festivals in the South. A number of the festivals read more...
John Sayles Interview
Mystery & Manners John Sayles Interview 12/8/07 On Thursday I interviewed
TF Conference Championship Preview
Today is the day we find out whether it will be an all-Swampland matchup in the BCS Championship Game. If all goes according to read more...
TF Rivalry Week Preview
Rivalry games define college football. More than bowl games or even conference championships, a win against your rival means read more...
Confessions Redux
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of Auburn’s 1957 National Championship. Not only did the Tigers go undefeated that read more...
TF Saturday Preview: The Year of Transition Nears An End
The wild year continues. In many ways this was just a sign of the transition college football around the Footprint has read more...
Loretta Lynn Returns To The Ryman
Loretta Lynn Returns To The Ryman 11/12/07
TF Saturday Preview: Everything's Still To Be Decided
Patrick Snow has it right. This year's
Tiger Rag
In the spring a young man’s fancy may turn to baseball, but in the fall in the South everyone’s fancy turns to read more...
TF Saturday Preview: Pole, er.. Bowl Position
If you aren't a Florida or Georgia fan, this weekend might be a good one to spend with the kids. This is a pretty thin weekend read more...
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Wednesday night’s opening game of the 2007 World Series at
It is Raining on the River!
I guess I rattled my rain stick enough this weekend to wake up the clouds. We In North Alabama are reveling in what the Navajos call read more...
TF's Saturday Preview: Act Like You've Been There Before!
It's the old saying when a player celebrates a little too much - act like you've been there before. This rules seems to also read more...
On the Road Again
Sorry I have been incommunicado lately. I am still struggling with allergies that seem to get worse rather than better. Ah, fall in read more...
TF's Saturday Preview: The History Behind SEC Dominance
Tribal Fever would like to start this weekend's festivities by directing everyone to a fantastic series on
Tribal Fever's Weekend Slate (10/6/2007)
Let's start with this week's College Football Preview from Athlon. Swampland's own Patrick Snow hosts each read more...
Arrivederci Roma, Ciao Athens (Alabama)
I have just returned from ten days in Italy (Venice, Florence/Tuscany, and Rome) and am way behind on my blog, so please bear read more...
Upset Saturday, or not?
Patrick Snow mentioned in his last column read more...
Swampland welcomes Tribal Fever!
It was only a matter of time before Swampland Sports starting covering the colleges in earnest. Today marks the start of Tribal read more...
CD and DVD releases for week of September 18, 2007
New Releases Doyle Bramhall
More Alabama Authors: Eric Smith
Eric Smith is assistant professor of English at the University of Alabama-Huntsville where his speciality is Post Colonial read more...
"When I die, the brush dies": Remembering Jimmie Lee Sudduth
Spotlighting Alabama Authors
During the next few weeks I will be featuring the poetry of several Alabama writers whose poems were published in the recent read more...
Swampland Sports Six-Pack for the week ending 8/19/07
Your weekly filter for the top sports stories around the South 1. Although college athletics has become read more...
Hot and Wet or Hot and Dry?
The state of Alabama made the national news on two consecutive days this week: first regarding the referendum that could read more...
Turtle Tracks
In the fall of 2005, my sister Peggy bought a 1985 Toyota Dolphin RV from her son in Seaside, CA, and in late October Peggy, our read more...
West "by God" Virginia and The Free State of Winston
Is West Virginia really a part of the south? Jason Headley in an article entitled "A State of Confusion" pleads the case read more...
Look Homeward, Angel: In Memoriam Doug Marlette
On Tuesday, July 10, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug read more...
J.D. Crowe & The New South Announce Spring Tour
Bluegrass Hall of Honor inductee J.D. Crowe and his band The New South are hitting the road this spring in support read more...
Swampland Salutes the Allman Brothers In Macon
1/14/07 ...Swampland tips a hat to the Allman Brothers... Last night Buffalo Smith and I attended a benefit in honor read more...
Mountain Reviews
See You In A Hundred Years
See You In A Hundred Years by Logan Ward Benbella Books Has the stess of today's world with read more...
Revelation
A.J. Roach Revelation Waterbug Records Some guys have roots and some guys have read more...
The Trailer Tapes
(Drifter's Church 0010) Some albums are just meant to be heard. Chris Knight recorded 'The Trailer read more...
Darius Goes West
“Something’s gonna happen like…Just spark the whole world,” exclaims Darius, the star of the read more...
Frankie Ray
Frankie Ray Jonathan Wilson Pretty And Black By James Calemine North Carolina native Jonathan read more...
Salvation On Sand Mountain
Salvation On Sand Mountain Dennis Covington Penguin Books By James Calemine
Song of America
Song of America Various Artists 31 Tigers Records By James Calemine This 50-song, 3 CD read more...
KELBRN
Whatever Remembers Us: An Anthology
Whatever Remembers Us: An Anthology of Alabama Poetry edited by Sue Brannan Walker and J. read more...
Driving With The Devil
Classic Southern Gospel
Various Artists Classic Southern Gospel (Smithsonian Folkways) Sixty minutes of gospel read more...
Friends Of Old Time Music
Friends Of Old Time Music The Folk Arrival 1961-1965 (Smithsonian Folkways) Between read more...
Mountain ArticlesDriving With The Devil
An excerpt from DRIVING WITH THE DEVIL: Southern Moonshiners, Detroit Wheels, and the Birth of NASCAR By Neal Thompson Crown read more...
Southern Sporting "Events"
by Patrick Snow As I attended a Kentucky Derby function this past Saturday, it was never more evident that Southerners must throw a pretty good party. We are probably more known nationally for our college football crowds and pageantry, but the spring read more...
The BCS: A Friend to the SEC (and the Rest of the Footprint)
We at Tribal Fever find it odd that it would be the SEC who would call for a playoff system. We wonder how the SEC can be so blind to the fact that the BCS has been great for that conference. For those that love the idea of a playoff, we will list the reasons why most every proposal for a college playoff is a horrible idea for college football at large and especially read more...
Snowman's 2008 Draft Wrap Up
The annual NFL Draft is now over, and the critics will have a field day with opinions on who did well and who faltered with their choices. I thought I would take a look at the Draft from the collegiate view and see who from our region will have the biggest impact on their new read more...
Record Stores of the Swampland Footprint
ALABAMA CD Cellar Anniston AL Oz Music Tuscaloosa AL ARKANSAS Sound Warehouse Fayetteville read more...
Natasha Trethewey—Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
by Penne J. Laubenthal Pulitzer Prize winner Natasha Trethewey is a poet who gives voice to the voiceless, names to the nameless, and who creates monuments in words for those whom history has forgotten. Relying on photographs, personal memory, read more...
Poems by Natasha Trethewey
Miscegenation In 1965 my parents broke two laws of Mississippi; they went to Ohio to marry, returned to Mississippi. They crossed the river into Cincinnati, a city whose name begins with a sound like sin, the sound of wrong, mis in Mississippi. A year later they moved to Canada, followed a route the read more...
Merlefest at 21, Doc Watson at 85: Festival Notes
A Great American Music Festival And Its Host At The Crossroads by Derek Halsey "In 1934, Dad made me a little home-made banjo,” remembers Doc Watson, on the historic three-CD album of performances and conversation recorded with
Billy Bob Thornton in Florence, Alabama
by Penne J. Laubenthal Severe weather warnings had been issued for North Alabama when I made my way to Florence for the Friday afternoon session of the 11th Annual George Lindsey Film Festival featuring Billy Bob Thornton. But apparently neither sleet nor snow read more...
Deryle Perryman and Dangerous Highway, a Film About Eddie Hinton
by Penne J. Laubenthal Dangerous Highway is an amazing documentary about the life and music of the incredibly talented and tragically fated Eddie Hinton, called the "greatest unknown musician you have ever heard." The film was made by read more...
Darius Goes West: Twelve Guys and a Dream
Once in a great while, just when you think there is no reason to get up in the morning and that there is no hope for humanity, and that people will just go on killing one another forever, and that tomorrow will be probably be even worse than today, then something happens to turn your world around. For me, that something was seeing a feature length documentary read more...
Logan Smalley: Creator and Director of Darius Goes West
In 2005 Logan Smalley, a special education major at the University of Georgia-Athens, undertook a venture that would change his life, not to mention the lives of those who view his amazing film. Smalley rented a handicapped accessible RV, recruited ten
Fifth Annual Oxford Film Festival
The Fifth Annual Oxford Film Festival (OFF) will open Wednesday evening, February 6, in Oxford, read more...
SEC: Conference King Once Again
By Patrick Snow It’s an argument that will never end-whose Conference is better? Fans will debate this topic vociferously every season, and the answer always tends to lie close to your address. I’m not sure that the Bowl games are the best way to evaluate league strength across college football, but it is basically all we have. Here’s my opinion read more...
Huge Hires for the SEC Old Guard
By Patrick Snow It has already been quite the postseason in the SEC coaching ranks, and it’s only going to get more interesting. With the recent additions of Nick Saban and Bobby Petrino along with Houston Nutt and Les Miles staying in the conference, wins are going to be harder and harder to come by in the nation’s toughest gridiron league. Each read more...
The Appalachian Sounds of Fonotone Records
The Appalachian Sounds of Fonotone Records By James Calemine “I went out in the open field/Black snake bit me on the heel, I’ve stood around and done my best/Shoved my head in a hornet’s read more...
Billy C Farlow is Having Too Much Fun
by Penne J. Laubenthal Billy C Farlow, blues musician, song writer, and harmonica player who skyrocketed to fame in the early ‘70s with Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, is a force to be reckoned with on the music circuit. Billy C has been out there for over forty years making his music, writing read more...
Goodbye, Babylon: A Patchwork Quilt of American Music
GOODBYE, BABYLON A Patchwork Quilt of American Music By James Calemine
SEC Coaching - None Better
In the end, it was a surprise. But the surprise came in the school chosen, no the destination - the SEC West. Bobby Petrino finally made it to the coaching promised land when he was named the head coach of Arkansas late last night. Fresh off of a Monday Night Football debacle against New Orleans, Petrino made the move. Today, the SEC stands as the read more...
Way Down South With John Sayles
Way Down South with John Sayles By James Calemine John Sayles’ films command respect. His latest film, Honeydripper, takes place in Alabama during the 1950s. Honeydripper counts as Sayles’16th film which read more...
Coaching Carousel
By Patrick Snow The end of the college football season always brings with it unfulfilled goals which translates into coaching changes. There has been quite a bit of movement in our region. Some of the firings were inevitable while others showed us just how unrealistic certain fan bases are with their expectations. I thought I would examine each job, and how it matches up read more...
A Celebration of The Life & Work of Paul Hemphill
A Celebration of The Life & Work of Paul Hemphill By James Calemine "I was ridin' number nine Headin' south from Caroline I heard that lonesome whistle blow."
Confessions of an Auburn Fan or It's Not Easy Being Orange (and Blue)
by Penne Jones Laubenthal The state of Alabama is a red state. It has been slowly turning red politically since 1960. In the past twenty-seven years, Alabama voters have increasingly voted for Republican candidates at the federal level, especially in Presidential read more...
Interview with Charles Ghigna
by Penne J. Laubenthal Charles Ghigna (aka Father Goose) is the author of more than 5,000 poems and 30 award-winning books of poetry. His books have been featured on ABC-TV’s "Good Morning America" and NPR, selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Parents' Choice Book Award. He is a poet, read more...
Mitch Vingle, Charleston (WVa) Gazette
As a native West Virginian, Mitch Vingle brings a keen insight into the sports mindset of this read more...
Shacks on Highway 231, Along the High Red Clay Embankments
By Bonnie Roberts These words are for those who never wrote a word, or sang a song, or thought a great thought, or invented something, or made something lasting. These words are for those who lived extraordinary non-extraordinary lives, of getting up each day, and walking through the day,
Enjoy the Season
By Patrick Snow Another college football season--another initial release of the BCS standings. This annual ritual seems to send everyone running to call a local talk show to scream about a Playoff system and how the middle letter should be removed from ‘BCS’. Enough already. If all that you’re worried about is how January turns out, you’re read more...
Joe Biddle, (Nashville) Tennessean
Joe Biddle has been covering sports in Nashville since read more...
A Modest Proposal: Southern College Conference Realignment
Now that Swampland Sports has launched Tribal Fever (TF), our dispatch dedicated to college sports in the South, we figured it was time to do weigh in on the current state of college football conferences. The college football conference landscape in the Footprint has become downright confusing. It used to be that there were three main conferences, the read more...
Athletic Directors: Be Ready To Ante Up
Southern college football-we live it and breathe it year-round, and it has become abundantly clear that the stakes of the game have been raised with some of the recent coaching hires. The ‘price of poker’ is increasing steadily, and if your school is not ready to ante up, your team will be left behind. We’re witnessing a changing of the guard when it comes to read more...
Auger and Old Shoes
by Eric Smith I. On her rocker’s each forward pitch she glimpses the scuffed toes of shoes down the hall, unlaced, empty, still at the foot of the bed, a very old cliché, like the read more...
My South
By Doris Gabel Welch My South is Hot Humid Sultry Just like its women. My South is
Phillip Quinn Morris
Phillip Quinn Morris, author of Mussels and
Kelly Perdue Memorial
KELLY PERDUE - REST IN PEACE Leader Of The Mando Mafia Band Dead At 45 by Derek Halsey December 2005 On the morning of December 15 the music community lost yet another musician with the passing of Kelly Perdue. Perdue was the leader of the Mando Mafia band based out of read more...
The World Comes Out To Merlefest
THE WORLD COMES OUT TO MERLEFEST By Derek Halsey June 2004 Merlefest Music Festival April 29-May 2, 2004 I am sitting in a school bus. It is not your normal bus, but a short yellow school bus that read more...