tidbits, fragments, and ephemera is a usually weekly but not always, sometimes substantial but not making any promises glimpse at some information and news related to Generation X in the Deep South.
Birmingham radio station WAPI changes format, August 1981
About the same time that MTV was coming on the air, Birmingham’s “95 Rock” came into being after a format change to “album rock” from lighter listening.
“In Viral Bumper Sticker, Man Summed Up 1991 Governor’s Race,” July 17, 2021
This US News article from 2021 looks back at a Louisiana man named Kirby Newburger, whose unorthodox message to voters in the 1991 governor’s race was memorable: “Vote for the Crook: It’s Important.” Newburger was trying to support the election of Edwin Edwards, regarded by some as corrupt, over the openly racist David Duke.
“Mississippi Governor Bans Same-Sex Marriage,” August 24, 1996
Twenty five years ago this month, The New York Times was reporting that Mississippi’s governor Kirk Fordice had “issued an executive order banning same-sex marriages in the state in a move he said was intended to strengthen the state’s existing anti-sodomy law while a legal review of the issue is proceeding in the courts and in Congress.” The last paragraph of the article states: “The intended effect of the Governor’s executive order is to prevent county clerks from issuing marriage licenses for people of the same sex, and to invalidate in Mississippi such licenses issued by other states.”
The release of Charlie Daniels, 1971
It was fifty years ago that Charlie Daniel’s self-titled debut album was released. Though his more memorable hits, like “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” would come later, Daniels was hailed as a pioneer of the new Southern rock genre. To put it in perspective, debut albums by both Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Marshall Tucker Band came out two years later in 1973.
level:deepsouth is an online anthology about growing up Generation X in the Deep South during the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. The anthology is open to submissions of creative nonfiction (essays, memoirs, and reviews) and images (photos and flyers), as well as to contributions for the lists.
