Race and Music in Muscle Shoals discussion Friday

Written By Robin Wade
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UNA sponsored an interesting panel discussion Friday;  “Color-Blind Harmony: Race and Music in Muscle Shoals". 

Panelists included legendary soul singer Jimmy Hughes (“Steal Away,” “Neighbor, Neighbor,” “Why Not Tonight?”), guitarist Jimmy Johnson and bassist David Hood of the famed Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (the group immortalized as “The Swampers” in the Lynyrd Skynyrd anthem “Sweet Home Alabama”). 

Really interesting to hear just why so much of the problems and conflict that surrounded the country and the South somehow, for the most part past us by.  I had always attributed UNA (then Florence State Teachers College) for this.  Wonderful to see just how big our local music history joined in as well. 

Robin Wade
Robin Wade Furniture is a celebration of nature—a melding of a forward thinking commitment to the environment and a quiet, harmonious design aesthetic. From his "slow studio" in North Alabama, award-winning wood artist Robin Wade designs and crafts one-of-a-kind handmade furniture. Years before a piece is ready to enter a client's home or a gallery, the process begins—naturally—with the tree. Sustainably harvested, each specimen of hardwood is flitch sawn into natural-edge wood slabs, debarked by hand with a draw knife, and stacked to dry, usually for years, before the final cure in the kiln. From here, Wade and his team use both hand and power tools to bring Wade's vision to life, and then finish each piece with a hand-rubbed oil blend. Each organic furniture creation by Robin Wade Furniture balances the raw, natural beauty of environmentally, locally sourced hardwoods with minimally invasive, clean lines—a juxtaposition Wade calls both rustic and modern. “I haven’t yet found a better artist than nature,” he says.
robinwadefurniture.com
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