Author Blake Ells celebrates the DIY heart of the city’s alt-rock scene

Birmingham, unlike Memphis, Nashville and New Orleans, is not typically thought of as a music capital in the Deep South.

But that doesn’t mean that the Magic City is bereft of a musical legacy.

The city left its mark on jazz, with artists like legendary composer and bandleader Sun Ra and trumpet player and big bandleader Erskine Hawkins.

Songwriter Emmy Lou Harris was born in Birmingham.

In recent years, the Birmingham area produced American Idol winners Ruben Studdard and Taylor Hicks and American Idol runners-up Bo Bice and Diana DeGarmo.

And other great performers spent at least part of their lives here, including jazz great Lionel Hampton, Broadway and TV star Nell Carter and R&B legend Eddie Kendricks.

The city also has a story to tell about its rock n’ roll and punk scenes going back to the 1970s, according to local music journalist Blake Ells.

Those communities “have quietly thrived for nearly 50 years,” Ells writes in his new book, “Magic City Rock: Spaces and Faces of Birmingham’s Scene,” published by History Press in Charleston, South Carolina.

Ells shares some of the stories of the dedicated local musicians, promoters and club owners who have quietly built a strong local alternative rock scene.

That culture “has thrived camaraderie and collaboration” and possesses a true “punk rock ethos,” he writes.

Ells recently talked to Iron City Ink about the book, his own experience of the music scene in town, the venues and musicians he loves and the prospects for local artists in 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

A graduate of Auburn University, Ells is a freelance writer whose credits include AL.com, The Birmingham News, The Birmingham Post-Herald and Birmingham magazine.

“I like to share ways that I interpret art,” Ells said.

“It feels good to introduce people to new music — like making a mixtape,” he said.

In the book, Ells goes back to Hotel and Telluride, popular local bands in the 1970s and 1980s that earned a touch of national attention.

He charts the new acts that formed in the city in the 1980s after the rise of college radio and the inspiring national ascendancy of bands from Southern towns like Athens, Georgia.

These acts included Jim Bob and the Leisure Suits, The Primitons and The Sugar LaLas, which were led by Mats Roden and Carole Griffin, also the owner of Continental Bakery and Chez Lulu.

Ells profiles such musicians as Damon Johnson, guitarist and front man for the band Brother Cane who later joined the legendary rock act Thin Lizzie.

He talks about Verbena, a Birmingham band that earned some national media attention.

We meet Matthew Mayfield, who recorded solo and with the band Moses Mayfield; The Grenadines; Taylor Hollingsworth and Kate Taylor, who record solo and as the duo Dead Fingers; and the hugely popular St. Paul and the Broken Bones.

“Magic City Rock” also celebrates venues, like Zydeco and The Nick, as well as critical DIY spaces like Cave 9 and The Firehouse.

We learn about Communicating Vessels, a recording studio founded by Jeffrey Cain.

A Rogersville native, Ells also recalls how he fell in love with the music scene here.

“When I was in high school, my mom would drive me and my friends to Five Points Music Hall for concerts,” he said. “I always remember thinking then, ‘If I can ever get to the big ‘ol city, I want to live right here — in Five Points.’ And I did that. It was pretty cool.”

A lot of the shows Ells attended featured such local acts as Wayne, Adelaide, Suburban Love Junkies and Mars Electric.

Many of those bands were getting airplay on local station 107.7 The X, which was programmed by local taste arbiter Scott Register.

“That was my first exposure to the scene, and it’s part of why it was important to me to include that era in my version of the story,” Ells said. “Often that period is a bit forgotten when we reflect back on Birmingham’s music as a whole.”

Ells moved to the Birmingham area right after college in 2005.

“When the April 27, 2011 tornado hit my home, I moved to Five Points, and I have been in the Southside and downtown area for a decade,” he said.

Ells said that he has now lived in Birmingham longer than he lived in his hometown, and the music scene in the Magic City still means a lot to him.

“Birmingham’s scene is a small community,” he said. “It’s DIY. It’s a bunch of punk rock kids that left the suburbs and came back downtown when that wasn’t a cool decision, and they gathered for music and found one another. The spirit of that attitude is what makes Birmingham’s scene special.”

The scene meant enough to him that it inspired Ells to write ‘Magic City Rock.”

“I think a lot of times, people don’t see the beauty that was within the struggles fought here in the interest of self-discovery, of defiantly leaving the suburbs to find your people,” he said. “A lot of those same fights continue, but I think everyone found each other and now they don’t always have to fight those battles alone. Thanks, Gen X.”

Ells named some of his favorite performers, past and present.

He calls Jim Bob & the Leisure Suits, The Primitons and the Sugar LaLas “the forefathers” of the contemporary scene.

“The things they were doing through the 80s and 90s were not something you’d expect from a town like Birmingham,” he said.

Lee Bains III & The Glory Fires are a critical contemporary reference for Birmingham rock, Ells said.

“When I think of what this city ‘sounds’ like in 2020, it’s definitely Lee,” he said.

He also has no trouble singling out a favorite music venue.

“The Nick is one of the greatest rock clubs that ever existed in this country,” Ells said. “It’s everything you want out of a rock club. It’s a community all it’s own with amazing people.”

He also cites Bottletree, the Avondale bar and cafe that closed in 2015 and is still missed, and Bottletree’s “more mature sister,” Saturn in Avondale.

“But The Nick is the punk rock heart of Birmingham,” he said.

The contemporary rock and pop scene in Birmingham deserves more respect and attention, even locally, Ells asserts. “There are a ton of great artists here now,” he said.

He praises singer-songwriter Will Stewart, including his solo work and the music he’s recorded with Janet Simpson in their duo called Timber.

“Sarah Lee Langford has a great record,” he said, referring to the singer-songwriter’s old-school country album, “Two Hearted Rounder.”

Ells said there is some local support for the artists.

“I think the community around supports folks the best way they know how — especially places like The Nick and the crew at Birmingham Mountain Radio,” he said.

Of course, as we move into the new year, musicians and venues in Birmingham are facing the same challenge that artists around the country are facing — the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s a scary time,” Ells said.

“My hope for Birmingham music is that people that care about arts in this city find ways to help support,” he said. “If going and sitting on a club patio and having some drinks isn’t something that you’re comfortable with yet, buy merch. Give to a GoFundMe. There are ways that we can still have the things we loved before the pandemic. We just have to be a little more creative now.”

For more information about the book, go to historypress.com.