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(Clip courtesy George Mitchell and Fat Possum Records)

J.W. Warren discusses some of his songs and influences, including his spoken word version of "Corrinna" and his love for Hawaiian music (which he developed while stationed in the Philippines).

Warren was born in 1921 in Enterprise, Alabama. In a family of eleven children, he was the only one to take up music, starting at the age of fifteen or sixteen. He entered the military as a young adult and served for 14 years. While stationed overseas with the military in 1947, he won first prize in a music contest. After serving, he entered farming and began to play blues at barbeques and house parties in southeast Alabama. He notes, "I came up the hard way, I hadn't had no break whatsoever...I was born in the wrong part of the world and, then again, I didn't go no place to do any better...I got stuck here, and so, this is my home, seeming I can make it better here than I can any place elsewhere." Like many lower Chattahoochee blues artists, he cites Blind Boy Fuller as a key influence.

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(Clip courtesy of George Mitchell and Fat Possum Records)

Bunkley discusses his life, music and brief work in a medicine show in Southwest Georgia.

Born in 1911 in Talbot County, Jim Bunkley started playing music when he was eight years old. He had four brothers and four sisters, all of whom played some form of music. An early influence on Bunkley was Blind Lemon Jefferson.

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(Clip courtesy of George Mitchell and Fat Possum Records)

Paschal was born around 1927 in Talbotton, Georgia and started playing music sometime in the 1950s. He "used to play for the white people at the frolic". He comments: "I used to play nothing but the blues before I joined the church...I joined the church about fifteen years [ago] and I quit playing blues...Good old church songs, these old-fashioned songs, I likes 'em...I don't like these jumped up songs that people sing now...I believe in the old way, I just like old songs, the spirit of those old songs. Now those songs that they sing now, they're all right, them that want to sing 'em, they good, I like to hear 'em singing, but it ain't for me..."

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(Clip courtesy of George Mitchell and Fat Possum Records)

Recorded in Society Hill, AL in the early 1980s.

Robert Thomas was born in 1929, Albert Macon in 1920. Both grew up in Macon County, Alabama. Thomas began playing blues guitar when he was nineteen or twenty, learning under Albert Macon. The two played together consistently until Macon died in 1993.

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(Clip courtesy of George Mitchell and Fat Possum Records)

Grant discusses making his first guitar from a poplar tree and playing "frolicking" dance music at neighborhood parties. He started playing blues in 1940," learning to play from listening to records." Grant also notes, "I can play a little rock 'n' roll myself now, but I always fancy blues the most."

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(Clip courtesy of George Mitchell and Fat Possum Records)

Although the identity of this artist remains unknown, his story contributes to the musical history of the region. He was born in 1928 and grew up in Talbotton, GA. He started playing guitar when he was nine years old; some of the early blues tunes that he learned "came from Blind Boy Fuller." At the end of the clip, he demonstrates "The Buck", an instrumental tune that was played at neighborhood parties. "The Buck" sounds similar to Precious Bryant's "Georgia Buck".

Note: This recording contains some distortion.