Music has helped tell Alabama’s story for generations. It echoes through church pews and front porches, spills from theaters and concert halls, and lives on through musicians, educators, and communities that have shaped the state’s cultural identity for generations. For artist and photographer Tara Stallworth Lee, preserving those stories became the foundation of An Alabama Song, a new coffee table book releasing July 11.

The project grew from photographs Lee made between 2020 and 2021 after being introduced by fellow artist Leanna Lesley to many of the people and stories that would eventually shape the work. Those early encounters evolved into an ongoing creative dialogue that later led to Back in Your Own Backyard, an exhibition celebrating Birmingham’s jazz legacy, and eventually An Alabama Song.

“The book and exhibition are companions to one another,” Lee said. “Both born from photographs taken between 2020 and 2021, when my dear friend and extraordinary artist, Leanna Lesley, introduced me to many of the subjects and stories that shaped the project.”

While the exhibition expanded into mixed-media works, textiles, sculpture, and collage, Lee envisioned the book as something more intimate. “The book was conceived before the exhibition and functions like a personal scrapbook or visual journal,” she said. “Its sequencing and layout are designed to create a rhythm, a melody, a visual song.”

A Visual Song

Rather than creating a traditional coffee table book, Lee focused on creating an experience that encourages readers to slow down and discover connections as they move through its pages. Different photographs of many of the same subjects featured in the exhibition appear throughout the book, but the sequencing creates a different relationship between them. Readers move through the work page by page, discovering new connections and details along the way.

Throughout the project, music served as both a subject and a gateway into understanding people and communities. “Music offers a shared language and an accessible entry point into the community,” Lee said. “Whether someone is playing, performing, or simply listening, it becomes a way of connecting with others.”

That idea guided the way she approached her subjects. Rather than simply documenting performances, Lee became interested in the conversations, memories, and relationships that surrounded them. “The camera becomes a way of listening as much as seeing,” she said, describing the process as one of gathering images through presence.

Many of those encounters remain with her, even now as the book has been completed. Looking back at images of singer-songwriter Elaine Hudson, Lee remembers not only the photographs themselves but the conversations they shared.

“Looking at those photographs brings me back to the hours we spent talking about southwest Alabama, racism, and the creative process,” she said. “The images of her handwritten lyrics emphasize the person behind the music.”

Finding Alabama Through Music

Her interest in the people behind the music became one of the defining characteristics of An Alabama Song. The project captures musicians, educators, cultural figures, and communities across the state, creating a portrait of Alabama through the people who contribute to its cultural life.

Lee’s appreciation for Alabama is woven throughout the book. Building on her earlier work with Lesley, Lee said the exhibition “extends beyond Birmingham and jazz to embrace other musical figures and genres from across the state.” The result is a project that feels deeply rooted in Alabama while remaining personal in scope.

“My creative process begins with curiosity—an attentiveness to people, places, and moments that invite closer looking,” she said.

That curiosity extends to the way the book itself is organized. “That sense of intimacy with the world directly shapes how the work is curated and sequenced, privileging emotional and experiential relationships between images over strict chronology or category,” Lee explained.

Over time, those connections began to reveal themselves.

“What begins as a disparate collection gradually develops coherence, as if the images themselves arrive at a shared rhythm, sound, and spirit,” she said.

Grief, Memory, and Meaning

As the project continued to evolve, however, it took on a much deeper personal significance. In March 2022, Lee’s father died suddenly. In the months that followed, An Alabama Song became a way for her to process that loss.

“The project gradually became a way of processing grief and maintaining a connection to him through our shared love of music, books, and Alabama,” she said. “A connection that continues to shape the work. An Alabama Song—the book and the larger ongoing series—has become a space for keeping him close and remaining in conversation with him.”

Themes of memory, absence, and continuity now appear throughout the work. Empty chairs, unplayed instruments, and vacant stages recur alongside portraits of musicians and cultural figures. The influence of Sun Ra, the Birmingham-born jazz pioneer, appears throughout the book as a recurring presence.

“The presence of Sun Ra operates as a recurring structural refrain, shaping continuity across both the book and the exhibition,” Lee said.

Though the book reflects on the past, Lee hopes readers will revisit it in the years ahead. “The book is intended to be something more lived-with than simply looked at,” she said. “Rather than functioning as a traditional coffee table book, it operates more like a visual score, where each image leads to the next and, with each return, a rhythm and visual song begin to emerge.”

For Lee, the experience of revisiting the book is an important part of the project itself. “It is designed to reward revisiting, allowing new connections and details to surface over time,” she said. “I also hope it sparks curiosity, conversation, and further exploration.”

Ultimately, Lee hopes An Alabama Song serves as more than an art book. She hopes it becomes a lasting record of Alabama’s people, stories, and cultural traditions—something readers can return to again and again. “I hope it leaves people with a deeper understanding of, and affection for, Alabama,” she said.

Through its pages, An Alabama Song preserves moments of connection, creativity, and community that might otherwise be lost to time. In doing so, it captures not only the sounds of Alabama but also the people who continue to give those sounds meaning.

An Alabama Song by Tara Stallworth Lee will be released July 11. She will host a book release party that evening; click here for more information on how to attend.