For those coming to Birmingham for the show.

[Wildh2oskier]

I understand that B'ham is not known as a tourist destination but if your coming in to our fair area there are a few things you may want to check out.
First I have to recommend the Barber Motorsports park and museum.
http://barbermotorsports.com/indy/index.php?adnet= One of the most beautiful racetracks on the planet. But if you go out there you MUST go to THE museum. Freakin' awesome.
http://www.barbermuseum.org/index-full.php Set aside a few hours for this one folks.

But I realize that you will be coming here for music. If your in town Friday night and want to be immersed in the blues Gips Place is the only place you want to be.
http://blog.al.com/bob-carlton/2010/04/ ... ce_in.html
Gip portrait.jpgHenry "Gip"Gipson has been playing the blues at his Bessemer juke joint since 1952. (The Birmingham News / Hal Yeager)

On a Saturday night in Bessemer, under a tin-roofed shed at the end of a concrete driveway, two couples shake their moneymakers to the homegrown sounds of Curtis Files and the Bluesmasters.
Nobody seems to notice nor care that the two women on the dance floor are white and the two men are black.
At Gip's Place, it doesn't matter.
"We don't have colors," Henry "Gip" Gipson, the congenial proprietor of this off-the-beaten-path blues joint, says. "We have people.

All of the locals make it what it is," Moore says. "There are so many characters and types of people that you might not come across in your life but, in the name of music, everybody comes together.

"You see blacks and whites dancing together and having a good time," he adds. "It's like a big, happy family, and the musicians feel like they're a part of the family, too."

Guests bring coolers filled with their favorite libations, and Madden and others pass the hat to pay the musicians.

Over the years, Gip's has become a must-stop for many of the North Mississippi hill country blues players -- from Cedric Burnside & Lightnin' Malcolm to Kenny Brown and T-Model Ford -- who respect the place for its authenticity.

"One of the things that struck me when we first started going out there was it was a bunch of folks who loved the blues, lived the music, and there was absolutely nothing commercial about it at all," says Elliott New, who grew up in Mountain Brook and now plays in the South Carolina-based blues band Elliott and the Untouchables.

Trust me these two places are what you will tell people about when you get home.

[Wildh2oskier]

To find Gip's Place, take I-20/59 South to Exit 112 in Bessemer. Turn left, under the interstate, which will put you on 18th Street heading south. Go one mile, across the railroad tracks, turning left on Carolina Avenue at the "T" intersection. Go one block and turn right on 19th Street, then go four blocks and turn left on Dartmouth Avenue. Drive 1.2 miles to a right on 33rd Street. Go two blocks and turn left and then immediately right. Go up the hill two blocks to Avenue C. Turn right and drive a couple of hundred feet and you'll see Gip's, a dilapidated shack in the backyard of Henry Gipson's home that sits beside the big curve in the road"

[RinglingRingling]

when dy'all get runnin' water in Birmingham?

[Wildh2oskier]

Oh we've had running water, but we still don't cotton with that 'lectricity stuff. That there is Devilment in those wires.