Music of Alabama

Alabama has played a central role in the development of both blues and country music. Appalachian folk music, fiddle music, gospel, spirituals, and polka have had local scenes in parts of Alabama. The Tuskegee Institute's School of Music (established 1931), especially the Tuskegee Choir, is an internationally renowned institution. There are three major modern orchestras, the Mobile Symphony, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra and the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra; the last is the oldest continuously operating professional orchestra in the state, giving its first performance in 1955.

The state song of Alabama is entitled "Alabama". It was written by Julia Tutwiler and composed by Edna Gockel Gussen. It was adopted as the state song in 1931.

A State Senate bill (SB-458) was passed 32-1 in 2000 to move "Alabama" to the status of State Anthem, with "Stars Fell On Alabama", a song written in 1933 whose most popular release was by Jimmy Buffett in 1972 becoming the new State Song, and "My Home's in Alabama" (1980) by the Country group Alabama would become the State Ballad, but the bill failed in the State House.

Other grass roots efforts to make "Sweet Home Alabama" (1974) by Lynyrd Skynyrd the state song have also failed, but the song's potential official status made a comeback when the State Tourism Agency chose the song as the centerpiece of its 2008 marketing campaign.

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