Rock and Roll and Diabetic Retinopathy

Local Artist and author Craig Legg joins us to talk about his new book “A History of Birmingham Rock & Roll.  Then Dr. Geoffrey Emerson from the American Society of Retina Specialists talks about the importance of screening and treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Birmingham's history in the civil rights movement is very well
known and well documented. But what about Birmingham, Alabama's history
in the rock and roll movement. Everyone always thinks about
Nashville or Cleveland, or Los Angeles or Seattle. No one
ever thinks about Birmingham. But I want to change your
way of thinking about that. Joining me now on Viewpoint,
Alabama is Craig leg He is a local visual artist.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to the show, Craig, thank you, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
You've got this book and I'm holding it right here,
A History of Birmingham Rock and Roll, and it's a
it's a very nice book where you have all of
these paintings in here that you have done, every single
one of these right, that's correct, And they're kind of
to commemorate the rock history of Birmingham. Which got you
interested in doing something like this?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, I started painting about twelve years ago, and painters
kind of need themes sometimes, so I needed theme, So
years ago I started what I call a trading cards
series of paintings. I grew up collecting baseball cards, so
baseball cards were kind of the first art objects I

(01:12):
ever encountered. Although we didn't think of them as then.
So I did History of Baseball and history of football,
and then I got into us some local stuff, local music.
I've done History of Birmingham Jazz and this is the
rock and roll. So I've done, you know, ten or
twelve of those series and this is one of them.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
And I'm looking through the book here and there's chapter
after How many pictures are there in totally you have done?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
There's about three hundred and fifty.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
And this I can see there's bands in here that
are local bands. Are there any bands that you did
that are started local and went national?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well that's kind of a sub theme of the book
because in the history of Birmingham rock, you know, it
was always a push to get a band who broke nationally,
and for years and years people would get real close.
In the seventies and eighties, Hotel got close, and there's
an until You Ride got close, and then Saint Paul

(02:14):
and the Broken Bones just recently might be the first
known Birmingham band to really make it on a nationwide scale,
you know, because the way it works, a band like
Rim out of Athens will break and then people will
discover that scene, or a band like the fabulous Thunderbirds
in Austin will break national and then people will discover

(02:35):
what's going on in Austin. So that's kind of how
it works, or it used to work. It may not
really work that way anymore, because you know, any big
city can have a scene and you know, and it
can break at least regionally nationally. I'm not sure how
it applies anymore.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Now you're from the Birmingham area, right so or Homewood,
which is mentro Birmingham, and so you've lived here all
your life.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, no, I grew up here in Birmingham, so I'm
seventy five, so I was here when you know, rock
kind of broke, So I grew up in in high
school saw it firsthand.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
We went.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
There was an iconic Birmingham series called the Shower of
Stars that one of the radio stations brought to town
where they brought at first country musicians and then as
country merged into rock and roll, they would mix them
with the rock and roll musicians. So it was a
great series. So I went to some of them, and
there was no music scene as we know it now.

(03:39):
There was no club scene because originally rock and roll
was music. Four teenagers by teenagers, and so the club
scene didn't click in until the seventies. But so I
was here for those years, and then I left in
sixty eight, went to Tuscaloosa, and I came back in seventies,
and so I'm missed all that, but I came back

(04:01):
in the eighties. So I've been here again since eighty seven.
But you know, I moved to Austin in seventy seven
and spent ten years there, so I saw it. I
learned there how the scene could build up and what
it takes for a city to have a.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
Good thriving scene. You know.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
I worked in a couple of music venues there and
so I experienced it firsthand there, so you know, I
kind of see how it came together.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
I'm looking at the paintings in this book, and I'm
seeing pictures of everyone from Taylor Hicks to you get
You've got a ton here, did you write? Did you
paint these from memory or from pictures or because.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
No, you know, you have to I had to go
on to the Internet and get photographs, So I painted
them from you know, photographs images.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
I know because I noticed some of the some of
the venues in there, they look kind of familiar to me.
Do you remember see it was on Five Points Music Hall?

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Yeah, it's in there.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Yeah, I was going to say, I was looking at
that looked like some of those were at the Five
Points Music Hall. So it's it's interesting thing to see
the depiction because all of your artwork there there is
a style, and I can tell every single one of
these was done by the same artists, by you, because
there is You do have a unique style in the
way that you do it.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Is it all? Is it?

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Do you use the same media for everything and the
same brushes?

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Oh yeah, it's it's acrylic paint and uh sometimes it's
on masonite or and then sometimes you know, little pieces
of canvas. But you know, I'm self taught, so I just, uh,
you know, I did develop my own style. It's not
fine art. It's somewhere in between folk art, so close close.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
To folk art.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
The and the collection of these these photo these photographs
or these paintings that you have put together into this book.
Is it on display somewhere or is it do you
have it like in a private collection? How does that work?

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Well, that's a good question.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
The history is that you know it was done as
an exhibit. I'm affiliated with the gallery out in East
Lake called East Village Arts, So I did these paintings
in twenty nineteen. It took me a year, and I
did an exhibit out there in twenty twenty. So at
first it was an exhibit and I didn't have any

(06:18):
intention of doing a book. But two of the guys
came out there, Travis Morgan and Mark Harrelson, who are
music people in this town, and they conceived the idea
of a book, so they get the credit for making
it into a book.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
And as I flipped through it, it is kind of like
a history lesson. I see. You spend some time in
different eras in Birmingham music, like the music scene during
the sixties and seventies, in the African American community. You
do some work with that as well. Are there some
artists in there that you particularly you found interesting that
you painted?

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Oh yeah, you know almost all of them. But so
that's a hard question to single out, you know. That's
the thing is I learned a lot from doing the research,
So you know, a lot of these people I wasn't
familiar with in the beginning, but you learn a lot
as you do the research. Now, I was fortunate enough

(07:21):
to come across a book of history that has been
written about the history of Birmingham rock and roll. It's
called Magic City Nights. It's by UAB professor Andre Millard,
and his started out as an oral history project. It
was formulated by Aaron Bean who used to do the

(07:45):
crawfish boil here, and they got they went back to
the people who were involved here in the seventies, early
band members, and sat them down in front of a
microphone or tape recorder and taped their storees. And then
Professor Millard got a lot of his students to transcribe
the uh the tapes, and he mashed.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
The book out of it.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
And then this book has not very gotten very many
uh much publicity, and a lot of people haven't read
it and uh so, so the timeline he laid out
the timeline, so I got a lot of.

Speaker 3 (08:23):
The names you know from him.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
And then since I was already kind of familiar with
the timeline, having grown up here, I just was able
to hash it together. Now, his book didn't have any photographs,
so when I was reading it, I found myself thinking, Wow,
I wonder.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
What some of these people look like.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
And uh so, then I had to go to the
internet to get their images right and look them up
one by one. Uh So that's so, that's the backstory of.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
It, Craig.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
It is interesting to see the because essentially we're looking
at the music industry in Birmingham through your eyes. I mean,
you're painting from other people's pictures, but of course you
interpret a little bit, and you had a little of
yourself to each one of these pictures. I imagine you yourself.
Probably you've spent a lot of time in the music scene.
You've seen a lot of these acts yourself, haven't you.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Well, yes, and no, probably not as many as I
would have liked to. I'm not really a music scene guy,
at least here so so so yes, no, you know,
I'm more into it from the history angle.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
So well, let's talk about the history then. When we
talk about history of music in Birmingham, what are some
of the acts that came out of Birmingham that struck
you know, we talked about the social change during the
Civil rights move What are some of the acts that
they changed. I guess the horse of musical history or
even our current US history that came out of Birmingham.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Well, that's a tough question to answer. Emilus Hares is
from here. She was born here, but her family moved
away early, so she didn't really hang in the scene
here very much. She did have a grandmother she would
come back to visit, so she in Professor Millard's books.

(10:12):
Someone spots her at a folk club in Homewood, a
popular folk club of the time late sixties called the
Low and Brow House. She was at eighteen years old
at an open mic, So she's probably she's one of
the more well known who has come out of here.
But that's the thing. We haven't produced a lot of

(10:32):
big stars, but we have produced a very you know,
great and the stars that we did produce had to
go elsewhere. For a long time, there was no good
music scene in Birmingham, so people knew that they had
to get out of town. So we lost a lot
of talent to muscle shows and to Nashville, especially because

(10:54):
those are the two closest cities that you know, had
a thriving scene where people could make a limming. You know,
Barry Beckett, who's one of the original Swampers, is from here,
but we lost him to muscle shows and There's a
guy named Henry Strasluski who went up to Nashville and

(11:15):
became one of the most successful Nashville session players and
a favorite of chedd Atkins himself.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
So there's a.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Number of people like that, but it goes way back
farther than that. There's a fellow named Sidney hard Rock
Gunter who was a country star and a hill billy
starr in the late forties who's credited with perhaps pinning
one of the very first rock and roll songs called
the Birmingham Bounce. Uh So he is featured. He's the

(11:47):
very first one I have. There was Baker Knight in
the fifties who wrote some songs for Elvis and Ricky Nelson.
So those two guys are the first ones that we
produced that were from Birmingham, but they had to move
elsewhere to get some success. So this was gonna be

(12:09):
true for a long time. You know, generally almost up
until two thousand.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Have you had a chance to get up to muscle
Sholes and see either Fame or the muscleshol Sound Studio.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
I visited Fame years ago, you know, I haven't been
to Muscle shows Sound.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
They're both, they're both really interesting because it's like stepping
back in time, especially if you have been to muscleshow
Sound Studio, it's like stepping back in time. When you
walk in there, you can smell the smell like ten
thousand cigarettes that have been smoked through all of the
sessions that they've been recording. And you see all over
the walls these odd, these odd round things. You know
they're being used for basically sound absorption, and you ask

(12:48):
what they are, Well, what they were was the when
the power company would ship meters. There'd be a little
styrofoam boxes around the meter to keep them from breaking,
and they collected all as they stuck them up on
the wall. And that's what they use as the soundproofing,
the insulation.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
And that's great. See that's rock and roll.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
And it really is. And there's so many interesting pictures there.
You should go visit and see because they have so
many pictures. Though you could probably paint from some of
those pictures if you didn't already find them online elsewhere
to do more work, because this book is a pretty
hefty book. And I imagine you're not done painting. So
there might be another edition.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Well not any time soon, but we won't rule it out,
because while you're going there, I'd like to speak to
inclusion and exclusion. A lot of people who would worthy
of being included in it are not there simply because
I could not find a photo of them from which

(13:44):
to paint now this, Like I say, this series was
done six years ago, so there's a lot more available now,
so I have missed a lot of people who could
have been included. But before we leave Muscle Shows, I
want to to shout out here into my main layout

(14:04):
in design person whose name is Lila Hood, And if
you are familiar with that name Hood, her father is
David Hood, who was bass player for the Swampers up
in Muscle Shows, so we do have a connection there,
and she did a fabulous job of laying it out

(14:25):
with able assistance from Ben Burford, who's an old rocker
that a lot of people will remember who was real
active at.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
Louis Louis in the eighties.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
People will remember that club one of the main rock
clubs of the eighties. So they did the layout in design,
so we certainly want to give them a shout out.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
I'm trying to remember that was on the corner of
like twentieth in Highland, Wasn't.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
It exactly right conn of Caddy Corner from where the
big fire just was. The building's still there. It's a
great classic Deco building, but I don't know what's there now.
But it was one of the not Louis Lewis, but
it started off as the Cadillac Cafe and in the
early mid seventies, and that's when the music scene in

(15:12):
this city really started, the live music scene, because, like
I say, the people were the original rockers had grown
up and they were of legal age, so clubs came
into being. And that's a big part of the book.
You know, in your average trading card series, like baseball cards,

(15:34):
you have not only the players are important, but you'll
have the team cards and stadium cards and managers and
these other things that make up the whole system. So
I'm riffing off of that too in this book. In
addition to the players, you get what we call the
rock and roll support personnel, the people and the venues

(15:59):
that you know make the scene, which includes recording studios,
record stores, the venue, concert venues, concert promoters, writers. There's
even one rock and roll poet and one rock and
roll artist, so you get a lot of the personnel,
you know, and especially the recording studios are real important.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
You know.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
Mark Harrelson himself owns Boutwell Studios, which has been on
the scenes for over fifty years, and so all of
that is important to the scene and it goes into
the making of any city's good music scene. So those
people need to be honored.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
Did you come off across any pictures of there was
a radio station back in that I think it was
a sixties WSGN in Birmingham and they had this thing
it was I think they call it the Skycastle where
people would come and hang out in the parking lot
and they'd listen to music there and it was It
was a really neat place because it was like an
elevated studio with glass surrounding it. Did you do you
see any pictures of that? And you might even remember that.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
I don't remember it personally, but it is in the book.
You're exactly right, that was It was a unique place
and there are pictures on the internet. So I have
painted in the book because WSGN was the main station
when I was a teenager, so I forgot to even
mention it in the personnel.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
But there is a separate.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Chapter called Radio Radio where we got the original DJs
and the stations. I love painting the stations, they're kind
of easier to faint in the people. So I got
wj WSGN, and I have the Skycastle and wv OK Wyde,

(17:50):
and then there were two black stations, w n N
and WJLD who didn't play rock and roll, but they're
in the section called Blue, Black and Blues Root. So
it's you get Tall Paul White and Shelley Stewart, Shelley
the Playboy, because we used to listen to those guys

(18:11):
back in the day. Because there was kind of a
cutoff point in original rock and roll. Even though you
could hear people like Hank Ballard and the Temptations and
a lot of black groups, you couldn't really hear the
really down blues like Muddy Waters and halland Wolves. So
you had to tune to the black stations. So the
Black and Blues roote is really important, so it's in

(18:34):
the book.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
So all of that, basically that history is all encapsulated
in some of the pictures in this book. The book
is called A History of Birmingham Rock and Roll, a
Trading card Collection, and is written by Craig Leg, the
man who sits before me in the studio, and Craig,
this looks like a great thing for anyone who's looking
for you Christmas present, for somebody who's interested in Birmingham
history or music history.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
We like to think. So yeah, so we were four
on the time. You know that all this is breaking news.
This is the first interview that I've done, although we
have some more lined up. And like say, I'm a
big radio guy, so I'm happy to be here and
thank you for inviting me. Because radio was spread the

(19:18):
gospel of rock and roll. This was so radio is
real important then and.

Speaker 1 (19:24):
Now, and that's the reason why we thought we'd get
your way. They hear on Viewpoint Alabama.

Speaker 4 (19:29):
We like to be on the.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Bleeding edge of breaking news and story and culture. And
this is a great book. You're a great interview Craig Leg.
Thank you so much for joining us on Viewpoint Alabama.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
You're welcome. Thank you.

Speaker 5 (19:41):
You're listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program from
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Speaker 3 (21:22):
And up next.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Diabetes is a real problem in Alabama, and one of
the big concerns with his disease is the loss of
your eyesight. This is Viewpoint, Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.
My name is John Mount, and I'm talking about something
called diabetic retinopathy. Rent A specialists warned that nearly ten
million Americans already have diabetic retinopathy, and that number is
expected to double by twenty fifty. Joining me now from

(21:45):
the American Society of Retina Specialists is doctor Jeffrey Emerson.
Doctor Emerson, welcome to Viewpoint.

Speaker 7 (21:51):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
It's ironic that our eyes are what allows us to
be able to see the world around us, and yet
there are diseases which can affect the eye, which we
may not realize they're happening until it's almost too late.
Doctor Emerson, can you explain what diabetic retinopathy is and
how it relates to people who have diabetes.

Speaker 7 (22:11):
Diabetes damages the retina. The retina is a very important
layer at the back of the eye. It's the light
sensitive part of the eye, and when it gets injured,
you get blurred vision or in some cases blindness. Like
you said, ten million Americans have diabetic retinopathy. Almost half

(22:33):
of people with diabetes will get diabetic retinopathy. We'd really
like to detect diabetic retinopathy early so it can be
treated and we can avoid the vision loss.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
And how does that work. Is it simply the symptoms
that people realize as a problem and so they go
to their doctor, or is there a basic test that
their optomistrists can perform while they're there for their regular
annual screening.

Speaker 7 (22:59):
In the beginning, in the early stages of diabetic retinopathy,
there are no symptoms. Those patients don't even know they
have a problem. It's only later in the disease that
you might notice. So diabetic eye exams, the dilated pupil
exams are very important regularly to detect the problem when

(23:22):
it's early. Now, if you are getting symptoms like blurred
vision or difficulty reading, or shadows or floaters in the vision,
then it's time to see a retina specialist. Retina specialists
have advanced imaging tools in their clinics. They can evaluate
the diabetic retinopathy and know what the options are so

(23:46):
you can get treatment.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
And the treatments for diabetic retopathy. Is it a pill
or a series of exercises, something a shot? How does
it work?

Speaker 7 (23:56):
Thanks to researchers, lots of good tree options. They fall
into three main categories. Like you mentioned, there are shots
in the eye where we put medicine into the eyes
so it can help with the diabetic blood vessels. There's
also laser treatment and there's also surgery. Now most diabetic

(24:18):
patients are getting shots. They come to retina clinic every
month or two for a shot. We have a number
of clinical trials going on that are looking at medicines
that last longer so that the patients don't need treatment
quite so frequently. And there's new treatments that are in
clinical trials, including implants and gene therapy. This is very

(24:44):
exciting because those treatments can last even longer. We still
don't have a cure, but we're getting better and better
at preventing the vision loss.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Do the new treatments do they also involve the because
I have to say, I do know somebody who has
this and the idea of literally a shot, putting a
needle into the eye, it doesn't sound pleasant to me.
So there is treatments on the horizon. Do these also
involve a shot or are some of them oral medications
or other sorts of things that are systemic rather than
actually going directly into the eye.

Speaker 7 (25:16):
Yeah, there are systemic treatments that are being investigated, and
of course the better you're glucose control, the longer you
can delay diabetic retinopathy, so that's a good thing. They're
also clinical trials looking at tills and eye drops at help,
but as of today, the vast majority of diabetic retinopathy

(25:39):
patients are getting shots. Like you say, it doesn't sound fun,
but we of course make the patient comfortable, and the
patients are really happy to retain their vision with it's
really very very helpful treatment.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
There are, of course, types of diabetes. Type one is
an autoimmune disease where the body's immune system attacks and
destroys the cells that in the pancreas that produce insulin.
This is often what juvenile diabetes early what kids have,
and type two is a condition where the body either
it doesn't make enough insulin or it just doesn't use
it efficiently. A lot of times this is later in

(26:20):
life and something that often is acquired through lifestyle, but
not always with diabetic retinopathy. Which type of diabetes is
this more common with?

Speaker 7 (26:30):
They both are that the type one diabetes usually occurs
in younger patients, sometimes since childhood. So if you think
of it that way, those patients are experiencing diabetic retinopathy
all their lives, and that's a very serious concern if
it gets out of control. Type two diabetes usually develops

(26:55):
later in life, so the effects are delayed compared to
type one, but type two diabetics are much more common
than type one, and that I think is why the
population of diabetic patients is growing nowadays in the US.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
And regardless of which type, like you already mentioned, early
detection is important. So I imagine in children this is a
particularly big problem because the longer it goes on, I
would assume the more damage is done to the eye,
and at some point that damage probably is not able
to be repaired.

Speaker 7 (27:32):
Yeah, you're right. I think diabetic patients should be getting
yearly eye exams at a minimum, and the sooner we
detect trouble, the sooner we can treat it and prevent
vision loss. Now we are getting pretty good at slowing
down or stopping vision loss. We can even sometimes restore

(27:56):
vision after vision loss, but not always.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Because the I is a very sensitive organ and it's
not easily repaired so and hard to work on. Also,
so I imagine the idea will be the best treatment
is prevention, and I guess, especially with type two diabetes,
the best thing would be to you know, try and
like you said, control your diet and manage that because
if the diabetes is not as active, it's not going
to be causing the secondary problems like the like the

(28:23):
diabetic retinopathy.

Speaker 7 (28:25):
Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
How do patients find a retina specialist in order to
begin this process first of all, to check for it
and then to treat it if there is an issue.

Speaker 7 (28:35):
We've got some great tools on our website. Find your
Retinas Specialist dot org is an easy place to type
in your zip code or look up a retina specialist
near you. There's also some great information on our page
see for a Lifetime dot org.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
And so, yeah, that was going to have my next question.
So see for a Lifetime dot org to find out
more information. And then if you believe you might be
at risk or you just want to find out, that's
when you go to the find a Retna Specialist dot org.

Speaker 7 (29:08):
Yeah, perfect, thank you.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
And remember it might not be you that has this problem.
It could be somebody you know, so be sure you
share that information with them. Doctor Jeffrey Emerson He is
a medical doctor and a PhD and president of the
American Society of Retina Specialist. Thank you so much for
joining me this week on Viewpoint Alabama.

Speaker 7 (29:25):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
My name is John Mount, and you're listening to Viewpoint
Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.

Speaker 5 (29:32):
You've been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, a public affairs program
from the Alabama Radio Network. The opinions expressed on Viewpoint
Alabama are not necessarily those of the staff, management, or
advertisers of this station.