This Day in 2003: Clarence Carter and Eddie Floyd – Alabama Music Hall of Fame

15 years ago today in the city of Mobile, two bona fide R&B legends were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.

Discussions to begin an Alabama Music Hall of Fame first started in 1978, but it would take another four years before construction actually began on the hall itself, and another three years would come and go before the first induction ceremony took place. On that inaugural year, Nat King Cole, Buddy Killen, and Hank Williams became the first three members of the Hall of Fame, and it’s a laundry list of familiar names from there, including W.C. Handy, Sam Phillips, Percy Sledge, Tammy Wynette, The Commodores, Martha Reeves… Oh, and did we mention the band Alabama? Yes, it’s kind of a given that they’d be in there, but we thought we’d make sure their name came up.

In 2003, R&B legends Clarence Carter and Eddie Floyd entered the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, but they weren’t the only ones: Emmylou Harris and Mack Vickery joined them. At the ceremony, Floyd performed “Knock on Wood” and “634-5789,” while Carter delivered versions of “Slip Away,” “Patches,” and – since he never would’ve been allowed to leave the stage if he hadn’t played it – “Strokin’.”

In an interview with The Desert News after the induction ceremony, Carter mused on how wonderful the occasion proved to be. “The wonderful thing about these affairs… So many of us go back so many years together that it’s like a big reunion, a big homecoming. We get together and laugh and reminisce and just have a great, great time. That’s what it’s all about.”