Sun Ra and the Birmingham Album: The Magic City (1965)

By Chloe Smith

Apt. 6/8

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The Magic City, Sun Ra. El Saturn Records, 1965.

By 1965, Sun Ra was long gone from Birmingham, Alabama. In a previous post, I’ve talked about his life in Birmingham and the following rejection of his hometown. During his early career, Sun Ra wanted nothing to do with the Southern city and lied to interviewers about where he was from. Why then did he record an album about Birmingham titled The

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Apt. 6/8

Apt. 6/8 is the work of Chloe Smith and Anna Williams, who are current graduate students studying musicology at Yale and Arizona State respectively.