Country Boy Eddie, Channel 6, and the Waterfall at Blount Springs

The Morning Sound of Alabama

There was a time when a television show did not have to be slick to become part of daily life. In Birmingham, Alabama, one of the best examples was The Country Boy Eddie Show, the long-running WBRC Channel 6 program hosted by Gordon Edward Burns, known to generations of viewers as Country Boy Eddie. He was part musician, part salesman, part comedian, part master of ceremonies, and part rural philosopher. More than anything, he was familiar. He appeared in living rooms before work, before school, before the house was fully awake.

Country Boy Eddie belonged to a period when local television still felt local. The show did not try to imitate network polish. Its strength was the opposite. It felt like a front porch with cameras. The music was real, the humor was homespun, and the pace was human. Viewers saw fiddles, guitars, gospel quartets, young singers, touring musicians, and regular characters who became part of the morning routine. In an era when much of American entertainment was already being centralized, this show remained stubbornly regional.

That regional quality is what makes the story worth preserving. Country Boy Eddie was not merely a Birmingham television personality. He was a bridge between country people and television, between porch music and commercial media, between Blount County and Nashville. The story also reaches beyond the WBRC studio to a remembered outdoor gathering place near Blount Springs, where water, summer heat, and country music gave fans another way to experience the same spirit they saw on television.

Burns started out in radio in the early 1950s, building the on-air personality that would later carry over to television.

WBRC Channel 6 and a Local Television Institution

Country Boy Eddie’s television run is remarkable by almost any standard. WBRC identifies his program as running from 1957 to 1993, a span of nearly four decades on Birmingham television. That means the show crossed multiple generations: black-and-white television, color television, the rise of cable, changing musical tastes, and the decline of the old local morning variety format. Through all of that, Eddie’s persona remained rooted in a simple promise: wake up with us, hear some music, laugh a little, and remember where you came from.

The show’s timing was crucial to its success. It aired very early, becoming part of the day before most public life began. Farmers, factory workers, schoolchildren, office workers, and retirees could all recognize the ritual. For some, it was background sound while coffee brewed. For others, it was appointment television. Eddie’s voice and fiddle helped mark the beginning of the day in the same way a church bell, a rooster, or a radio announcer once did.

WBRC’s remembrance of Burns after his death emphasized not only the length of the show’s run but also the affection Birmingham had for him. He was remembered as a performer who would go wherever people would listen and as a businessman who understood the value of advertising. That last point is important. Country Boy Eddie was not just a character created by television executives. He understood how the local media economy worked. He sold himself, his sponsors, his music, and his audience’s trust.

That trust came from consistency. Eddie’s show may have seemed loose, but viewers trusted the rhythm. They knew what kind of program they were getting. It was music and talk, salesmanship and storytelling, humor and sincerity. In modern terms, it was a personal brand. In older terms, it was simply a man showing up every morning and being himself.

A Stage for Future Stars

The most famous example of Country Boy Eddie’s influence is Tammy Wynette. Before she became one of country music’s defining voices, she was still trying to make her way in Birmingham. Biographical accounts connect her early Alabama years to the Country Boy Eddie program, where she received a valuable opportunity to sing on television. That detail is important because local television could do something then that the internet does now: put an unknown person in front of an audience.

The show became a practical gateway for musicians who needed exposure. It was not the Grand Ole Opry, but it was a stage. It was not Nashville, but Nashville could hear about it. Country musicians have always depended on informal networks: radio hosts, booking agents, small-town promoters, family bands, church singers, record shops, and regional television shows. Eddie operated inside that world. He knew that talent could come from a beauty shop, a farm, a church platform, or a high school gymnasium.

That is one reason viewers loved him. The show did not draw a hard line between celebrity and ordinary life. A famous guest might share the same platform as a local performer. A young singer could stand in the same television space that an established musician occupied. For a viewer at home, that made country music feel reachable. For a performer, it created a possibility: maybe this morning show could become the first step toward a larger career.

The list of names associated with Eddie’s program and circle of influence is part of its legend. Some names are documented in obituaries and broadcast histories; others live in viewer memory and family stories. Either way, the pattern is clear. The Country Boy Eddie Show was not only a place to watch music. It was a place where music careers, friendships, bookings, and local reputations could begin.

The Waterfall at Blount Springs

The second half of this story moves north of Birmingham, toward Blount County and the old Blount Springs area. Blount Springs has its own history as a mineral springs resort community, a place once associated with health, summer travel, and escape from city heat. Long after the resort era faded, the landscape still carried a sense of retreat. The waterfall remembered by many locals as Country Boy Eddie’s Waterfall gave that memory a physical setting.

The waterfall is a powerful image because it turns a television story into a place story. The WBRC studio was one kind of stage. The waterfall was another. I have been on both. One was indoor, controlled, and broadcast through a camera. The other was outdoor, seasonal, and communal. Both settings fit Eddie’s personality. He could work a studio microphone, but he also made sense in the open air, around families, musicians, folding chairs, picnic coolers, and the sound of moving water.

Local sources and community recollections identify the site as Country Boy Eddie’s Waterfall. Younger people today often associate the same location with the Village at Blount Springs. The story survives through local memory rather than formal archives, but those memories deserve to be preserved. People who went there, heard music there like I did, or grew up hearing relatives talk about it will keep the memories alive.

That distinction is not a weakness. In Southern history, many important cultural memories live outside official records. Courthouse deeds, newspaper clippings, and television archives matter to researchers, but so do the things people remember: where the stage sat, who brought the guitars, which singer appeared one summer, how the waterfall sounded behind the music, and how children ran around while adults listened.

Summer Concerts, Opry Guests, and Community Memory

Country Boy Eddie did not merely perform on television. He also helped bring country music into community spaces, like a business grand opening in Roebuck, a talent contest at the Jitney Jungle or Volume Foods grocery store in Hanceville, and including the summer concert memories tied to the Blount Springs waterfall. Among the musicians remembered in connection with those gatherings was Jim Ed Brown, the smooth-voiced country singer associated with The Browns, solo hits such as “Pop a Top,” duet work with Helen Cornelius, and decades of Grand Ole Opry history.

Jim Ed Brown released “Pop a Top” in 1967—specifically in May 1967 as a single from his album Just Jim. That song became his signature hit, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard country chart later that year. I was 7-years old that summer when I stood a mere 10 feet from him and watched in awe as he performed at The Waterfall.

Jim Ed Brown’s presence gives the Blount Springs story a wider country music frame. He was not simply a passing name. He belonged to the national country music world. The Browns joined the Grand Ole Opry in the 1960s, and Brown remained closely associated with the Opry for decades. If a performer of that stature appeared at a rural Alabama waterfall gathering connected to Country Boy Eddie, it tells us something about Eddie’s reach. He could bring Nashville people into Alabama community spaces.

For you locals, can you imagine Blount Springs without the Top Hat Barbeque? The story I'm relating about the concert at the waterfall happened the year before the restaurant opened.

That is the real heart of the story. Country Boy Eddie represented a kind of cultural middle ground. He was local enough that viewers felt they knew him. He was connected enough that he could attract names with regional or national recognition. He did not need to move the whole audience to Nashville. He could bring a piece of Nashville home.

Nineteen years later, I met Jim Ed Brown at the Grand Ole Opry and recounted the story to him about how a 7-year old boy watched as he would step up to the microphone and make that popping sound with his thumb and cheek. Listened as he played the guitar and sang, sounding just like his record, which I had listened to many times on the juke box at Boles' Phillips 66 filling station and cafe in Johnsons Crossing.

Imagine the scene: a summer evening in Blount County, the air heavy, children wandering near parents, older fans recognizing voices from radio and television, and musicians stepping onto a stage that did not need velvet curtains to feel important. The waterfall supplied its own background track. The audience supplied the rest: applause, laughter, lawn chairs scraping, and the low murmur of neighbors seeing neighbors.

Those concerts also remind us that country music was not born as arena entertainment. It grew from family groups, church singing, barn dances, radio stations, road shows, and civic gatherings. Eddie’s waterfall concerts fit that older pattern. They were not only performances. They were social events. People came to hear the music, but they also came to be part of a shared place.

Why This Story Still Resonates

Country Boy Eddie’s story resonates with folks because it captures a vanishing kind of media. Today, almost every performer has a camera in a pocket and access to global platforms. That is powerful, but it is also impersonal. Eddie’s world was smaller and more physical. A person had to show up. A musician had to tune an instrument, stand under studio lights with a sick feeling in their stomach as I had, because I had to get up so early in the morning (middle of the night actually) to drive to the Red Mountain studio in Birmingham, and perform for a host who might become an advocate. Viewers had to tune in at the right time. Fans had to drive to the waterfall if they wanted the outdoor version of the experience.

There is also a lesson here about Alabama’s cultural confidence. Birmingham did not have to apologize for liking its own people. WBRC did not have to pretend that a country morning show was too rural for television. Eddie’s audience did not need permission from New York or Nashville to enjoy what felt familiar. The show worked because it spoke the language of its viewers.

This article is more than a recollection of seeing Jim Ed Brown perform at the Waterfall in 1967 as a young boy, and my playing bass guitar with Roland Johnson on the Country Boy Eddie Show once upon a time. It is a memory piece about how place, media, and music overlap. It connects an old Channel 6 studio set to a Blount County waterfall. It connects Tammy Wynette’s early television opportunity to Jim Ed Brown’s Opry connection. It connects the private memories of Alabama families to a public record of one man’s remarkable career.

The best outcome I can hope for, is that my article will leave readers with a simple feeling: this was ours. Country Boy Eddie was not a distant celebrity. He was part of the furniture of Alabama life. The waterfall was not just a natural feature. It was a gathering place. WBRC Channel 6 was not just a station. It was a morning habit. Together, they tell a story of a time when local culture could be both modest and mighty.

Timeline: Country Boy Eddie and the Alabama Country Music Thread