Harold is exactly the kind of artist that the Heritage Bridge Award was envisioned for. He has achieved regional and national recognition and has produced high level of artistry over a long career but he is not well known by everyone in the community that helped shape him. He is continuing to bring his music back to Cleveland County and to inspire people with his praise and
encouraging presence.

He has volunteered his time to visit and sing with students at North Shelby School. When he first moved back to Shelby, he and long time friend and guitarist William Cord performed for and sang with special needs students at the school. “That was great because they sang with us and some of them couldn’t really talk,” Harold said.

A major accomplishment that he is proud of is his mentoring of younger musicians and friends. In this way he embodies the spirit of the award to pass the torch on to the next generations. Harold Williamson is truly a bridge from past to present, from young to old and from the experience of a rural and small town minority background to the wider world – to all of us.

2010, the Art of Sound is proud to announce two new recipients of the Heritage Bridge Award. This award is given to recognize some of the people who, over a career or a life-time, have contributed extraordinarily to the musical fabric of our county and our area. This year’s awards go to David Lee and Myrtle Irvin Green. Both have persevered through many years in different ways to promote and conserve the unique and special musical talent that percolates here, regardless of adversity or difficulty.

Join us for the Heritage Bridge Award presentations at the
Don Gibson Theater 12:30pm and in the Arts Center at 7:00pm.

David Lee
Cleveland County native David Lee never gives up on his dreams. In fact, he’s still pursuing many of them. Some of his biggest dreams began when he was a young man making music, writing songs, and getting music out to the people. He never let the fact that he was of very modest means, or that he was located in Shelby instead of some recording or music publishing center or anything else hold him back.

David loves all kinds of music. Bill Monroe has a place in his heart along with the sweet soul music that perhaps got him the most attention and success. He worked with many white musicians as well as black, and often at the same time. David embodied what soul music seemed to represent, especially in the south in the 1950’s and 60’s – music that belonged to and united everyone, that everyone claimed as their own.

We don’t know of anyone in this area that compares in all these areas of accomplishment in the world of sound and music. In fact, one of David’s businesses was installing sound systems out of his Washington Sound record shop on Buffalo Street. He also put on shows at Washington Center, the center of African American entertainment in the Shelby area. At one of those shows, he met a young lady from Greenville South Carolina, one Ann Burton. David was impressed with her singing and gave her some songs of his to work on. The result was a multi-year journey that saw them work together and rise along in the music business regionally. Ann Burton took the stage name Ann Sexton. They recorded her songs on Lee’s Impel label and when they sold out and David made an almost chance connection with soul DJ John R (Richburg), they were re-released on John R’s own Seventy-seven imprint. Copies of some of those records are now sought after by collectors world wide. Ann Sexton has made a return to music, especially in Europe, where there is a big “Northern Soul” scene.
David recorded and worked with a mixed group of musicians and singers known at the Constellations. Don Camp and Harold Allen and others saw that they needed something new as the music was changing in the late 1950’s. That turned out to be soul music, but as white instrumentalists they needed singers and they needed the dance moves that audiences expected from the predominantly black style. So they partnered with the Guest Brothers (Bryan “Brownie”, Benjamin and Sam) and William “Butch” Mitchell, all of whom were African American, and history began to be made. David wrote for the group and recorded them.