Troy Trivia

• Troy was the birthplace of boogie woogie pianist Pine Top Smith.

Clarence Smith, better known as Pinetop Smith or Pine Top Smith (11 June 1904 - 15 March 1929) was an influential American boogie-woogie style blues pianist.

Smith was born in Troy, Alabama and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. He received his nickname as a child from his liking for climbing trees. In 1920 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked as an entertainer before touring on the T. O. B. A. vaudeville circuit, performing as a singer and comedian as well as a pianist. For a time he worked as accompanist for blues singer Ma Rainey and Butterbeans and Susie.

In the mid 1920s he was recommended by Cow Cow Davenport to J. Mayo Williams at Vocalion Records, and in 1928 he moved, with his wife and young son, to Chicago to record. For a time he, Albert Ammons, and Meade Lux Lewis lived in the same rooming house.

On 29 December 1928 he recorded his influential "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie," one of the first "boogie woogie" style recordings to make a hit, and which cemented the name for the style. Pine Top talks over the recording, telling how to dance to the number. He said he originated the number at a house-rent party in St. Louis, Missouri. Pinetop was the first ever to direct "the girl with the red dress on" to "not move a peg" until told to "shake that thing" and "mess around".

Pinetop Smith was scheduled to make another recording session for Vocalion in 1929, but died from a gunshot wound in a dance-hall fight in Chicago the day before the session. Sources differ as to whether he was the intended recipient of the bullet. "I saw Pinetop spit blood" was the famous headline in Down Beat magazine.

No photographs of Smith are known to exist.

• Home to current Major League Baseball player Brian Meadows (Free Agent).

Matthew Brian Meadows (born November 21, 1975) is a relief pitcher and is currently a free agent.

Meadows graduated from Charles Henderson High School in Troy, Alabama, where he played baseball. In the offseason he designates time and effort in support of the Garth Brooks' Teammates for Kids Foundation. Meadows is also involved in the March of Dimes program in Alabama. He was originally signed by Florida scout Bill Singer

• Home to Bobby Jon Drinkard, a contestant on Survivor: Palau and Survivor: Guatemala.

Bobby Jon Drinkard (born May 10, 1977) was a contestant on Survivor: Palau and Survivor: Guatemala. Bobby Jon is perhaps best known for being intensely competitive in challenges, which was presented on the show as being comically at odds with his normally polite and mild-mannered demeanor. Bobby Jon graduated from Troy University in Troy, Alabama, in 2003 with a degree in journalism. While at Troy, he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Bobby Jon is currently the host and producer of a statewide television show broadcast in Alabama called On the Job.

• Former home country singer Hank Williams Jr.

Randall Hank Williams, more commonly known by his stage name, Hank Williams, Jr. (born May 26, 1949) is an American country singer-songwriter and musician. His sound is often compared to southern rock or country rock. The son of country music pioneer Hank Williams, he is the father of Shelton Hank Williams (aka Hank Williams III), Holly Williams, Hillary Williams, Samual and Katie Williams.

Born Randall Hank Williams in Shreveport, Louisiana, and known by the nickname Bocephus (named after Grand Ole Opry comedian Rod Brasfield's ventriloquist dummy), he was raised by his mother Audrey after his father's death in 1953. His rise to fame began with lessons on the piano by Jerry Lee Lewis. He also was taught the guitar. He began performing when he was eight years old, and in 1963, he made his recording debut with "Long Gone Lonesome Blues," a song which was a staple of his father's career.

Williams's early career was guided, some say outright dominated, by his mother Audrey Williams, who many claim was the driving force that led his father to musical superstardom during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Audrey, in many ways, wished for young Hank to be nothing more than a "Hank Williams, Sr. impersonator," sometimes going as far as to have clothes designed for him that were identical to his father's stage clothes, and vocal styling very similar to those of his father.