It started one night with a box of shoes.
Some Alabama artists ran out of firewood and, they surmised, a box of shoes seemed an appropriate enough substitute for traditional kindling. So began the first shoe burning — a well-kept Southern literary tradition of telling stories for each sole burned.
In Shoe Burnin': Stories of Southern Soul over a dozen authors and songwriters collected their tales in a combination of musical and literary sojourns.
KUT's David Brown spoke with Shari Smith and Chuck Cannon, two writers who contributed to the book.
