In the Guinea Heritage Association’s April Fourth Friday program, Norman Snowden, one of the founding members of the Alley Cats group, will talk about “Gasoline Alley: Guinea Music from the Past.”
The program will be held at 6 p.m. on Friday, April 26 at Buck’s Store Museum in Bena.
A building at the Bena intersection, originally constructed as a Studebaker dealership, became known as Gasoline Alley, a place to hear local musicians.
The building, now gone (dealt a final blow by Hurricane Isabel), had many uses through the years. The Studebaker dealership was followed by years of use as the county school bus garage, which was followed by Smith’s Wheel Alignment, commonly referred to as John Smith’s Garage.
In 1977, Smith agreed to let a group of local musicians open the old front showroom as a music venue. This space was nothing fancy, but the community enthusiastically welcomed this informal gathering place dubbed “Gasoline Alley.” One core group of performers, the Alley Cats, played t...