DuvALUMNI: Anthems and a Christmas Classic

While my last article focused on the top 40 singles that came from Jacksonville, there is so much more musically to discover that has an association with these parts. Here are four such instances of songs you may not have known that had a Jacksonville connection.




"Orange Blossom Special” – That this fiddle classic is a standard in the bluegrass community is a given. Who wrote it? That’s still up in the air. Chubby Wise, who claims co-authorship of the song, lived here and claims to have written it in 1938 with Ervin Rouse, who receives official credit on copyrights. What is known is the Orange Blossom Special, a train which the song is named after, travelled between New York City and Miami, with a stop in Jacksonville. Wise stated that he and Rouse wrote the song after touring the train here at the Jacksonville terminal. There is a book devoted to unraveling the mystery of the authorship of the song called The Orange Blossom Boys: the untold story of Ervin T. Rouse, Chubby Wise and the world's most famous fiddle tune written by Randy Noles. Known as the “Fiddle Players’ National Anthem.”