A Century of ‘Yea, Alabama!’

A lot has changed between 1926 and 2026. Then, Prohibition was in full effect, Babe Ruth was hitting home runs, and the first transatlantic phone call was placed. Now, Prohibition is long gone, the World Series is broadcast internationally, and we carry our phones in our pockets.

“I tell people, if you got into a time machine and you went back a hundred years, two of the only things that wouldn’t be incredibly different would be that there’d be a football game, and there’d be a band at that football game,” said Dr. Ken Ozzello, director of bands and the Million Dollar Band.

And if you happened to travel back to 1926 in Tuscaloosa, you might be lucky enough to witness the beginnings of a fight song that would last 100 years and beyond.

A call for a new song

“Rumblings of a demand by the student body for a new song whose words and tune will be strictly original and not a parody on another college’s song trickled to the Rammer-Jammer office the other day.” So began a November 1925 article in the Rammer-Jammer, a weekly humor magazine published by University of Alabama students at that time.

While taking no position on the matter, the magazine acknowledged that there was a demand for an alternative to the current UA fight song, “Alabama Swing,” which owed a heavy debt to Washington and Lee’s fight song.

So, with the help of three other sponsors, the Rammer-Jammer offered a prize of $50 for a new fight song, with original words and music that would be unique to UA. One of the sponsors was William C. “Champ” Pickens, who had recently dubbed UA’s musical ensemble the “Million Dollar Band.”

“It is suggested that the tune of the song be a lively march air, similar to ones now used by other colleges,” the magazine counseled. “It is also suggested by Rammer-Jammer that the words be not over 16 or 20 lines.”

We are the gold standard

When Nick Saban started coaching the Crimson Tide football team, he wanted to begin a tradition of singing the fight song with the players, in the locker room, following every win.

“He’s such a stickler for details,” said Ozzello. “He wanted to be sure everybody knew the words, so we brought cards with the words and we taught them.”

Now, every year, they still do.

99% of the music we play is covering somebody else’s music, but this particular song, we are the gold standard.

The arrangement Woodard plays, which is the arrangement most familiar to fans across the globe, is one that was composed by Steve Sample Sr. After traveling the U.S. as a professional musician and a four-year tour in the Air Force, Sample entered The University of Alabama as a freshman in 1955, when he was already in his late twenties. When the band director at the time, Colonel Carleton Butler, realized that Sample could arrange for a band, he asked him to compose arrangements as a first-year student. Under Butler’s leadership, Sample became an instructor and official arranger of the Million Dollar Band.

“He was not a marching band person. He was a big band person,” said Sample’s son, Steve Sample Jr. “And his writing for the band back then reflected a different approach than most people who wrote for marching band wrote. He wrote three trumpet parts sometimes, where a lot of times arrangers just wrote unison trumpet, unison trombone — a little simpler approach because you want more power. But he wrote more like you would write for a professional performing band than a typical marching band.”

Reflecting on the challenges of performing the song, Ozzello said, “It’s a march, and there’s a particular style to playing march music.” Namely, in marches, it is important to give the right notes the proper weight. “The rule of thumb is the longer the note, the more weight it gets, like in the style of the [John Phillips] Sousa band.”

But the clarinets and piccolos don’t get off easily, either.

“There’s also some incredibly high clarinet and piccolo obbligato stuff on top,” he said.

No wonder Woodard remembers her piccolo fingerings.

A lasting imprint

Sample thinks that music can imprint on people at an early age.

“People hear ‘Yea, Alabama!’ and learn it early in life,” he said. “When you hear that song and the excitement you associate with it, I don’t think that wears off.”

Ozzello grew up in Pittsburgh, but remembers the song being played on television when he was a child.

“There were very few college football games on television, but I remember going to my grandparents and distinctly remember a Saturday night where LSU played Alabama because those colors are so vibrant and distinct, and I remember hearing that song,” he said. “And when I came for my job interview here in the late 80s, hearing it for the first time at rehearsal really kind of struck a chord in my memory.”

For her part, Woodard heard the fight song for the first time when she came to campus for orientation.

“I remember being at Bama Bound doing first day stuff, and I remember my mom saying, ‘oh, that’ll be you playing that,’ because they had the Million Dollar Band playing it for us,” she said. “So that was one of the first times I really got to hear it, and I do remember that sticking out to me and trying to listen for the music and listen for my part.”

Countless performances later, she has mastered her part but still looks forward to playing the song. Though she graduates in December, she anticipates rejoining the band as an alum when, at one football game per year, band alumni are invited to come back and perform with the existing ensemble.

“It really does unify all of us together through the years we’ve played this,” she said.

Woodard’s father sometimes asks if she is tired of playing “Yea, Alabama!” yet.

“You’d think so, but I’m really not,” she said. “I love playing it every single time.”

The legacy continues

Listen to the Million Dollar Band play the fight song in a recording from last fall.

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