Don Keith describes himself as a sucker for a good story.

“I love stories.  Good stories,” the Springville native said.  “I especially love stories about average people who are put into unusual circumstances and accomplish remarkable things.”

As the author of 27 fiction and non-fiction books, Keith has had occasion to tell several such stories, including his latest work, Mattie C.’s Boy, a biography of pioneering broadcaster, businessman, and human rights activist Shelley Stewart.

Keith explained why he wanted to tell Stewart’s story, while sharing a few of his own from his radio days and growing up in Springville.

Mattie C.’s Boy: It’s the story Stewart’s life, beginning with the death of his mother, Mattie C., almost 80 years ago.  She was murdered by her husband in their Birmingham home as five-year-old Stewart and his three brothers watched. He was homeless at age six, seeking shelter in a horse stable, hiding out with a white family in Irondale, and suffering abuse at the hands of relatives.

Stewart rose from such beginnings to become a recognized radio personality, an associate of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and founder of one of the South’s leading advertising agencies.  

“Here’s a man who’s overcome any hardship you can imagine,” Keith said. “If he’s overcome all of that, how in the world can any of us give up? I hope this story inspires people. If they take the time to read it, I know it will.” 

Advice to aspiring writers:  “I still think the best way to learn to write is to read.”

Growing up in Springville:  “It was a major trip for us to go to Roebuck to buy groceries once a month.  Springville was one of those little tiny country towns that you worked awfully hard to be able to move away from.  Now it’s one of those towns you work awfully hard to be able to afford to move back to.”

At Springville High School:  A member of the Class of 1966, Keith was an All-State defensive end/tight end for the Tigers.  “I believe there were less than two dozen people in my graduation class.”

After Springville High:  “I went to school at  the University of Alabama with the intent of playing football and becoming a lawyer, neither of which happened.  I certainly wasn’t good enough to play for Bear Bryant, and two of the three jobs I worked to put myself through school were in radio, so I became more and more interested in that.”

But his initial interst in radio actually began many years earlier:  “My dad was the first TV repairman in this part of the state, so I was always fascinated by being able to hear signals over the air.  When I was a little kid, I’d be out in my backyard with a couple of old record players and a Morton salt box for a microphone, playing radio.  Being on 50,000-watt AM stations and 100,000-watt FM stations was a long way from sitting out there under the hickory tree.”

On the air:  Keith spent a total of 22 years in broadcasting, working at radio stations in Birmingham and Mobile, and on Music Row in Nashville.  He was twice named Radio Personality of the Year by Billboard magazine.  

The time Marty Robbins dropped by the radio station:  While Keith was working in Nashville, the country star “showed up for an interview with a bottle wine and a big block of chesse and crackers.  We ate and drank it while we did the interview.  After the show, I took him from the radio station to his tour bus.”  It was Robbins’ last tour before he suffered a fatal heart attack.

Meeting another country star:  “Charlie Daniels showed up at the station one morning at 5 a.m.  He was just passing through Birmingham, and I interviewed him on the air at 6:30.”

The best advice he ever received:  “It’s from the old Davy Crockett television show.  ‘Be sure you’re right.  And then go ahead.”