Celebrating Catfish

Catfish "tails" abound in Americana, including her in Alabama!

In Mark Twain’s 1883 memoir, Life on the Mississippi, Twain writes of having seen six-foot, 250-pound catfish in the river, which, if true, would dwarf the standing North American record—a 143-pound blue cat caught in Kerr Lake on the Virginia–North Carolina border in 2011.

Divers working on dams have seen incredibly large catfish — so large, in fact, the divers refused to go back underwater because they feared being eaten! 

While some catfish can weigh more than 100 pounds, they don't get big enough to swallow humans so you don't have to worry about going into the water. 

We are celebrating Catfish with song and images. For instance, Farmer Jason provides a musical background to our homage with his 2014 song!

The inspiration for Alabama Public Radio’s 2019 End-of-Year fund drive thank-you gifts came straight from the Northport, Alabama studio of renowned folk artist Scott McQueen.

McQueen’s signature "Catfish" design was born in 2013 from a delightfully literal piece of advice.

As McQueen tells it, a little girl—about five or six years old—came strutting into his booth, "prissing around" and intensely analyzing every single piece of art.

he completely fixated on his fish painting. Hoping to charm his young guest, McQueen leaned down and asked, "Little girl, do you like that fish?"

The girl didn't blink. She put her hands firmly on her hips, looked him dead in the eye, and said, "No, I do not."

When McQueen asked why, she delivered a masterclass in literal logic: "If you'll paint a kitty cat's head on it, then you can call it a catfish." She then spun right around, told her mother, "Let's go," and walked out.

Amused and inspired by the interaction, McQueen went straight back to his studio, painted a cat's head onto a fish body, and labeled it a "Catfish."

It became an overnight sensation. Today, you can often find him sitting outside his Northport studio under string lights, listening to old-school radio, whistling, and finger-painting those exact whimsical catfish.

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