Council family leaves its mark on Chapel Hill

Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon — which celebrated the 40th anniversary of its UK release on Sunday — has a seldom-mentioned connection to Chapel Hill.

One half of Pink Floyd’s name is derived from a 1930s Chapel Hill blues guitarist named Floyd Council. The other half came from Pink Anderson, a blues musician out of South Carolina.

Decades after Council played his music on the streets of Chapel Hill, his relatives continue to leave their mark on the town.

Floyd Council is a relative of another well-known Chapel Hill figure — Mildred “Mama Dip” Council, the owner of Mama Dip’s restaurant on Rosemary Street.

Mama Dip said she remembers Floyd Council, her husband’s cousin and a good friend, as a happy and fun-loving man.

Floyd Council’s nicknames in the music industry included “Dipper Boy” and “The Devil’s Daddy-in-Law.”

“In those days no one really taught guitar — you had to learn from someone in the family,” Mama Dip said.

“He got started playing in the street for money.”

He only recorded a few songs, but he played music until he suffered a stroke in 1970. He died six years later.

Family members continue to distinguish themselves as an important part of the town’s culinary history.

Mama Dip said she moved to Chapel Hill in 1945 at the age of 16, and she opened her restaurant in 1976.

“It’s a landmark I hope lasts as long as the Old Well,” said Mama Dip’s granddaughter Tonya Council said of Mama Dip’s restaurant.

Tonya Council is just one of Mama Dip’s descendants to carry on her tradition of cooking, opening Tonya’s Cookie Company in 2009.

Tonya Council said she began by experimenting in her grandmother’s kitchen while bussing tables at the restaurant.

She said her best-known cookies are pecan crisp. She said her goal was to create a cookie that tasted just like her grandmother’s pecan pie.

“Nobody cooks as good as Mama Dip,” Tonya Council said. “We’re all runners-up.”

Mama Dip’s daughter Annette “Neecy” Council also opened a cake batter mix company, Sweet Neecy, in 2009.

Annette Council said she began her company by making homemade cakes for extra money. She later realized it would be more efficient to make cake mix and leave the baking to the customer.

She said the company is her way of carrying on the family’s legacy in Chapel Hill.

“Everyone should live their own dreams,” she said. “This is my portion of continuing the legacy.”

Contact the desk editor at city@dailytarheel.com.