North of Talladega, the highway passes the entrance to Talladega Superspeedway, home of the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Xfinity Series, and Camping World Truck Series races that are held annually.

It immediately crosses a railroad track and turns south, passing through a ridge cut, before junctioning with US 278.

It enters the main part of Rainbow City and junctions with US 411 and crosses the Coosa River.

It crosses over multiple forks of the Coosa River as it enters Calhoun County.

There is a highly complex string of intersections in this city, including a point where SR 9 continues on SR 77's right-of-way and another point where the two routes parallel each other as they leave the city to the south.

It maintains a concurrency with it as it enters the main part of Meadow Valley (the city).

By 1961, the highway was extended to its current northern terminus in northwestern Etowah County.

The earlier routes that predated SR 77 in Talladega and Calhoun counties include the Gilbert's Ferry road and the Jackson Trace, which was used and named after General Andrew Jackson, who, with militia used this part of the route the defeat the Creek people at the Battle Of Horseshoe Bend.