As exotic and titillating as the goings-on looked through the widened eyes of a 17-year-old, Don Robbins could have been cruising the French Riviera or some other naughty playground halfway around the globe. As it was, he and a buddy were in a 1968 Camaro somewhere in the middle latitudes of Georgia, a short jaunt from their home in Forest Park.

By Jewly Hight The shelf life of a contemporary pop song is usually pretty short. People crave it for a season, a year at best, before getting tired of its ubiquitous hook and moving on to the next now thing. Johnny Mercer’s time was much friendlier to the catchy song; one singer’s version might spawn five others. He had plenty of hits that did just that...

By Stanley Booth Songs from “Accentuate The Positive” to “Moon River” bear the stamp of his assured lyrical hand and four Academy Awards testify to his place in Hollywood’s firmament of stars. But while Johnny Mercer’s songs remain well known, the man behind them often remains in the peripheral vision of near-obscurity. So who was Johnny Mercer, the...

Keeper of the brotherhood’s flame still burns bright By Lisa Love Gregg Allman has been portrayed various ways in the press over the years, his actions and motivations interpreted freely by many a music journalist and more than a few tabloid hacks (which is what a relationship with Cher will do to a guy, whether you’re a bagel boy or a rock star). But as a...

By Bret Love The north Georgia mountain town of Dahlonega, at the foothills of the Appalachian range, is primarily known for three things: Gold, as it was the site of the very first gold rush in the United States (which began in 1829 and lasted until the California gold rush began in 1848); wine, with five popular vineyards and wineries in Lumpkin County alone;...

Think Atlanta’s rap scene is incredible? Wait ‘til you hear from the ladies cooing its R&B scene to the top. By DeMarco Williams Some say it was when three hometown cuties named T-Boz, Left Eye and Chili began prancing around in colorful overalls in 1991. Others swear it was the day two Southwest Atlanta kids called Kris Kross started wearing their...

A House of Blues Restored ‘Ma’ Rainey’s Columbus Home is Sweet Again By Fred C. Fussell After years of neglect and nearly collapsing into a scrambled heap of rubble, and after decades of being in a state of unrestored limbo, the Gertrude “Ma” Rainey House in Columbus is finally all dressed up and ready to rock. When Gertrude “Ma” Rainey ended her...

Take My Hand, Lead Me Home The Life and Legacy of the Rev. Thomas Andrew Dorsey By Rev. Billy C. Wirtz Augusta, Ga., May 1970: I’m sitting in the Bell Auditorium watching Robert Blair of the Violinaires “walking the crowd.” A single spotlight shines down upon his glistening processed hair and dances off his tangerine-colored alligator shoes. A pool of...

What does it mean when one of the world’s biggest bands remains LOCAL? By Chris Hassiotis Georgia’s an ocean away, and you’re a long way from home. You’ve found your way out of the tightly bound music town of Athens, if only for a little while, and you’re on a bus speeding across the Spanish plains. You reach into your bag for your iPod, eager for a...

Blowin’ In The Wind  By Pete McCommons, Research By Dennis Waters When Dennis Waters gets something on his mind, he’s like a dog with a bone. Last year he called me up and said, “I think it’s a disgrace to our state that Sonny Terry’s not in the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. What do you think?” I allowed as how I had assumed that Sonny...

Fletcher Henderson – Georgia’s overlooked jazz innovator by DAVID KIRBY Let’s face it—the feds can find anybody. But that’s not a bad thing when you’re trying to dig up the real story behind a hard-to-pin-down legend like Fletcher Henderson Jr., arguably the single most important figure in the development of big band jazz in America and the man...

An Oral History of The El Caminos By Bret Love Long before the Black Lips, Deerhunter or any of Atlanta’s other current indie-rock hopefuls, there were The El Caminos, a hard-driving, hard-living group of miscreants who blazed through the city’s mid-‘90s rock scene. Composed of vocalist JJ Garrison, guitarist Craig Chmelewski, bassist Paul E. Jones and...

In fall 2007, the Athens quartet Pylon reissued its 1980 debut album as Gyrate Plus. Gyrate was the first LP on Danny Beard’s Atlanta-based DB Records, the pioneering new wave label in the South. With the omission of R.E.M., Beard released Athens groups the B-52s, Love Tractor, Oh OK, Pylon and the Side Effects. Atlanta colleagues Kevin Dunn and the Swimming...

By Lee Valentine Smith “Tiiiiiiiinnnnnnnn roof …rusted!” Chastain Park, Aug. 1, 2007: The wildly popular—and often misheard—break from “Love Shack,” the B-52s’ biggest hit, reverberates through the packed Atlanta amphitheater, drawing the biggest roar of approval of the evening. As the band nears the end of its sweltering 14-song set, the crowd...

Just give Mick Kinney that old-time, pre-rock ’n’ roll By Lee Valentine “I feel current,” laughs multi-instrumentalist Mick Kinney as he sits on his front porch in picturesque Pine Lake, not too far from the acoustic haven of Decatur. “I just feel a little—um, obscure.” For Mick Kinney, obscurity is a way of life. “When I play, people come up and...

Drive-By Truckers kingpin Patterson Hood chats with Georgia actor/director Ray McKinnon Ray McKinnon is a gifted actor, writer, director and producer of films. He grew up in Adel, Georgia and is best known as a character actor, usually playing southern weirdoes—but his range extends far beyond that. He was the “bonafide” guy engaged to Holly Hunter’s...

Soul/funk queen and Augusta native Sharon Jones has emerged triumphant, despite navigating a minefield of obstacles. With boundless energy and a stage show that’ll knock you out, is she the hardest-working woman in show business? Sharon Jones was on the road when she got the news of her brother’s death in late 2006—Sunday, December 31 to be exact. She and...

I first met Usher Raymond IV in 1993 at the Jack the Rapper convention. The 14-year-old R&B prodigy had been recently signed to a recording contract by LaFace Records co-founder L.A. Reid and was there to promote his debut single, “Think Of You”; I was an entry-level marketing rep for BMG Distribution, working with artists as they greeted their adoring...

There are a slew of “brother acts” in traditional country and bluegrass—The Delmores, the Stanleys, the Louvins—but “sister acts” are quite rare. The small north Georgia town of Calhoun is home to the Lovell Sisters, Jessica (21), Megan (18), and Rebecca (16). The band formed just three years ago, but the Sisters have already made some major marks. A...

Otis Redding was soul, but Otis Redding was country, too. That was a point on which he always insisted, and that was the way others saw him. His strength was his simplicity, even if the simplicity was hard-won. The basis for his music was sincerity, not spectacular showmanship; he was at heart a stand-up singer whose power came from his ability to inspire...

Father and daughter team up on a book about music and spirituality. Whenever Little Richard’s hollering and piano-playing grew too boogie-woogie rowdy for the church services of his Macon upbringing, some choir matron would swat him with her pocketbook. Those righteous blows, intended to enforce the old “play for the devil or play for the Lord” dictate,...

“We’re going to be the biggest-selling country act of all time.” That’s a pretty audacious claim, considering the setting. I’m at Orphan Studios, which may be the smallest free-standing building in downtown Decatur, Ga., with a trio of local singer/songwriters who’ve just started a country band. Though all three are music veterans, they’re unlikely...

Every superhero has an alter-ego – often a nerdy, bespectacled young man who never gets a second glance as he strides down the street, searching for a telephone booth or dark alleyway where he can tear off his glasses and become Superman or Spiderman, or grow shirt-bursting green muscles and become the Hulk. For suave hip-hop superhero Gnarls Barkley, however,...

Art Rosenbaum, who recently retired after teaching at the University of Georgia since 1976, has been recording, writing about, drawing and painting pictures of America’s most notable players of homemade music for over 50 years now. His first two publications are music instruction classics: Old-Time Mountain Banjo (Oak Publications, 1968); and The Art of the...

Sam Moore, half of the legendary 1960’s soul duo Sam & Dave, has had the creative itch to be a solo artist for some time. After the duo officially broke up in 1969, Moore struggled to cultivate his own identity. He was bound not only by massive hits like “Soul Man” and “Hold On, I’m Comin,” but also by having been part of a popular musical team....

It has been almost 50 years since a young University of Georgia student working at a small Commerce radio station penned a song about the town. The song launched the career of a country music superstar – Whisperin’ Bill Anderson. In congruence with his Southern roots, Anderson has never forgotten the small northeast Georgia city where he got his start, and...

It was seven years ago this June that I was standing above the River Seine, not far from Notre Dame Cathedral, frustratingly shuffling through boxes of used books sold by vendors lining the sidewalk. Just as I was about to give up and walk away, one of the merchants asked if I was shopping for myself or someone else. “For someone else,” I answered in...

What are the qualities of artistic greatness? What distinguishes a merely entertaining performer from one who is unforgettable? Complex questions, indeed. Hints to the answers may be found in the life and music of Blind Willie McTell, one of Georgia’s finest and most memorable musicians, and particularly in McTell’s artistic gem, “Dyin’ Crapshooter’s...

Just Might be the Noblest and Best Rock Band in the Land The Bible says, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” The Drive-By Truckers, though, take things a whole lot further than that. For the better part of a decade now, their songs haven’t just shown understanding, or even compassion; they’ve demonstrated what is perhaps the noblest of human...

June 4, 1986 The Birth of the Redneck Underground It was a dark and stormy night… No, wait; it was a beautiful late spring evening when Slim Chance & the Convicts played in front of people for the first time. Howdy. I’m Slim Chance, and some folks have called me the “Godfather of the Atlanta Redneck Underground.” I take that as a compliment, and...

I’m reminded of that well-worn Shakespeare quote, “What is past is prologue,” when Shawn Mullins meets me for breakfast at Thumbs Up diner, smiling mischievously and clutching a newspaper article I wrote in 1994 chronicling Atlanta’s burgeoning acoustic music scene. That year, Mullins had been playing regular gigs at Eddie’s Attic and had just opened a...

When she was in college, Susan Archie was a rock’n’roll pilgrim. She made many a jaunt to Atlanta, where she caught shows at since-vanished venues like the 688 Club and the Agora Ballroom. Punk rock had erupted in New York and England, and the effects were reverberating, even in the Bible Belt. Homegrown bands such as the B-52’s, R.E.M. and Love Tractor...

The rapid encroachment of digital technology on the business of snapshots, if one were to mention the name “Kodac” in most any major city in America, the vast majority of folks would still assume the conversation was about photography. However, in Georgia, one might get a much different response. That’s because anyone in this state with even a passing...

Seh Deh De Cumin: After four decades, Frankie and Doug Quimby continue to travel the world as the Georgia Sea Island Singers, sharing the Gullah culture with audiences from presidents to pre-schoolers. The group’s performance history includes prestigious gigs such as the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, the Inauguration of President...

You, with the shaggy hair and the battered guitar case slung over your shoulder — you owe this lady something. At 3 a.m., this Waffle House waitress (Flossie, Christelle, or some other salt-of-the-earth name) has fetched steaming heaps of starch to soak up the alcohol you just drank and replenish the carbs you burned in that sweaty encore. While pouring...

Just back from the road, Norman and Nancy Blake are sitting on a weathered wooden bench on the front porch of their home place in Rising Fawn, playing an old fiddle tune called “Prettiest Little Girl in the County.” It’s a stifling July afternoon, but the sound of the couple’s deft picking drifts above the humid air like a soft breeze. “Cool, dude,”...

by Jean Bowick Photos by Tim Barnwell   Malone opens and closes his 80-year musical career in Rome In 1925, Kasper “Stranger” Malone got a ride that landed him on a street corner in Rome, Ga. – the town that was to see the launch of his musical career as well as his passing some 80 years later at the age of 95. But that makes his story sound simpler...

Precious Bryant is a homebody. For much of her life, the Georgia blueswoman has lived in rural Talbot County, at the southeastern edge of the Chattahoochee River Valley. At 63, Precious is dealing with diabetes and arthritis (“I done got old,” she sighs), yet—surprisingly—her career has hardly stagnated. In the last three years, she’s recorded two...

One voice. It is the singular most powerful force in the universe. And when joined with others in unison it becomes a catalyst for change and the music of the soul that invites us to dance life’s dance. Years ago, Bernice Johnson Reagon realized the power she possessed and throughout her journey she has used her voice to enlighten and ignite us – sometimes a...

How a charming, historic tourist destination became a metal mecca

Cee Lo Green On Going To Heaven, Raising Hell & The Purgatory That Is The Music Business

It’s Saturday night in Waycross, and Will Walton is in the wake of a disaster. Two evenings prior, an electrical fire burned the local solo artist’s home to the ground.