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...