Baxendale, Scott by Rachel Bailey

On a rainy afternoon in Athens, guitar builder Scott Baxendale takes a cursory glance around his small showroom, running his fingers over racks of vintage and custom-made instruments. He’s looking for the perfect guitar to complement an amateur player with tiny hands. After a moment, he selects one with dark, gleaming wood.

“Try this,” he says, handing me a lightweight acoustic that instantly feels right. Playing barre chords has always been a struggle for me, but on this guitar—which Baxendale explains has a narrow 1-5/8 inch neck and small body—I’m easily able to eke out a solid B. It doesn’t hurt that the instrument is a restored ’64 Epiphone Texan—the same model Paul McCartney used on “Yesterday.”

In some ways, the silver-haired owner of Baxendale Guitar is as much therapist and muse as he is master luthier. He has a gift for deftly pairing instrument and musician, whether it’s a restored vintage guitar or a built-from-scratch Baxendale acoustic with hand-tooled pearl inlay.  These days, his specialty is crafting custom guitars that are as nuanced as the musicians for whom they’re made. It’s a talent that has attracted a steady stream of notable clients including Jimmy Herring, Bettye LaVette, Booker T. Jones and Drive-By Truckers. According to Baxendale, crafting a custom guitar is all about asking the right questions.

 “I’m interested in knowing what the guy’s influences are, what his inspirations are, what kind of guitars he dreamed about when he was a kid, and what kinds of sounds he likes to listen to,” Baxendale says. “A lot of it is intuitiveness, and a lot of it is me being able to interpret what [musicians] want. Not necessarily what they say they want but what they really want, which isn’t always the same thing.”

Baxendale spends an average of 100 hours on each guitar he builds, painstakingly crafting every piece individually in his busy Athens studio. In addition to carving the delicate inlay, grinding frets, sanding, buffing and finishing the wood, he also applies his considerable skill to the parts you can’t see—like the elaborate interior bracing he says improves tone.

“I think I have achieved a tone and sound in most of my guitars that surpasses anything you can buy in the music store,” Baxendale says, crediting his research on guitars built in the mid-1930s, a period he calls the golden age of guitars. Unlike instruments you buy off the rack at a high-end retailer, no two Baxendales are alike, which means each instrument has an individual sound. With celebrity clients, he’ll go so far as to study subtle differences in playing styles to accommodate them in his designs. A musician himself, Baxendale understands how even the slightest difference in tone or action can open the floodgates for new material.

“Each guitar makes you play a certain way or inspires you to play a certain thing,” he says. “If I can make a guitar that inspires that artist to create art that he may not necessarily have created any other way—to me, that’s when I’ve reached my goal.”

Though he laughs that his original intent was to “make it” in a rock band, Baxendale has instead forged an impressive career for himself at a trade he once considered a fallback. While attending the University of Kansas in 1974, he read an article about the custom guitar shop that Stuart Mossman had just opened three hours away. At age 19, he dropped out of college, moved to Winfield, Kansas and joined a group of musicians apprenticing under Mossman’s tutelage.

“It was just this community of this crazy little town and everybody knew everybody and everybody was really liberal,” Baxendale recalls. “There was so much good music and so many people that were into it around there. I was in my element, finally.”

Though he could easily be describing his current hometown of Athens, it was years before Baxendale would end up there. His path took him to Nashville, where he restored guitars at acclaimed vintage dealer Gruhn Guitars, he bought Mossman in 1985 when his former mentor fell ill and later, after a period of personal hardship and tragedy, he established the Colfax Guitar Shop in Denver, where he first met his now loyal clients, Drive-By Truckers. After performing emergency repairs on several of the band’s broken guitars during a tour, Baxendale developed an ongoing relationship with DBT that eventually resulted in his joining the Dirt Underneath Tour as guitar tech. After traveling back and forth to Athens several times, he and his wife, Pam, jumped at the opportunity to relocate to the laidback music hotspot in 2010. “I really liked the artistic community here,” says Baxendale, who now plays with several Athens bands. “Its not all about personal egos as much as it’s just about doing something creative.”

The move not only allowed Baxendale to start a new custom guitar shop, but it also led to the creation of Athens Luthier Academy, a training program to teach the craft of making and restoring stringed musical instruments. “I wanted to get more into building customs and I wanted to teach,” says Baxendale. “I don’t want to just keep dressing frets and setting guitars up for the rest of my life. I want to pass that [knowledge] on to somebody else.”

Among the apprentices who have participated in the program is Joel Byron, guitar tech for Widespread Panic. “Scott’s not afraid to experiment with things,” Byron says of his mentor and friend. “Knowing what makes guitars tick and how they work and their aesthetics gives him a different perspective than a lot of people that are making guitars now.”

Though he’s focused now on paying his considerable knowledge forward, Baxendale never seems to tire of his chosen craft. He says he’s as fascinated with guitars as he ever was, and jokes about having postpartum depression when he lets go of a guitar. After years in the trade, though, he knows what a gift it is to make a living doing something you love in a place you love.

“I always thought that instrument-making was just a means to an end—it was my fallback so that I could make it as a musician. But it’s not about making it, because I’ve already made it,” Baxendale says. “It’s about being true to myself, being part of the community and being an artist.”

Futurebirds by Jason Thrasher

I. Among 13 wistful tracks, chiming-bell guitars weave languidly through gauzy blankets of pedal steel on the hypnotic new album from Futurebirds. The band’s second LP Baba Yaga plays like one long, gorgeous, road-weary sigh. There’s a lonesome distance to the music. As if it’s coming from some other place. If you put on a pair of headphones, dim your laptop and close your eyes, you’ll soon find yourself adrift on an ocean of sound. “Space can be just as powerful as any instrument,” says Thomas Johnson, who like most of his Futurebirds bandmates, sings, writes songs and plays a variety of instruments including guitar, banjo and mandolin. “Part of the purpose the music serves for us is, not escaping, but transcending. We have a weird, dark energy amongst us—it’s supposed to be moody.”

II. The Futurebirds are of six minds. They are of one mind. They play like fingers on a hand. Each member—Johnson, frontman Carter King, Payton Bradford, Brannen Miles, Daniel Womack and Dennis Love—adds his indelible stamp to the music. Five of them contributed songs to their carefully crafted new record.

III. By far, Futurebirds spent more time on Baba Yaga than anything they’ve released since forming in Athens in 2009.  They began by making demos of 30 songs in the summer of 2011, and then hit the studio with friend and engineer Drew Vandenberg at Athens’ Chase Park Transduction in autumn of the same year. Though Vandenberg was co-producer and principal engineer on the project, several band members have interned or currently work at Chase Park as engineers themselves. “It was nice having multiple people who could run the studio,” Johnson says. “To be able to not completely drain your engineer, let him have a break if he needs one, and still continue when the creative juices were flowing.”

IV. By the time Futurebirds finished the record seven months had passed. The slower pace allowed for a more relaxed, collaborative process: more experimentation, exploration and tinkering. Each little part was nursed and massaged until it was just right. Not to mention that, several years of touring now under their belts, they were a far tighter, more experienced band than they were on the first LP. “We had more focus, more aim making this record,” Johnson says. “Coming in, the songs were less developed than they had been in the past, which allowed us to write our parts as the songs were being written. So it sounds more focused, less meandering.”

“There was more time for songs to evolve,” King says, before adding a caveat. “Of course, you have to be careful—when you’re dealing with more time, you can be more creative and have time to think things through, but the other side of that blade is that you can start overthinking, overanalyzing every little note and frequency. But I think we found the right balance.”

V. Now that they’d made a record they loved, the band was in no rush to squander it. They took a year figuring out their next move, waltzing with several labels before finally settling on Oxford, Mississippi’s Fat Possum, for whose back catalog they had a particular passion. “Now,” King says, “we’re labelmates with Iggy Pop, which is awesome.”

Futurebirds. Photo by Jason Thrasher

VI. Though it ended well, the whole lengthy process of making and releasing the new record was not without its shadowy patches. For a while, they wondered whether they’d ever find a home for it. “At certain points, things looked bleak,” King says. “Thomas and I were talking and I said, ‘maybe we haven’t actually made this record. Maybe it was all in our heads—a big joke that’s been played on us; some myth we made up.”

VII. That conversation in mind, Carter began researching mythical creatures. It wasn’t long before he’d unearthed the album’s title. “Baba Yaga perfectly nailed this record for us,” he says. “She’s an old witch out in the woods in these Russian folktales. She’s really ugly—this horrible child-eating witch, and most of the time [with this record] we felt like we were the children out in the woods being eaten. But also, in these tales Baba Yaga always provides some bit of wisdom—without it, the protagonist would not be able to achieve their quest. So she’s a necessary evil.”

VIII. The new record is a coming-of-age manifesto for the Futurebirds, who—now a bonafide touring machine—have been lured into the lucid, inescapable rhythms of the road. “These songs were written within the scope of us all living in a van together,” King says. “Some of the themes are communal because we’ve been playing and spending so much time together. For the last three years, we’ve shared so many experiences. The sound comes from that, too.”

IX. On Baba Yaga, Futurebirds are out on the edge, at the fringes of normal society, mining some undeniably classic, primal rock ‘n’ roll territory. “A lot of the record is about growing up from being 22 to being 27,” Johnson says, “and since we’re always traveling, how life evolves over that time—the disconnect between what we’re doing and what the majority of our friends and family are used to. The disconnect, and the struggle and stress it puts on your relationships. There’s a dark energy to the record, and I think that comes from the uncertainty of what we’re doing. Not about whether we should be doing it, but about where it’s gonna lead.”

X. One place it’s led in the last year or two is away from Athens, as band members have returned to old hometowns or followed girlfriends to new cities like Atlanta, Savannah, Chattanooga and Nashville. Womack is the only one who has remained near Athens. “He’s in Danielsville,” Kings says, “12 miles outside of town, living in a cabin in the woods, losing what’s left of his mind.”

XI. Wherever the Futurebirds reside, Athens will always beat strong in their hearts. “It’s the perfect incubator for a small band,” Kings says. “It’s a small town, but the university is there, so young people are just flooding in and out of the place at all times. It’s dirt cheap to live, there’s a supportive music community. It was the perfect place to start out.”

Futurebirds. Photo by Jason Thrasher

XII. Part of this fondness comes from the wily Athens veterans who have taken Futurebirds under their wing—David Barbe, David Lowery, Widespread Panic, Drive-By Truckers. “We’ve learned numerous valuable lessons from them,” King says. “Getting to see from the inside how these bands run their ships, you try to take as many notes as possible. And they’ve schooled us on mistakes they’ve made, in hopes that we won’t repeat them.”

“I think they see a little of themselves in us and what we’re doing, and that’s inspiring,” Johnson says. They have endless knowledge we can only hope to obtain someday.

XIII. Bobbing in the tide of Futurebirds’ transportive sonic waves, it’s best to cut loose the sails and drop the paddles overboard. There’s a letting go in their sound, a separation from the self. And perhaps the band has no choice in this matter. The very name Futurebirds is imbued with the idea of  transcendence—of flying away, of
rising above the now to some mysterious, normally unattainable plane of consciousness. That aforementioned other place. Where it’s evening all afternoon. Where it’s snowing and going to snow.

“It’s not something we had in mind when we named ourselves Futurebirds,” Johnson says, “but it’s an apt analogy for what our music is about. As much as we can, we’re standing above the moment, looking down at what we’re doing. There are some shows—and they always seems to come at just the right time—when we’re dragging, or on the long end of a tour, and we have a show that reinvigorates us. It’s hard to explain. You’re up there playing, and everything is just flowing out of you. You’re consumed with it, but you’re not thinking about it. It’s like you’re watching the whole thing happen.”

By Doug DeLoach

(L-R) Chris Riggenbach, Jeff Crompton, Bill Nittler, Colin Bragg, Eric Fontaine, Nick Dixon, Roger Ruzo and Noah Kess (in back on drums) at Jerry Farber’s Side Door Lounge. Photo by Vincent Tseng.

Like almost every other wacky idea that eventually alters the cultural trajectory of the human species, the origin of the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra can be traced back to a sketch on a cocktail napkin. Five years ago, trumpeter and composer Roger Ruzow was sitting at a table in the basement bar at the Highland Inn, drinking a beer and mulling over an idea that had been whirling around his head for several months.

“I was thinking about an ensemble that would play music in an Afrobeat style, influenced by western African melodies and rhythms, especially the music of Ghana and Nigeria,” Ruzow said in a 2009 interview. “Then I thought about how much I liked klezmer music. I’m Jewish, so maybe it’s genetics, but using those scales and modes comes naturally to me.”

Klezmer and Afrobeat? Comprising a heady stew of Yoruban tribal music; American jazz, funk and R&B; and West African highlife, Afrobeat was concocted in the late 1960s by Nigerian bandleader and political activist Fela Kuti. And Klezmer music was derived from 19th-century central-European peasant traditions, particularly the Ashkenazic Jewish culture, as well as myriad gypsy bands, which morphed into an urban form containing elements of Yiddish theater and vaudeville tunes, ritual celebratory fanfare and prayer song, and, most importantly, jazz. Klezmer emerged from within the fledgling Jewish immigrant communities in New York in the early decades of the 20th century.

Back at the Highland Inn, as wacky as the exercise seemed, even to him, Ruzow quickly sketched out a few arrangements for a nine-piece ensemble (brass and reeds, guitar and/or keyboard, rhythm section). He gave them suitably expressive titles like “Greater Lagos Wednesday Night Talmud Meeting” and “Sweet Auburn Mishegas.” Turning to his drinking companion, saxophonist Ben Davis, Ruzow unveiled the sketchy charts  and asked whether he’d be interested in playing “this stuff.”

“Sure, why not?” replied Davis. During the ensuing talent search, which took several months, not every musician approached by Ruzow had the same immediate, nonchalant, reaction.

Shouldn’t work, but does

“When Roger first asked me to join his band, which he said was going to play some sort of combination of Afrobeat and klezmer material, my first thought was, ‘Hell no! That’s ridiculous!’” says Jeff Crompton, saxophonist, composer and veteran of the Atlanta jazz and alternative music scenes. “But then, he’s an old friend, so I said OK.”

On a cool, sunny Saturday in late January, slouched comfortably on the couch in the living room of Crompton’s Candler Park abode, Ruzow and his bandmate field questions while listening to an eclectic medley of Chicago blues, New Orleans funk and jazz (a little bebop, a dash of swing, a shot of Ayler). Both men are professional educators and amateur historians, which necessarily means the interview is punctuated with esoteric discussions about who played with whom on what session and that can’t be true because, look here, we all know Wilbur Ferguson had not yet changed his name to Ishtar Esophagus Marcellus when that recording was made.

Five years ago, Crompton admits, he knew almost nothing about klezmer music, and what he thought he knew did not inspire confidence in the Afro-klezmer project. Still, he figured, it was worth showing up for the first rehearsal during which the irreconcilable flaws in the plan would be exposed, thereby affording an opportunity to make a graceful exit without feelings being hurt too deeply.

“Instead, I was completely blown away,” Crompton says, shaking his head. “I kept shaking my head and thinking, ‘Wow, this is the best stuff Roger has ever written.’”

Duly converted, Crompton began contributing arrangements and composing pieces for the ensemble. He soon became the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra’s de facto concert master. Onstage during performances, when he’s not blowing some of the sweetest or baddest sax solos you’re ever likely to hear, Crompton is the one wearing a white lab coat (an insider’s reference to the late Lester Bowie of Art Ensemble of Chicago fame), instigating background riffs, counting down transitional passages, and “fussing at people when they miss cues,” which happens more often than the average listener ever notices.

“This is difficult music,” Crompton says. “Even now, when Roger calls a tune that we haven’t played for a while, some people might forget exactly how something goes and weird things happen. The good news is, we’re at the point where, when weird things happen, everyone can just adjust and go with it.”

(L-R): Marc Miller, Edin Beho, Bill Nittler, Colin Bragg, Noah Kess, Roger Ruzow, Jeff Crompton and Nick Dixon outside Atlanta’s Elliott Street Café. Photo by Vincent Tseng.

From skronk to funk

Born in Hialeah, Florida, Ruzow attended Coral Gables High School and studied with locally renowned trumpeter Jack Pinto. At Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C., he played bass in area rock bands while earning a degree in music production. Soon after moving to Atlanta in 1994, Ruzow co-founded Gold Sparkle Band with four companions. The band enjoyed a memorable run through the end of the decade, garnering rave reviews for playing smartly crafted, energetically anarchic, free improvisational jazz. When some members decided to relocate to New York, Ruzow declined to make the leap. Facing health issues and having been newly graced by a full-time teaching position, he chose to stay put. These days, Ruzow teaches music to grades k-through-seven at Unidos Dual Language Charter School.

An Atlanta native, Crompton recently retired after 29 years of service in the Fulton County School System. As an adolescent, he was inspired to pick up the saxophone when he heard Paul Desmond on television and saw Boots Randolph in concert. For Christmas one year, his mother gave him a Budd Johnson album, which contained within its grooves a bass solo by Richard Davis. Johnson’s full-bodied, Texas-honed horn and Davis’ fanciful finger-work compelled Crompton to forsake the paths of his boyhood heroes—while keeping the useful elements of their stylistic chops—and forthrightly stride down the road to avant-garde improvisation. A list of major saxophonic influences along the way includes Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler and Steve Lacy. His performing resume includes stints with Darryl Rhoades and the Mighty Mighty Men from Glad, free-jazz/funk trio The Bazooka Ants, and pianist/composer Michael J. Smith.

“While Jeff and I share a history of playing ‘free improv,’ that’s not what the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra is about,” Ruzow says. “However, the goal remains the same; the music is still a vehicle for improvisation and development leading to moments of spontaneous excellence.”

‘It’s all just music’

Since the formation of the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra (so named for the intown Atlanta neighborhood where Ruzow lives), the member roster has occasionally fluctuated, depending on day-job work schedules, family commitments and other unavoidable vagaries. Two self-produced 4WAKO albums have been released—East Atlanta Passover Stomp (2009) and Abdul the Rabbi (2012), the latter’s title track the only vocal number composed by Ruzow to date.

Actually, Zano Bathroom of Atlanta-based hip-hop duo Social Studies wrote the lyrics and delivers the message carried by “Abdul the Rabbi,” whom Ruzow describes as “a conflicted anti-hero.” Above the strains of a gutbucket, hard-funk rhythmic foundation tinged by brassy Mesopotamian hues, Zano intones in a dulcet tenor voice: “…the mind reeling / divine ceiling / we soar past the hard task / discard masks of old ways / even though we gravitate to the grave / we unfold and orchestrate how we behave.”

Unfolding and orchestrating behavior is certainly one way of describing what bandleaders do. But the leader of the 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra isn’t focused so much on directing behavior as he is on sketching a bridge designed to conjoin musicians and audiences across continents and cultures.

“I don’t hear a huge disparity between styles, between Afropop and klezmer, between klezmer and jazz, between rai and rock, or funk and rock, or rock and klezmer, and on into chamber music,” Ruzow says. “To me, it’s all just music.”

Ciara Courtesy Atlantic Records

R&B as we know it has been on life support. There’s no other way to put it. It’s wobbly. It hardly has a pulse on the charts. Hell, touch it—it’s ice cold.

Atlanta, once a proud incubator of the sound, has all but abandoned it, focusing all of its creative energy on hip-hop, a genre as vibrant now as it was 10 years ago.

But even though R&B’s prognosis isn’t the greatest, all hope isn’t lost. Modern-day ambassadors of smooth Miguel and Trey Songz are still crankin’ out the hits. Beyonce is still poppin’ up on the nightly news. Closer to home, acts like Keri Hilson and Usher are also doing all they can to keep the genre vibrant—Mr. Raymond’s 2012 smash single “Climax” can still get the club good and sweaty whenever DJs drop it.

Another homegrown talent who isn’t giving up on the sound is Ciara. And if anyone should know about its current well-being, it’s her. Ciara Princess Harris—an Austin-native-turned-A-town-repper—has seen pretty much every side of the industry. She’s been to the commercial mountaintop—her debut single, “Goodies,” was No. 1 in America for seven weeks in ’04—and has had her career dissected after subsequent commercial failures. But through it all, she remains hopeful that the genre she loves and cherishes will thrive again.

“One thing about Atlanta [music],” begins the Grammy-nominated siren, “I don’t know if I’d so much say that something was missing. There is never a dull moment [in the city]. Right now, Atlanta is more hip-hop dominated. There’s a moment where R&B isn’t the most common [sound]. It all just rotates and it goes in a circle.”

And as a show of just how much confidence she has in that last statement, Ciara is releasing her fifth album, a self-titled effort, in June. Some have rumbled as to why she’d record another CD after her last two projects, ’09’s Fantasy Ride and ’10’s Basic Instinct, failed to make a commercial dent. But Ciara is going with her gut, which is telling her that now is the time to get back out there with new material for the dance floor and the bedroom.

“I love my job,” says Ciara, when the topic of album-sale pressure comes up. “I really like the challenge. Anything you choose in life is going to be a challenge, whether it is being a performer or not, being in front of the world or not, it’s going to have a challenge. So, I think it is all about how you approach it. I just really love what I do.”

Ciara, who’s all of 27 years old, may not remember this, but 20 years ago, we had plenty of true R&B stars. Whitney Houston. Mariah Carey. Strong, silky voices dominated the charts. Of the top 20 songs from 1993, 13 were certified soul-music hits. Today, we still have larger-than-life personalities such as Rihanna, Chris Brown and Justin Timberlake on the scene, but look at the top 20 songs of 2012—a mere two were R&B cuts, and one of those was Ri-Ri’s “We Found Love.”

Ciara Courtesy Atlantic Records

While Boyz II Men and others soared in the early to mid ’90s, by the second half of the decade, tastes started changing. The more you heard from OutKast and Jay-Z, the less you saw of All-4-One and SWV. Not that there wasn’t plenty of meshing between the genres in the early 2000s; there was plenty. The Nelly- and Kelly Rowland-featuring “Dilemma” and Usher and Lil’ Jon’s “Yeah” were easily two of the biggest songs of the decade.

Ciara is another artist who has meandered between these styles with grace. The teenaged singer connected with LaFace Records and producers Jazze Pha and Lil’ Jon in ’04. She dropped abstinence anthem “Goodies” that same year. Girls loved her lyrics. Guys dug her look. The general public liked her Janet Jackson (circa 1986) energy. Ciara’s soul- and rap-fused debut, Goodies, was a monster, moving nearly 3 million units.

In comparison, though, Ci-Ci’s recent efforts have had varying levels of success. The flirty Ciara: The Evolution, which came out in 2006, sold 1.3 million copies while Fantasy Ride failed to score even a fraction of that. By the time Basic Instinct came out, a mix of Jive Records’ lackluster promotional efforts—the artist even took to Facebook writing, “I pray that my label will release me”— and the genre’s waning popularity proved too much to overcome.

But instead of becoming bitter toward the finicky recording business, Ciara accentuates the positive. She’d much rather focus on the throngs of fans who show up for an in-store autograph session; or talk about the folks who attended the 2012 VH1 Divas concert and sang along to standouts from her catalog; or speak on the people who routinely ask to take a picture when they see the star out and about.

“With work,” she explains, “I’m really approaching it with a fun mentality. It can be as simple as a club walkthrough. You know, I’m going to get paid for it, but I would treat it more like a visit as opposed to like, ‘Hey, you are really here with your fans and people that really, really, really love you.’ I have always appreciated my fans, and now I make sure to make the experience more special for me and my fans because you can never get that time back.”

Those faithful followers might be looking for a Goodies revisit with Ciara on this new record, but the artist reminds them, “I don’t think it’s about recreating [past success]. It’s just about making sure you continue to be successful. That is definitely a challenge. I think it is one of those things that, when you overcome it, it is so much bigger in the end, because it is a hard thing for anyone that becomes a target. ‘You’re only as big as your last hit,’ they say. People do have an opinion. It’s all about really building your hidden strength, so you can never lose sight of what the focal point is or what the goal is. You only want to do bigger and better than what you’ve done before. But what good would life be without a challenge?”

Ciara shows off this strength and focus on her forthcoming record. “I really, really have grown,” says the multi-talented performer, also a budding actress who’s been sharpening her on-camera chops on the most recent season of BET’s hit show, The Game. “I feel like you’re going to really get to hear my growth and you’re going to be able to take a different journey with me than you’ve ever taken before because it is somewhat a personal journey.”

Ciara Courtesy Atlantic Records

The new album’s first single, “Sorry,” is a mature ballad aimed at stubborn guys who won’t admit their mistakes. The second, “Got Me Good,” is a more uptempo number that’s essentially a wink to fans who’ve been around since ’04. While neither song made much of an impact at radio, the third single, the Mike Will-produced “Body Party” is already Ci-Ci’s highest charting song in three years. The track’s sexy, synthy vibe feels like something from a few decades back. It’s intense. It’s sweaty. It’s the kind of bedroom banter that’s been missing from R&B lately.

Ciara co-wrote the tantalizing track with boyfriend and Atlanta MC du jour Future. “It was just one of those records that just flowed,” she details. “You can have a ‘body party’ on many different levels. It doesn’t always have to be sensual, but there’s obviously a sensual element to it. A ‘body party’ can be about giving energy to a guy or girl to slow dance. [Songs] don’t do that anymore.” There’s too much French Montana. Not nearly enough French kissing.

In this Spotify- and iTunes-powered world, we’ll know in a matter of days if the buying public is still interested in the sexier side to Ciara’s story. But win or lose, Ciara is happy with the moves she’s made, and she’s proud to play her role in getting R&B back to a place of prominence.

    “It’s the melodic side of where music really comes from,” she says. “Like back when it was the blues. Melody is the core of it all. There is no way that will never re-emerge in a strong way. I feel like we’re going to get there. Truthfully, that’s why I’m excited about my next album. I really feel like it’s going to come back.”

Blair Crimmins

Experience a day of music and spirits benefitting Historic Oakland Cemetery. Main stages and vignette stages are dotted throughout the gorgeous grounds and graves of Oakland Cemetery. This year’s festival lineup includes Blair Crimmins and at the Hookers, Old 4th Ward Afro-Klezmer Orchestra, Bird City Revolutionaries, The Bonaventure Quartet (featuring Amy Pike), Caroline and the Ramblers, Slim Chance and the Convicts, Rolling Nowhere, Little Country Giants, Wasted Potential Brass Band and more. Beer, wine and food vendors are on site; bring a blanket, chair and sunscreen and partake in one of Atlanta’s most devilishly entertaining experiences.

oaklandcemetery.com

790 The Zone hosts a summer weekend of music and food in Candler Park, nestled in one of Atlanta’s most historic neighborhoods. Friday night performers include Coy Bowles (of Zac Brown Band), Reynolds & Williams Band and Neil Cribbs. Saturday’s lineup includes Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, The Soul Rebels, The Whiskey Gentry, Connor Christian & Southern Gothic, Stokeswood and Webster. Over 25 local food vendors are participating, plus an arts and crafts market, cornhole tournament, 5k on Saturday morning and more.

Edward Sharp & The Magnetic Zeros

790thezone.com/midsummer2013/