Tag Archives: Georgia

Georgia’s rich music history: Athens and Augusta

Cool things come out of university towns. The critical mass of students questing for identity and meaning, the energy of artists looking to push their own – and your – boundaries, the enabling atmosphere of a major learning institution in an era of political and cultural ferment – this combination is likely to give rise to innovations some of which will proceed to transform far beyond the municipal boundaries of their city of origin. So it is with Athens, site of the University of Georgia at Athens (UGA) and home to at least two (so far) institutions of the 20^th century’s music scene: The B-52s and R.E.M.

Athens seems like a cool place to live. It’s certainly a cool place to visit. The city seems to grow out of the university grounds – which are lovely, spacious and extravagant. It’s a big city on a human scale. Lots of funky coffee shops, restaurants and bistros, bars featuring live music, a couple of cool bookstores, comic stores and used vinyl and CD outlets (including the famous WUXTRY – Georgia’s oldest independently-owned record store – where the members of R.E.M. would congregate). These co-exist on pleasantly shaded streets with upper-end shoe, clothing and sunglasses shops making for a pleasant walking experience. We did a tour with Paul Butchart, a local historian who gives Walking Music Tours of Athens’ rich musical history. Like everywhere else, live music venues opened and closed and relocated and went under at a furious pace – but out of this at least two major institutions attained escape velocity and transformed a corner of popular music.

I did make a point, some years ago, of doing some serious listening to Michael Stipe, et al., – who emerged from various university courses at UGA to form R.E.M. These guys produced album after album of intelligent rock music. From their punk roots playing the dives and student bars in Athens, they grabbed a significant share of critical and popular appeal and rode it to its natural conclusion. When the band realized they had attained all there was to attain in pop stardom, they wound it up. What they left behind is a catalogue of excellent, insightful, danceable and thoughtful rock and roll music. Whatever the various members do next, they can be proud of R.E.M.’s legacy of music and politics.

Augusta became the home of The Godfather of Soul, Mr. James Brown. Here’s a guy with a legacy to astound. Is there another figure from the 20^th century who lived long enough to put his stamp on so many different styles of music? His legacy touches rock, blues, R&B, rap, hip-hop and, of course, soul.

Not bad for a former shoeshine boy from the streets of Augusta. His life size statue stands on the centre of the boulevard on downtown Broad Street.

Of course James Brown – they call him “Mr. Brown” in Augusta – showed promise very early. From there it was just a matter of turning talent into opportunity, but if Brown had anything other than talent it was vision: a crystalline conviction of what his sound and stage deportment was all about.

You can divine some of this at the Augusta Museum of History where they have curated a James Brown exhibit that takes you from his early youth to the final performance of his unnaturally long career. A few tidbits:

95% of his stage suits and costumes were handmade.
He often played 300 shows a year.
He was the originator of “starting on the one.”
He was a self-taught musician with a love for gospel music.
He had perfect pitch.
He was a highly religious man.
He had a full hair salon in his home.
The dance moves he created circa 1968 were later copied by Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake.

There’s lots more to see in Augusta too. This was – before the Civil War – a prosperous economic crossroads through which cotton and various other commodities passed en route to the ports of Savannah and Charleston. In the course of its economic development, wealthy families injected their fortunes into some pretty impressive – even by today’s standards – real estate and architecture. Well worth seeing. As is the lovely Riverwalk that features a perfect little amphitheatre looking over the river.

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EATING & SLEEPING IN ATHENS: We stopped for lunch on the dog-friendly patio at Big City Bread Cafe for a delicious Turkey Burger with a side order of Bleu Cheese Fries (yes, house cut fries topped with blue cheese and served with garlic aioli and scallions).

We bypassed the campgrounds and stayed overnight at the dog-friendly, LEED Gold Certified Hotel Indigo, a short walk to the downtown Athens area. The service was great and the beds even better!

LOCAL LEGENDS FROM AUGUSTA:

Ty Cobb retired in Augusta
Bobby James brought Masters level golf to Augusta
James Brown, Oliver Hardy, Butterfly McQueen, Laurence Fishburne and Brenda Lee are all from Augusta.

WATCH THE THEATRE: The film Get On Up (2014) is about the life of Mr. James Brown.

Macon: “Something in the water”

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Travelling from north to south our focus was on sticking as close to the coastline as possible and experiencing everything that is unique about where salt water meets land – from shrimp boats to lighthouses to incredible stretches of wild beach.

Once we hit the borderline at Georgia-Florida, we bounced back northward, but on the return trip we headed inland, looking for music destinations and regional food highlights. Boy, did we ever find a goldmine at the small city of Macon, Georgia!

There’s a word for it: SYNERGY. It’s that magic moment when – for reasons no one fully understands – the total is greater than the sum of its parts. This happens all the time, but occasionally breaks out with transformative impact. Macon is one of those places where – at a particular moment – big things happened because the stars aligned.

It brings to mind the establishment of Capricorn Records in 1969 and the recording of the first Allman Brothers Band album. Although not a commercial success at the time, the record has since come to be seen, in the words of one critic, as “the best debut album ever delivered by an American blues band, a bold, powerful, hard-edged, soulful essay in electric blues with a native Southern ambience.” More to the point, the record put Macon on the map as the preferred destination for what would come to the called Southern Rock.

Craig savoured the displays at The Big House, a lovingly curated collection of thousands of articles – instruments, clothing, hand-written lyrics, posters, tickets and rooms of furnishings. The Big House is the spiritual and actual home of the original Allman Brothers Band – the members lived and worked from here communally in the early 1970s. It is now a museum of all things ABB.

But Macon has other claims to boast too: it’s the city that birthed Little Richard and Otis Redding. This is an incredible amount of world-class talent for such a small city (population: 90,000). The locals like to joke that “it must be something in the water.”

Of Otis Redding there is much to say. He died at the peak of his considerable power, age 26, when his plane went down en route to a gig. But the 300 songs in his catalogue and the stamp he put onto R&B and soul music have long out-lived him. It’s ironic that his best-known song – (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay – is so unlike most of the other songs in his catalogue, and that he never got to perform it. The plane crash that took his life was a mere three days after he recorded the piece. It was his biggest hit and his first million seller. But you have to see a performance, perhaps from his tour of the United Kingdom, of Try A Little Tenderness so see how this man could bring an audience to frenzy.

We had the chance to sit down with Redding’s daughter, Karla Redding, who reminisced about her dad. “My favourite piece is Love Man,” she said. “Because it’s a pure description of the man he was.” Karla spoke of his commitment to family first and foremost and his obsession with ice cream (especially butter pecan). After we left the Otis Redding Foundation and Mini-Museum we went to the waterfront to see the statue of Redding.

“Little Richard,” Wayne Penniman, is authoritatively one of the founders of rock ’n’ roll. In his induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Ringo Starr jokingly blames “Little Richard” – for whom they opened in Hamburg – for the sound and stage energy of The Beatles. No less a figure than Mick Jagger claimed that he “couldn’t believe the power of Little Richard onstage. He was amazing.” Richard’s life story exceeds anything in fiction: he veers in and out of several near encounters with death, finds Jesus, loses him, finds him again and is condemned and honoured along the way for being so far ahead of his time. At this point in time there is no Macon museum dedicated to Little Richard . . . but, who knows what’s coming soon?

We finished up our incredible Macon stay at the H&H Soul Food Restaurant. The H&H was a favourite of “starving musicians” who found friendly faces (and meals) in the original co-owners “Mama” Inez and “Mama” Louise. It’s a Macon institution, an authentic “meat & three” as these traditional Southern eateries are called. The menus offer a meat – from meatloaf to fried chicken – and a choice of three sides (mac & cheese, fried okra, sweet potatoes, collards, etc.). The Allman Brothers members ate here as did Otis Redding when he was a member of Johnny Jenkins’ Pinetoppers. The locals like to call the women who founded the H&H “the Matriarchs of Macon’s historical music scene.”

Topped it all off with a great overnight at the Lake Tobesofkee Arrowhead Campground just 15 minutes outside of town. Spotlessly clean, well maintained sites and dark, dark, dark at night.

Check this one off the bucket list: Cumberland Island National Seashore

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It’s been a few years since we heard about Cumberland Island National Seashore. Really heard about it – from an outdoorsy friend who has seen her share of wild places around the world and knows about these things. She raved about it and that immediately put this National Park Service site on our must-do list. Luckily, it fit in perfectly with this trip’s theme of exploring what is unique about life along the Atlantic coastline.

Cumberland Island sits on the very southern tip of Georgia – cross the St. Mary’s River and you are into Florida. It’s the largest barrier island along the Atlantic coastline, and definitely one with the best-preserved wilderness. That’s because Congress stepped in and designated the north part of the long, narrow island as Cumberland Island Wilderness Area, with all its protections and legislations. As Park Ranger Maggie Tyler told us, “It’s supposed to be an area where man is only a visitor.”

Cumberland Island is not somewhere you just stumble onto. You’ve got to really want to go there and a visit requires some planning. For starters there is a cap of 300 people per day. Second, the way on and off the island is by passenger ferry service only. Third, there are no commercial services on island (except for bike rentals at the ferry dock) and to get around you either bike the main road (no bikes on the trails) or hike. Visitors need to take food, water and whatever else they need for their time on island.

It’s the serenity and wilderness that draw people to Cumberland Island. The beaches and sand dunes are pristine. One-third of the state’s sea turtle nesting grounds are on the beaches of Cumberland Island. The mature maritime forest of live oaks, tall saw palmettos, myrtle and holly create a thick church-like canopy. There is a long, dirt roadway called the Grand Road that runs north-south – it is protected on the National Register of Historic Places and “has not changed in centuries.” Add in the island’s saltwater marshlands – the perfect stopover for migrating birds travelling along the Atlantic Flyway – and what you have is an intact, stable barrier island environment. These days, this is a rare thing.

It may be protected from the impact of human development now, but this was not always the case. At the turn of the 19^th century, wealthy families from the north came to the island to escape the harsh winters. Over time, 90 per cent of the island was purchased by the Carnegie family (whose fortune was in steel and railroads) and they built mansions that showcased the elite lifestyles of the Gilded Age. Two of these homes remain – one is in ruins and the other, Plum Orchard, is a popular tour stop for visitors who want to roam the partially-furnished rooms to see how the one per cent lived at their winter escapes.

In the mid-20^th century the homes and the land were passed to the National Park Service and under its stewardship the island is returning to its natural state of wilderness.

Cumberland Island lived up to its hype. It is a place of beauty, of solitude and of purity. If this is the type of shoreline experience you are jonesing to find, you need look no further.

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Looking to camp? It is possible to stay on the island but you must make a reservation and bring all of your supplies. The sites are beautiful but have no water, electricity and there are pit toilets. We stayed just a few miles away from the village of St. Mary’s at the lovely Crooked River State Park. The sites were well spaces and heavily wooded and there were some nice walking trails with great views over the river. It was also very dog friendly.

Gracious Savannah

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Savannah is a city for walking.

It’s the southernmost of a trio of towns and cities that embody the grace and architecture of the Old South: Charleston, Beaufort and Savannah. They are all beautiful and inclusive today but they have histories rooted in the plantation-era days of enormous wealth concentrated in the hands of very few, built on the backs of tens of thousands of slaves brought in from West Africa. We kept this in mind as we looked in awe at the stately mansions that were once the home of plantation owners and cotton brokers and strolled along the historic riverfront.

We actually started our tour with a ride into the heart of the downtown National Historic Landmark district on the hop-on/hop-off Old Savannah Tours trolley (it was dog-friendly, so Rigby hopped onboard too). We got off at Chippewa Square – the green square where Ton Hanks sat on a bus stop bench in the movie Forrest Gump. Savannah was designed on a system of grids – the whole city is a very orderly crosshatch of streets punctuated by large green public squares. Streets and squares are lined by a cathedral of trees: enormous live oaks, hanging with Spanish moss.

When General Sherman arrived in Savannah he was so taken with the city that he sent a telegram to President Lincoln handing the city to the president as a Christmas present. Savannah was spared Sherman’s March to the Sea.

We were fascinated by the infusion of Gullah culture (the Gullah people of the Lowcountry trace their rich heritage to the African slaves brought in from the Angola region of West Africa). In the vernacular of the Gullah, the word haints means ghosts. Look on the ceiling of many front porches (from small cottages to large mansions) and you’ll find it has been painted blue. The Gullah people believe the colour blue keeps the haints
away.

We walked and walked along cobbled streets made from the stones and bricks that were packed as ballast into the holds of ships that crossed the Atlantic as part of The Triangular Trade (goods from Europe to West Africa; West African slaves to the New World; plantation goods such as sugar and cotton from ports like Savannah to Europe). Savannah emerged as the major port in the state of Georgia.

All that walking deserves a little indulgence. And that’s how we finished our day in Savannah – with lunch and ice cream at the famous Leopold’s Ice Cream. Leopold’s has been around for almost 100 years and has developed quite a following (it regularly makes the list of best ice cream shops in the world). The patio out from was dog friendly and they even brought Rigby her own tiny cone in a cup. Now, that’s Southern hospitality!

Savannah in the artistic community:

The bus stop/park bench scenes in Forrest Gump were filmed at Chippewa Square.
In Something To Talk About, Julia Roberts peers into a downtown restaurant and sees her philandering husband at dinner with another woman.
Savannah resident Johnny Mercer wrote Moon River while at his downtown home.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was completely filmed in Savannah.
The Civil War film, Glory, was filmed in and around the city.

Words on the page

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Our stories and articles appear in Canadian magazines and online.

Spring and fall, we load the van – with everything from guitars to laptops – toss in a thick bundle of maps, several notebooks and roll down the road. We meet great people, gather wonderful story material and then write, write, write. Browse the links to some of our pieces in print:

TravelsWithRigby.com

RV TRAVEL, PET TRAVEL, FOOD & MUSIC DESTINATIONS

Tag Archives: Georgia

Georgia’s rich music history: Athens and Augusta

Macon: “Something in the water”

Check this one off the bucket list: Cumberland Island National Seashore

Gracious Savannah

Words on the page

Our stories and articles appear in Canadian magazines and online.

BIG TRIP #1: ROOTS OF AMERICAN MUSIC: 9,000 km through the Southeast U.S.

BIG TRIP #2: TUNES, RUINS & STARS: 13,000 km across the American Southwest

BIG TRIP #3: HUGGING THE ATLANTIC COASTLINE; MUSIC INLAND: 7,064 km

BIG TRIP #4: ROCK & ROLL: 10,950 km exploring western U.S. National Parks

MISCELLANEOUS