Music

Should You Buy Cee Lo's Christmas Album?

Charles Bethea — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:38:00 GMT

The lovably eccentric hip-hop/R&B/gospel/rock crooner from Atlanta is coming out with a Christmas album, featuring cameos by B.o.B, the Muppets, and Rod Stewart. Herewith, a scientific approach to deciding whether you should purchase Cee Lo’s Magic Moment.

This article originally appeared in our December 2012 issue.

Derivation of Dirty South

Tony Rehagen — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:38:00 GMT

“What chu know about the Dirty South?” Aside from being a track and infectious refrain on Goodie Mob’s 1995 debut Soul Food, the term has devolved in spelling (Durty Souf?) and evolved wildly in connotation. Consult a source such as Urban Dictionary and you’ll see hypotheses that everything below the Mason-Dixon is dirty-corrupt, dirty-poor, dirty-lewd, or dirty-rustic. But if you quiz Cool Breeze, the East Point rapper who coined the term, and Rico Wade, the producer who recorded it, they’ll say people are overthinking things.

To them, the South is just plain dirty. “It’s about the red clay and the dirt roads,” says Wade. “It means we country. But we ain’t country.” When Breeze and Wade were getting into the rap game in the early 1990s, hip-hop was a two-category genre—East Coast based in New York or West Coast in L.A.

Atlanta artists and producers were trying to establish the local scene as the “Third Coast.” “We wanted to make y’all eat this Southern fried chicken,” says Breeze. “Not chicken cordon bleu. Not pineapple chicken.”

So Breeze sat down with the pen. Someone made the West wild, he reasoned. He was going to make the South dirty. Over time Dirty South, not Third Coast, became a banner for artists throughout the region.

Photograph by Caroline C. Kilgore. This article originally appeared in our November 2012 issue.

Inside/Out/Again

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 12:50:00 GMT

Twenty-five years ago, there was nowhere cooler in the college-rock scene than Athens, Georgia. The Classic City famously spawned R.E.M. and the B-52s as well as a massive roster of indie acts, including Love Tractor, Pylon, Flat Duo Jets, Kilkenny Cats, and Bar-B-Q Killers. All that angsty creativity was celebrated in the 1987 documentary Athens, Ga.–Inside/Out, a valentine to the city as much as its music scene. The film features concert footage intercut with a cameo by folk artist and R.E.M. collaborator Howard Finster, gospel performances, and lingering shots of downtown dives and the University of Georgia campus. It screened in limited release, and the accompanying LP soundtrack is long out of print. Omnivore Recordings is reissuing the movie on DVD this month, along with a CD soundtrack with bonuses, the highlight of which is Love Tractor and Peter Buck covering “Shattered.”

>> WATCH: The trailer to the movie, featuring plenty of classic Athens tunes

Blackberry Smoke Releases Third Album

Candice Dyer — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 18:47:00 GMT

This band’s sweet jams really jell around the hickory fires of a barbecue pit—or in the cigarette haze of a juke joint—so the handle Blackberry Smoke fits the Atlanta-based Southern rockers just fine.

“Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes suggested that one,” says Charlie Starr, front man and lyricist for the five long-haired country boys who teamed up twelve years ago and quickly established themselves as heirs to Lynyrd Skynyrd.

“We draw from traditional country, with that weepy, pitiful-sounding pedal steel, and throw in a little jazz,” says Starr, who learned mandolin as a child from his gospel-singing grandma in Alabama.

Blackberry Smoke produced two albums before old friend Zac Brown signed them to his Southern Ground Artists label. The resulting CD, The Whippoorwill, showcases those early sanctified, O Brother influences, from the sepia-toned liner notes to the sexy opening number, “Six Ways to Sunday,” about handling snakes and loving a woman until she talks in tongues. Blackberry Smoke finds its groove somewhere between Saturday night’s barstool and Sunday morning’s church pew.

Unabashed road dogs, the bandmates typically play more than 150 shows a year. See them September 8 at the Brothers and Sisters Music Festival at Masquerade Music Park. The lineup also includes North Mississippi Allstars and Unknown Hinson.

Photograph by Zack Arias

Jazz Age

Jon Ross — Tue, 01 May 2012 12:00:00 GMT

When pianist Herbie Hancock gazed out over Piedmont Park on Memorial Day in 2007, there was barely a patch of grass unoccupied by picnic blankets or folding chairs. It was closing night of the three-day Atlanta Jazz Festival, and 100,000 people packed the park to celebrate the free event’s thirtieth anniversary. A year later, a relatively meager crowd wedged into Downtown’s Woodruff Park for just two days of concerts. The event had to be relocated due to drought, costing the festival thousands in lost sponsorship dollars. Organizers staged a “no-frills festival,” relying mostly on $120,000 in residual funds, says Camille Russell Love, director of the Office of Cultural Affairs. “I basically told my staff, we’re going to create a festival that we can afford to create,” she says. “We’ll use local artists, but we won’t lose the momentum of the festival.”

Photograph of 29th Street Saxophone Quartet, 1988, by Susan Ross; view a gallery of more performers from throughout the festival's history

As the event marks its thirty-fifth anniversary this month, momentum is rolling again. Private donations and grants are up, and city funding is back after drying up completely in the early 2000s. Organizers are predicting daily attendance of up to 75,000 (versus 50,000 in 2011) and revenue of $500,000 (versus $315,000 in 2011). Cyrus Chestnut, an internationally known pianist who will make his third appearance this year, ranks Atlanta’s celebration near the top. “The Atlanta Jazz Festival has always been one of the signature festivals in the United States,” he says. “It is a major stop.”

Ebbs and flows have characterized the festival’s entire history. In June 1978, jazz lover Mayor Maynard Jackson inaugurated the event. With a plush budget and full support from city government, the festival could pay upwards of $30,000 to bring in legendary artists like Miles Davis and Sarah Vaughan. But city funding plummeted during the early 1990s, when director John Armwood had to bank on personal connections to lure national artists like Abbey Lincoln, Jackie McLean, and the Harper Brothers, often for just a few thousand dollars. By the late 1990s, with funding from the city’s hotel-motel tax, the event was flush again. The Office of Cultural Affairs received more than $1 million annually to stage the Jazz Festival and Atlanta’s now-defunct Montreux Jazz Festival.

>> MAY 26–28: The thirty-fifth festival returns to Piedmont Park, with two stages featuring international and local artists as well as youth jazz bands. Most events are free. Headliners include Chestnut, along with Roy Ayers, Tito Puente Jr., and Robert Glasper. Every day this month, local artists also perform in area venues as part of the 31 Days of Jazz program.

It is ironic that a city not known for jazz has such a well-known festival. But Armwood, a longtime announcer for Jazz 91.1 WCLK, notes that though the local jazz scene has been small, it’s been consistent. The vibe dates back to the 1960s, when Paschal’s La Carousel Lounge hosted legends like Quincy Jones and Jimmy Smith. Local clubs such as Churchill Grounds and Cafe 290 have drawn loyal audiences for decades.

Atlanta-based trumpeter Melvin Jones credits the festival with generating community awareness that benefits local artists. “The festival,” he says, “is a way to pronounce to the world that the musical culture of this city has a very strong live component outside of pop, R&B, gospel, and hip-hop.”

Russell Love agrees: “The jazz festival is our way of making sure we give [the audience] not just the hip-hop that pervades Atlanta.” For at least one month a year, Atlanta becomes a jazz town.

Cindy Pinion Plays Hostess of North Georgia Bluegrass

Tony Rehagen — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:00:00 GMT

The white van pulls onto Burnt Mill Road, a pine-strewn lane winding through the Chattanooga Valley town of Flintstone, five miles south of the Tennessee border. It’s 5 p.m. A beat-up light box reading Mike’s Music points to a white one-story whose basement juts out from the hillside. Across the road squats a sharecropper’s shanty, its tilted mailbox slapped with a sticker: Forever Bluegrass beside the silhouette of a man, peacock feather in his hat, leaning on a bass fiddle. An identical sticker is plastered to the van’s bumper, next to Minnesota plates.

The van crunches into the shanty’s gravel drive, and four travelers climb down. Inside, Cindy Pinion bounces in her boots to some unheard tune, trying to stay on top of the mounting pile of dirty dishes while the cornbread rises. On the table, a feast worth the thousand-mile trip from Minneapolis: turnip greens, a twelve-pound roast, and blueberry crunch for dessert. Last night Monroe Crossing played Elberton, Georgia, and tomorrow they’ll gig in Chattanooga. But tonight the musicians will take respite in the fabled Pinion hospitality, where for more than thirty years bluegrass musicians have found a home-cooked meal and a much-needed break from the road.

Cindy’s older sister, Inez, owns the white house and music store across the street. Cindy lives here, in the shanty, where she was born fifty-one years ago. The home is cluttered with books, guitar cases, a dusty piano, and picture frames occupying nearly every inch of surface and wall space. The visitors focus on several photos of a gaunt man, peacock feather in his hat, leaning on a bass fiddle—Thomas “Boxcar” Pinion, Cindy’s father.

Boxcar, who got the nickname as a high-school running back, was a welder by trade. But on weekends he frequented dance halls and bars, lugging along his pawn-shop bass (“Ole Yellar”), his wife, and three daughters. His band, Tom and Newell and the Grasscutters, picked out mountain music at concerts, festivals, and square dances. Anyone who plucked a string in these parts came to know Boxcar, his girls, and his wife, Frances, who hosted and fed pickers passing through. And when anyone needed help, he was standing by with a set list for a benefit. So when Boxcar was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, his friends held a concert, a tradition that the Pinions have continued every year since his death in 1990. The 22nd Boxcar Pinion Memorial Bluegrass Festival will be held in Chattanooga this May to support the American Cancer Society.

Through her father and the festival, Cindy has come to know musicians throughout the world. And whether it’s a national act like Bobby Osborne or a smaller band just passing through, Cindy is eager to promote their show or even find them a gig. At the very least, she fills their bellies. She doesn’t get a dime. All she asks is that they take a bumper sticker.

As night sets in, the Minnesotans unload their instruments and trek across the road. The music store is bursting with bric-a-brac: faded playbills, photos, and antique guitars. Uprooted church pews line the perimeter of the open floor. There the Minnesotans set up—a bass, guitar, banjo, and fiddle—and play for the neighbors who’ve started to arrive. As the locals spot the tunes, they unpack their own instruments and join in. The circle grows. The music swells. Cindy herself doesn’t play a lick, but she dances and makes sure everyone has a seat, a beer, and a bun for the hot dogs she’s boiled.

Night slips by and dozens more come down from the mountains: a veterinarian, a lawyer, a business exec. Ages thirty to sixty. Some play, others listen. Wednesday Night Pickin’ has been a weekly tradition in these parts for twenty years. A pair of the Minnesotans put down their instruments and mingle with the crowd. To someone just walking in the door, it would be impossible to spot the outsiders.

Photograph by Jamey Guy

Tony Rehagen is our senior editor.
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Nursery Rhymes: MattyB

Josh Green — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:00:00 GMT

Eight-year-old Matthew Morris confesses to having a fear of coyotes and a loathing of spinach, and he answers questions with a focused, “Yes, sir.” But give him a beat and put him in shades and a leather jacket, and he becomes MattyB—a “chyeah”-saying emcee who agilely chirps that he’s hotter than gumbo.

>> VIDEOS: Watch MattyB's greatest hits

Since his family uploaded a video for his cover of Justin Bieber’s “Eenie Meenie” in 2010, MattyB has scored 70 million YouTube views and garnered face time with Katy Perry and Simon Fuller. He’s recorded a video with Vanilla Ice and performed at Perez Hilton’s birthday party. “A lot of college girls recognize him,” says mom Tawny Morris.

MattyB’s forte is positive, G-rated lyrics over pop hits by stars like Ke$ha and Bruno Mars (skirting copyright laws by pulling no profit). The sentiment usually lands somewhere between adorable and comically ostentatious. But donning a sandy blond mop and dusty Crocs, he downplays the attention as “cool” while acknowledging those who rip him as a wannabe. Says MattyB, “I just shake the haters off.”

Photograph courtesy of mattybraps.com

It's a Zac Brown World

Kenneth R. Wilson — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:00:00 GMT

After years grinding out a living on Georgia’s music circuit, Cumming native Zac Brown has enjoyed seemingly overnight success. Since 2009’s chart-topping “Chicken Fried,” there have been two Grammys, two major-label albums, sold-out shows, and a number one duet with Jimmy Buffett. And like the sailor from Margaritaville, thirty-three-year-old Brown is parlaying the spoils into an empire: Southern Ground.

Photograph by C. Taylor Crothers

Headquartered in Westside, Southern Ground employs thirty people and houses Brown’s disparate interests and ventures: clothing and culinary line Lucy Justice Goods (named after his first two kids); spice rub and sauce line Baby Goo; indie label Southern Ground Artists; custom leather shop Southern Hide; and metal shop Southern Grind. Perhaps those early years of struggling motivated him to build this foundation for a lasting business, but “for me, Southern Ground represents a sampling of the things I love most—family, friends, food, and music,” says Brown.

One of those friends is Rusty Hamlin, a business partner at Smyrna’s Atkins Park and now Southern Ground’s executive chef. With Hamlin’s help, Brown—a longtime foodie—concocted his own spice rub and marinade and wrote the Southern Ground cookbook. The duo also transformed the traditional concert meet and greet into an “Eat and Greet,” a preconcert dinner prepared by Hamlin and three sous chefs for the band and 150 to 250 fan club members known as the Zamily. Hamlin creates an original menu at each stop and uses local ingredients when he can, but “Cookie,” the fifty-four-foot, two-story food truck, stays stocked with Southern staples like Duke’s Mayonnaise—a necessary element in Zac’s pocketknife coleslaw recipe.

>> RECIPE: Try this coleslaw from Brown's cookbook

Brown is also obsessed with knives. It’s how he met metal artist Rodney Shelton fifteen years ago. Shelton cuts, grinds, and sharpens reclaimed carbon steel into sixteen-inch-plus Bowie knives at Southern Grind. Next door, leather artist Kyle Landas, a former bricklayer from Iowa, imprints intricate images and designs on cowhide to make items like cuffs and guitar straps. Band member Clay Cook introduced Landas and Brown after the latter designed a Zac Brown Band–inspired guitar strap. Serendipitously, Brown had purchased the soon-to-be Southern Hide leather shop just two days earlier. “He said, ‘You showed up on my bus for a reason,’” says Landas.

Brown’s generous spirit also brought Blackberry Smoke to Southern Ground Artists. Brown had already made good on a promise to support Georgia musicians by giving recording contracts to Sonia Leigh, Nic Cowan, and Levi Lowrey. When Blackberry Smoke’s former label crumbled, “He got wind of it and pretty much made an offer: If you guys need a home, you’ve got one,” says the Atlanta-based band’s lead singer and guitarist, Charlie Starr.

The universe building around Brown continues to expand. He and Hamlin are cooking up a special dumbwaiter system to deliver gourmet concert concessions. Brown’s Southern Reel produces Fear No Evil, a hunting reality show cohosted by Brown on the Outdoor Channel. And Camp Southern Ground, a retreat for kids with learning disabilities, is under construction in Fayette County.

The Soul Within

Kristi York Wooten — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:46:00 GMT

Inside Atlanta’s Northyards Complex on a cloudy spring afternoon, India Arie performs “Gift of Acceptance” to a rapt crowd. The ethereal singer twirls in a floor-length white dress, accompanied by her new songwriting partner, Israeli pianist Idan Raichel. Their contemplative set leaves much of the audience visibly moved at the TEDx conference—organized by the local branch of an exclusive, multidisciplinary think tank devoted to technology, entertainment, and design (like Mensa for the culturally aware).

Photograph by Amanda Lucidon / Care

“I wasn’t the only one who felt we were witnessing the debut of the next ‘Peace Train,’” TEDx Atlanta organizer Tod Martin reflected a few days later, comparing “Gift” to the 1971 Cat Stevens ballad.

Open Door, Arie’s soon-to-be-released CD collaboration with Raichel, supplants the smooth R&B of her earlier hits with a world music vibe and lyrics about tolerance and “peace, love, and prosperity.” “I love every song I’ve ever released, but I always felt like something was missing,” says Arie. “Without the foundation of spirituality, everything feels shallow, even winning Grammys.”

>> VIDEO: Watch Arie perform "Gift of Acceptance"

In fact, Arie—who’s racked up twenty-one Grammy nominations and four golden phonographs in her decade-long career—began traveling alone and considered quitting the music business. Even as her song “Beautiful Day” was featured on ABC’s Good Morning America and her SoulBird Music label launched, Arie remained unsure about continuing in an industry that would laud the brashness of her 2006 mantra “I Am Not My Hair,” yet pressure her to act like the women she disdained in her first hit, “Video” (2001). “I needed to drop everything,” Arie says of her breaking point after a grueling tour in 2009.

After discovering Raichel on a Putamayo CD compilation, Arie ended up at the piano in his Tel Aviv apartment. Before the two knew it, they were playing for the Obamas at the Kennedy Center in D.C., and at last year’s Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway. Inspired once again, she says, “I believe God put me in this place at this time. Things just happen. I’m always surprised by what comes up.”

Gregg Allman's Second Chance

Scott Freeman — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:59:00 GMT

In 2009 Gregg Allman flew to Los Angeles to record his first solo album in fourteen years. The producer was the famous T Bone Burnett. “It started off so quick,” Allman says from his home on the Georgia coast. “Right away we had four tunes. Some were first takes. There were no interruptions, no strife, no drama.”

The drama came later, when Allman saw his doctors. “They diagnosed me with cancer,” he says. “That was the scariest part—three malignant tumors on my liver. I saw my funeral flash before my eyes. [But] it was not my time, and thank God.”

Allman’s years of hard living are no secret. (I once met him for breakfast in a motel bar; he ordered a screwdriver.) But while the years of alcohol abuse had done nothing to help his liver, it was hepatitis C that made it vulnerable to cancer. Allman suspects he caught the disease through a contaminated needle four decades ago. Treated successfully in 1999, the disease flared again in 2009. On June 23, 2010, Allman underwent a successful transplant. Today he is a spokesman with the American Liver Foundation, raising awareness about the disease that almost killed him.

It’s been a watershed year for the sixty-three-year-old. The solo album with Burnett, Low Country Blues, debuted in January at number five on the Billboard Top 200. He wants to record a new Allman Brothers Band album. He hasn’t touched alcohol or drugs in fifteen years and now has the liver of a thirty-year-old.

Declares Allman in a voice strong and sober: “This is an absolute second chance.”

Photograph by Danny Clinch