Chuck Leavell on Ray Charles, Gregg Allman and yes, Squidbillies!
Rolling Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell began his music career as a tagalong kid brother on his older sister’s date to a Ray Charles gig in Tuscaloosa in 1965. “I was 13 and my parents had something else going on that night,” Leavell recalled to Atlanta magazine this week from his 2500-acre tree farm in Macon. “So they said, ‘Why don’t you take Chuck with you?’ She graciously said yes. I was already playing music, learning piano and guitar. I was very interested in music. But I had never seen anything that powerful. I mean, Ray Charles is Ray Charles but then he had [David] Fathead Newman on sax, the Raelettes were singing. The band was just so tight. I walked away that night knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my life. If I could be in a band that was anything near that good and that powerful and that moving, that’s what I wanted to do. It was life changing.”
Video of the Day: Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix
Plot details are hazy, to put it mildly, in the trailer for Jimi: All Is by My Side, the Hendrix biopic starring Andre Benjamin of Outkast, aka Andre 3000. But here's what you can glean: Set in groovilicious 1966 London, the movie focuses on the early days of Hendrix's career, which evidently included a romantic entanglement with a young British woman, played by Imogen Poots. (That is the most British name ever; it sounds like a tertiary Harry Potter character, one of the Hufflepuff quidditch players, maybe.)
Good Ol’ Freda comes home for the holidays
This week, Chamblee High School graduate Ryan White’s critically acclaimed Beatles documentary Good Ol' Freda comes full circle in two ways. The previously untold story of Freda Kelly, the Liverpool teen who became the Fab Four’s secretary, bowed on British television Tuesday night, and on Friday Good Ol' Freda returns to White’s hometown for one last 2013 theatrical run at The Plaza Theatre.
What are you doing this weekend? November 22 – 24
Thanksgiving is less than a week away. So you only have six days to complain about the holiday music on the radio and decorations in all the stores before you start sounding like you’re ninety and talking about walking uphill both ways to school in five feet of snow. Here are some festive (or not) things to do this weekend to ease you into the holiday season.
Grammy winner Colbie Caillat added to Concerts in the Garden line-up
Given the current heat index in the city, lengthening the Wells Fargo Advisors Concerts in the Garden series at the Atlanta Botanical Garden into the middle of September sounds positively refreshing. The organizers of the popular live concert series have added singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat to their 2011 Summer line-up with a date scheduled for Friday, September 16 on the Great Lawn stage.
Jay Brannan returns to Eddie’s Attic to celebrate live album release
Like the “Caution: HOT!” warning label on styrofoam McDonald’s coffee cups, there’s a reason New York singer-songwriter Jay Brannan has posted an explicit message to fans on his official website. In part, it reads: “PLEASE DO NOT SEND OR DELIVER ANYTHING TO MY HOME. I will not open, read, consume or keep any unsolicited mail or deliveries from people I don’t know.”
Thanks to funding from fans, Uncle Green’s “Rycopa” to become a reality 14 years (!) after it was recorded
The irony is not lost on former Uncle Green drummer Peter McDade. "Leave it to us to have an album saved by technology that didn't exist when we recorded it," says McDade. Last week in just 36 hours, the long-disbanded Atlanta rock quartet's fans came together via the fundraising website kickstarter.com to raise the necessary $4,000 to finance the mixing, mastering and distribution of the act's last recording "Rycopa." The band originally sent out word via the Uncle Green Facebook fan page. Thanks to those efforts, "Rycopa" will finally be released this fall to fans a full 14 years after its creation. An Uncle Green reunion gig/"Rycopa" album release party is also being planned in Atlanta.
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