19 things you didn’t know about Atlanta’s past

The Kinks, Willie Nelson, and ZZ Top left their handprints on Peachtree Road

Forgotten Atlanta
1975: ZZ Top leaving their prints in concrete at Peaches Records and Tapes

Photograph courtesy of the Kenan Research Center at the Atlanta History Center

The Allman Brothers. ZZ Top. Dolly Parton. The Beach Boys. Willie Nelson. Lou Reed. The Kinks. In the late 1970s, you could find all of their handprints—and many more—in the sidewalk outside Peaches Records & Tapes, a record store and local hangout on Peachtree. “The biggest ‘get’ was probably Paul McCartney,” says Jeff Cochran, who started at Peaches as a clerk in 1975 and eventually became the regional advertising director. But after the company filed for bankruptcy in 1981 and the Atlanta store closed, the prints were unceremoniously destroyed, says Cochran, “smashed to bits in a single afternoon.”