When I first got to town, I went to a concert at the historic Douglass Theatre, where festivalgoers had gathered to hear Jaimoe playing with his jazz group. Some of the band’s most faithful fans have gathered in Macon annually, since the 1990s, for GABBAfest, an event hosted by the Georgia Allman Brothers Band Association (GABBA). When the band was named one of the top 100 of all time by Rolling Stone, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top wrote: “The Allman Brothers Band was a true brotherhood of players - one that went beyond race and ego.” This brotherhood is what fans have come to adore about the Allman Brothers, in addition to their music.
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It was in the alchemy of these genres, converging in Macon, that Southern rock was born. But they came soon after, bringing bits of blues, jazz, country and rock. He was an Allman Brother before Dickey Betts, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks or even Gregg Allman. Jai “Jaimoe” Johanson, a black drummer who’d backed Redding on tour, was the first person to join. Walden - a white promoter who, early on, would have been arrested if he had entered segregated venues to see the black artists he represented - suggested that Duane start a band. When Redding died in a plane crash in 1967, Phil Walden, Redding’s manager and co-founder of Macon’s now-defunct Capricorn Records, declared that he would never again become so personally invested in an artist.īut when he heard Duane Allman’s guitar, he changed his mind. They were two fatherless boys from Florida, and they were being exposed to a pioneer of soul music, a genre incorporating gospel and rhythm and blues. It was at a concert featuring Otis Redding that Duane Allman turned to his brother, Gregg, and said: We’ve got to be part of this. (Leigh Ann Henion/For The Washington Post) The gravesites of Duane Allman and Berry Oakley, who died a year apart, are where fans historically went to party now they are protected by a fence. Rose Hill Cemetery is a place of pilgrimage for many Allman Brothers Band fans.
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But for some music lovers, to be in Macon is to have already arrived. Where, once, it was common to see bluesman Willie McTell walking the streets with a placard.īeulahland is, in Christian tradition, where residents of a destroyed city waited to be called, as pilgrims, to the holy land. I’m here because this is the town where the Allman Brothers Band got their start. I’m in attendance because the church building where Redding got his start no longer stands and, when I told his daughter, Karla Redding-Andrews, that I’d like to witness the spirit of his old choir, she directed me to Beulahland. That day, he gave the studio band one directive: Just gimme those church things! And those church things are here! Today! Almost every hand in this place is raised. When Redding - who would go on to be crowned the King of Soul - asked for a chance to sing, he introduced the world to his first hit single, “These Arms of Mine.” His industry break came unexpectedly, in 1962, when he attended a local musician’s recording session. He sang in his father’s choir before he took to the stage.
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Otis Redding was the son of a preacher man. So, maybe it’s fitting that one of its most famous natives sang about sitting on the dock of a bay. When you ask Maconites how this came to pass, they often say it was something in the water. Macon, population roughly 90,000, was once known as a great music city, like Motown and Memphis. The preacher calls out to the soloist: I wanna drink from the cup you’re drinking from! He’s hitting highs and lows, chasing notes into places other singers just cannot go. One thousand hands, clapping.Īll the singers are good.
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Here it comes: The sound of keyboards, drums. Movie-quality cameras glide through the air on mobile cranes. Finally, he turns to face the rest of us. With 76 members, it’s larger than some congregations. , and the man in the pulpit is preaching to the choir. It’s Sunday morning at Beulahland Bible Church in Macon, Ga. (Leigh Ann Henion/For The Wasihington Post) Karla Redding-Andrews (right) and her son Justin Andrews (left) run the Otis Redding Foundation office in Macon, Ga.