Category Archives: Music

WRFG

March 25, 2014Community, RadioPatrick Edmondson

Bass Organization for Neighborhood Development was behind the rise of Inman Park, Little Five Points, Candler Park, Lake Claire. This organization created a cornerstone on which to get power from co-operative financing. Keep your money working inside your community.

How many communities have their own local radio station? I have to admit I thought neighbor Pig Iron aka Joe Shifalo had lost it when he asked me to sign with my 3rd class radio license to help get approval for a neighborhood radio station. But he and others made it happen and continue these many years later. Listen on the internet.

http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0082.html

Radio Free Georgia originated as a 10-watt station operating from Little Five Points starting in 1973.

“WRFG grew out of the movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s,” Gray said. “The early founders could have started a newspaper but they chose instead to create a radio station,” in part because of the emergence of The Great Speckled Bird. “The station is a tool to implement ideas.”

The Great Speckled Bird ran the first news article about WRFG years ago and was instrumental in helping with its founding, one of WRFG’s original founders, Harlon Joye told Heather Gray, according to an interview transcript obtained by Atlanta Progressive News.

Similar to the Great Speckled Bird, WRFG’s founders say they were subject to police harassment and spying, the transcript says. WRFG was seen as a center of radicalism in Atlanta.

WRFG was one of the only progressive radio stations in the United States at the time, Joye told Heather Gray, in addition to a few Pacifica stations and a few independent ones.

Grassroots efforts, improvisation of an antenna involving trips to Radio Shack, and shoestring budgets were reportedly involved.

The National Endowment for the Humanities gave WRFG a grant in the 1970s and the station has not looked back. “In the Deep South…we’re it,” Gray told Atlanta Progressive News. “We’re the only station that has public affairs and music [and] we take our position seriously.”

WRFG produced a 50 part series between 1977 and 1980 called “Living Atlanta!” that won national awards. The University of Georgia Press published a book in 1989 based on the series.

The station’s contribution in the musical field is significant as well. It became the first radio station in Atlanta since the 1950s to feature blues, bluegrass, and jazz; musical forms native to the region.

WRFG has a smorgasbord of music, something for everyone, and many programs are geared toward Atlanta’s ever growing Latin, Asian, Caribbean, and African communities. “We play the leading role in providing opportunities for hip-hop,” Gray said.

In 1995, WRFG reached its goal of operating at 100,000 watts. The next year, the station took its show on the road, going to Dublin to broadcast the St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Jamaica, where the first World Party Tour occurred.

Today, WRFG continues to give a voice to people who traditionally are denied access to broadcast media. “We have to [continue] to make sure we have access to progressive opportunities,” Gray said.

Atlanta Progressive News Staff Writers have been on WRFG’s progressive news hour each week for the last couple months. News Editor Matthew Cardinale, and Staff Writers Jonathan Springston, Betty Clermont, and Kristina Cates have each discussed their latest news items recently on Adam Shapiro’s “Current Events” program, Thursdays at noon.

Everyone can help WRFG continue their progressive legacy by visiting WRFG.org, donating money, and learning more about the Tower of Power Campaign.

About the author:

Jonathan Springston is a Staff Writer for Atlanta Progressive News. He may be reached at jonathan@atlantaprogressivenews.com.

Visiting Macon

March 25, 2014The Allman Brothers BandPatrick Edmondson

See Ron Curren of Hittin The Note’s photos of a Macon Allman Brothers expedition to visit Kirk West. The Big House is a must visit for Allman fans.

Heaven if you are an Allman’s memorabilia fan.

The Big House where much of the Allman Brothers music was first played.

Our host, Allman’s FORMER archivist Kirk West, is holding a sheet from a Fillmore East pad where Duane wrote Jimi Hendrix’s name and number.

H & H where the Allman’s Brothers were fed. Ron Currens of Hittin the Note awaits us.

Hittin the Note’s Joe Bell, MysterE, Bill Hardin, Kirk West, and David Michaelson outside Capricorn Studios.

An homage – David Michaelson above, L-R below – MysterE, Bill Hardin, Ron Currens and Joe Bell from Hittin the Note.

In 1970 Dekalb County’s Columbia High School signed a contract for a local band some students said were amazing. Soon after their live album ‘At Fillmore East’ made them super stars. The Allman Brothers showed their stuff and honored the contract to play their prom in the gym. A prom to brag about for years. Dekalb Police had to call in Ga State troopers to help handle gate crashers. Mark (David) Chapman was a 9th grader; later he would gain infamy by killing John Lennon.

Thanks to David Turner for improved print of Duane ‘s first cover shot for The Bird.

Love that STP shirt (save the park, stop the police)

Electric Collage interview

March 25, 2014LightshowsPatrick Edmondson

Haynes McFadden Tells about Atlanta’s first light show.

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Haynes McFadden on color experiments.

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Haynes McFadden on the Electric Collage

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Haynes McFadden on experimentation of the time.

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Bucky Weatherill on light shows – complete Bucky interview

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The Electric Collage Light Show

March 25, 2014LightshowsPatrick Edmondson

Electric Collage was the first Light Show in Atlanta. It began as experiments with light and color for The Catacombs. When a member asked David Braden if they could get things and do a light show at The Catacombs, he reportedly replied, “Go ahead, do it! Why are you asking me? I’m NOT your mother!” Thus he began to be called Mother David.

From that they grew.

Steve Cheatham and Frank Hughes have a wonderful site on the later Electric Collage.

Here is very early Electric Collage. Photos by Haynes McFadden

Bucky Wetherell interview

Haynes McFadden interview

Hydra

March 25, 2014BandsPatrick Edmondson

Hydra in Piedmont Park

Radar

March 25, 2014BandsPatrick Edmondson

Here are photos from the members of Radar, a well-loved, very creative band . They often played Piedmont Park free concerts.

http://www.messyoptics.com/bird/atl_15.html

Here they are over the years.

Arthur Offen’s site

Alex Cooley

March 25, 2014FestivalsPatrick Edmondson

MysterE and Patti Kakes with Alex Cooley

Thanks Alex for all the great music over the years.

Thanks especially for bringing The Grateful Dead to Piedmont Park.

Starting in 1994, Alex’s Music Midtown, the largest 3 day event in the U.S. ran until 2005, usually in May. With over 100 acts, an average of 300,000 people attended each year. For several years it was actually on The Strip at 10th and Peachtree. http://alexcooley.com/fest-midtown.html

In 2012 it returned to Piedmont Park.

Music venue ads from Bill Hardin

March 25, 2014ClubsPatrick Edmondson

Bring back any memories?

Radio in 60s Atlanta

March 25, 2014MusicPatrick Edmondson

Atlanta was lucky enough to have a good radio station for popular music. This wasn’t true everywhere. In South Georgia we had pop music playing only a few hours in the afternoon and evening. Late at night your tinny transistor could maybe get Memphis, Chicago or even Cousin Brucie in NYC. But in Atlanta you had

Quixie in Dixie

WQXI first went on the air in 1948 as an all music station, playing pop standards. Their independent status was unique. By the 1960’s WQXI was Top 40 with the moniker “Quixie in Dixie“. Among the stations personalities was Dr. Don Rose in the late 1960s, who went on to near legendary status at KFRC in San Francisco. His fame made ever-lasting by his inclusion as the 1967 entry in the popular series of “Cruisin’” LP records.WQXI was the inspiration for the television sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati. Series creator Hugh Wilson dealt with the station when he worked in advertising. WKRP episodes which included dropping turkeys from a helicopter and the “dancing ducks promotion,” with ducks dancing on hot plates, were actually done by Jerry Blum at WQXI. Blum leased an 18-wheeler and tossed hundreds of live turkeys from a suburban Atlanta shopping center.

From 1968 Atlanta Radio Time Warp: Atlanta was on the verge of being a boomtown in 1968. Residents and visitors flocked to the new Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown to ride the bubble shaped elevators up into the canopy of the atrium lobby. The rotating floor of the Polaris Lounge on top of the Regency gave a panoramic view of the city through the transparent blue dome over the lounge. The Braves on WSB-AM and the Falcons on WQXI-AM were new teams in town and the Hawks were on their way with WSB-AM to be their home. Atlanta had just discovered live theater and theater reviews were becoming common on the radio. The now defunct Theater Atlanta was a ground breaking class act which went to Broadway and performed a play that spoofed then Governor Lester Maddox who, in the early ’60s, gave out pick ax handles at his Pickrick fried chicken restaurant as a symbol of resistance to integration.

The Vietnam war was raging and tearing the country apart in 1968. Atlanta was a magnet in the south for hippies and youthful war protesters. The sidewalks in the “Tight Squeeze” area around 10th and Peachtree Streets were packed with so many hippies that pedestrians literally had to walk in the streets. People driving through the area stopped to stare, creating massive traffic jams that snaked for blocks around the area. The alternative newspaper The Great Speckled Bird was hawked by vendors wearing tie-dyed T-shirts from street corners for 15 cents a copy. As a sign of the changes that were to come, Plough’s WPLO-FM would soon convert to an automated underground rock format.

Military service was mandatory in 1968. The young men who were drafted that year who were fortunate to make it back to Atlanta would find a big change in the radio scene. When they left, people were listening to AM. When they returned, people were listening to FM.