Music Musings from Macon

Goodbye Dickey Betts. You were in great company.

The city of Macon (nicknamed “The Heart of Georgia” due to its geographical location) boasts an outsized music history, claiming hometown heroes like Little Richard and Jason Aldean.

Little Richard in Macon in 2001. Photo courtesy of the Macon Telegraph.

Famous transplants include the legendary Otis Redding (whose family moved to Macon when he was two), Mike Mills of R.E.M. (California-born, he was raised in Macon from infancy), a teenaged Bill Berry (also R.E.M.), and the whole of iconic Southern blues rock band, the Allman Brothers, who originally hailed mostly from Florida, coastal Mississippi, and Chicago.

Macon is an old, shabby-in-places, shiny-in-places city on the Ocmulgee River, 84 miles southeast of Atlanta. In all my decades in metro ATL, I only came through once, on the way to Florida. I stayed less than an hour.

So, it’s interesting that your faithful correspondent just happened to be in town — on a cross-country trip from Savannah to Albuquerque — when Dickey Betts, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, died last week at 80 years old.

I never saw the ABB play live, although I heard great things about their shows. (If you saw them in concert, leave me a comment. I’m interested.)

I did see Dickey Betts, post-Allman break-up, with his band Great Southern, when they opened for booze and blues bad boys Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1977, five months before the tragic plane crash that would shock music fans around the world and end the original Skynyrd.

Betts composed songs we all know, “Ramblin’ Man” “Blue Sky,” “Jessica” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” He left his home in Florida at 16 to join the circus and found fame as a singer/songwriter/guitarist with the Allmans, composing their biggest hit and recording at Capricorn Records, in Macon’s storied studio.

Who else recorded at Capricorn? Bonnie Bramlett, the Marshall Tucker Band, Charlie Daniels, Wet Willie, Elvin Bishop, Delbert McClinton, Dixie Dregs, and Percy Sledge.

It was first created by the Walden brothers as the Otis Redding Memorial Studio, then built/broadened into Capricorn, and produced nine platinum albums, 17 gold albums, and five gold singles.

Not bad for a recording studio in a little-known locale in the Deep South.

Not bad at all.

While in town, I figured it behooved a rock ‘n’ roll chick like myself to explore some of Macon’s musical landmarks.

What on earth took me so long?

I started with The Big House, one of several places where members of the Allman Brothers band lived. It’s now a museum, located at 2321 Vineville Ave (which turns into Highway 41, for fans who want to know where that bit of “Ramblin’ Man” came from) and is, bar none, one of the best modern music museums I’ve ever been to.

Cher’s and Gregg Allman’s pool table is displayed prominently in the Big House, along with memorabilia galore.

The dress Brittany Oakley wore on the back cover photo of the Allman Brothers 1973 bestselling album “Brothers and Sisters.”

By the way, if you want to know anything about music history in Macon, ask this guy.

Rex will happily answer any of your questions and gives Macon music tours through Rock Candy. He can take you on a tour that lasts up to four hours if you’re a mega-music fan like me, or shorter jaunts if you’re on a tight schedule.

Next I went to Rose Hill Cemetery, where Duane Allman (group co-founder and guitar-whiz brother of Gregg) is laid to rest alongside other bandmates.

Duane Allman died at 24 years old in a motorcycle accident in Macon right after the 1971 release of the band’s hugely popular “At Fillmore East” album. A year later, bassist Berry Oakley, also 24, died from a motorcycle accident about three blocks from where Allman was killed.

Gregg Allman, who passed in 2017, is also buried at Rose Hill, near his brother and Berry Oakley.

Gregg Allman’s gravestone was finally completed in 2019, two years after he died.

The first time I visited the ABB graves in the 1990s, they weren’t inside a locked fence and fans regularly drank beer and smoked pot with their idols, sitting on or among the gravestones. You can still see the graves easily, you just can’t go right up to them any longer.

I couldn’t wait to find the Otis Redding Foundation (339 Cotton Ave) and the Otis Redding Center for the Arts.

Redding, dubbed “The King of Soul” for songs like “Respect,” “Try A Little Tenderness” and “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” died at 26 years old in December of 1967 when his private plane, also carrying his backup band, plunged into a lake in Wisconsin.

There was only one survivor, trumpet player Ben Cauley, a founding member of Stax recording artists the Bar-Kays. Cauley died in 2015.

Redding’s chart-topper "(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay,” co-written with Steve Cropper, was recorded three days before the plane crash and released the next year.

Of course the city hasn’t forgotten the inimitable Little Richard Penniman, who still causes tongues to wag around Macon (apparently he wasn’t just wild onstage).

My dear pal Peter Tork of the Monkees always used to tell me that he considered Little Richard the true King of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Little Richard’s childhood home, 416 Craft St.

All that exploring of music legends got me hungry so I went to Famous Mike’s of Macon, an eatery at 524 Poplar St.

Music fans: go to Macon if you get a chance. You won’t regret it.

And not to forget…RIP Dickey Betts.

And Gregg Allman, Duane Allman, Berry Oakley, Otis Redding, and Little Richard.

Thanks for all the great music.

We will remember you.