The Good Old Days

This afternoon I was caught up in the arms of a large wave of nostalgia as I got on facebook and found it was throwback day and everyone was encouraged to change their profile picture to one from long ago and then I found a blog site which had a story about Piano Red at Muhlenbrink's Saloon in Underground Atlanta and then continued to talk about the acts at the Great Southeast Music Hall. It took me back to when John and Machie and I used to go to Underground and then when a bunch of us used to go to the Great Southeast Music Hall in Broadview Plaza to listen to musicians and comedians and enjoy the ambiance of a small room seating around five hundred patrons with seat backs attached to the floor, with cushions on the floor, drinking beer out of metal buckets or wine from carafes and eating soft pretzels.

The first act I was supposed to see was Doc Watson and we bought our tickets then arrived at the Music Hall only to find that we weren't able to come in because we were under age. Of course, it wasn't that much longer until we turned eighteen and were going every weekend or so to listen to someone. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Doug Kershaw, Greg Allman, Jesse Colin Young, Emmy Lou Harris, Steve Martin and Martin Mull, Savoy Brown, B B King. The list was endless.

The most amazing trip started one Saturday night at Gary Defilipo's house, when we were looking for something to do and called the information number at the Music Hall. The recorded message said something about wanting to listen to three hundred fifty pounds of the best Chicago blues. It sounded interesting, so we drove down to Broadview Plaza only to get there too late for the eight o'clock show, so we walked down to the bowling alley beneath the hall and bowled a couple of games. John had put eight quarters into the juke box to play "Down South Jukin" by Lynnerd Skynnerd, but someone got tired of hearing the same song over and over again. John was getting ready to roll his ball down the lane when the juke box abruptly stopped and John turned to see why the music had stopped.

Later, we walked upstairs and watched a young man, Gove Skrivener, walked onstage, leading his dog on a rope and played the guitar and autoharp on traditional music. Later, he and his dog left and a number of African American musicians took the stage and began playing blues. Of course, none of them looked like they might weigh three hundred fifty pounds. After several songs, a huge man came up and climbed the stage and began to play the stand up bass. It was amazing. There were so few people in the hall at the time that we came up to the front row and sat and listened to the music up close. Later, when the set was over, we stood up and shook hands with the entire band. It was great. Willie Dixon's hands were huge; his fingers were as large as sausages and they were all so happy to stand there and talk and socialize with us for a few minutes afterward.

One night we went to see a double bill with Steve Martin and Martin Mull. That was pretty cool. On the night before graduation, we went down and saw Thermos Greenwood and the Colored People play as warmup acts for the band that sang "On the Cover of the Rolling Stone." The most memorable part of that was that everyone in the band was totally wasted except one guy. After the concert, we ran into the band in the parking lot and they were all polluted, except for the one guy who was about as mad as I had seen someone in that situation.

There were other places too: Alex Cooley's Electric Ballroom, P J Kenney's in Underground, Charles McGruders on Power's Ferry, even the bar in Cumberland where the bartenders would make adult milk shakes and give me the extra out of the blender for free. Fun times. I loved the frozen white russians.