Many Rivers of Music

The February 22nd, 1979, issue of the Athens Observer included an article, “The Normaltown River of Music,” written by Jimmy Cornelison and Joyce Bramblett. It has become a frequently-cited resource for Athens music enthusiasts because of an accompanying two-page illustration drawn by Chatham Murray (at the time Chatham McCommons). The illustration presents the overlapping line-ups of numerous Athens-based, or otherwise Athens-connected, music groups, nearly all of which included a few leading figures of the Athens music scene of the 1960s and ’70s: Terry “Mad Dog” Melton, Davis Causey, Randall Bramblett, Brian Burke, and Harold Williams. Causey passed away on February 19th, 2023, making this an appropriate time to reflect upon these local manifestations of the vast cultural changes unleashed by Rhythm and Blues and Rock. Chatham Murray, well known for her paintings and other visual work, passed away in 2020. (Tributes to both Causey and Murray have been published at Flagpole.)

If one were to find the article on microfilm copies of the Observer, one immediately sees that the illustration, because it stretches across two pages, and because the filmed version seems to have derived from bound copies of the newspaper, has a gap straight down the middle. However, one also notices at the bottom of the first page the following note: “This genealogy will be available at The Athens Observer for $5.” That is, the reader could go to the Observer offices at the corner of Lumpkin and Washington and buy a copy of the two-page spread. Seen below is a scan of this version, thankfully provided by Paul Butchart, who leads the Athens Music History Tours organized by the Athens Welcome Center.

In the illustration, the group names and line-ups are connected not by simple lines, as they are in standard family trees (or in Pete Frame’s staggeringly-detailed “Rock Family Trees”), but by an undulating “river of music” that the viewer can imagine takes the individual musicians on their artistic journeys from one group to the next.

One quickly loses count trying to track all of the bands that Causey or Bramblett played in. Bramblett is still an active performer, but not of course with the same band he had in the mid-’70s, which was comprised of local musicians, including Causey, promoting the two albums Bramblett released on Polydor, That Other Mile [1975] and Light of the Night [1976], recorded mostly with top-notch sessions musicians. A Flagpole piece from 2001 by Matt Thompson provides a good overview of Bramblett’s career.

One of the earliest groups noted in the illustration, the Jesters, who mostly played covers of R and B classics, also included Causey. After a long break in the ’70s and early ’80s, they would return with varying degrees of regularity until they finally called it a day in 2014, staging a fiftieth-anniversary farewell performance at the Georgia Theatre. Ballard Lesemann previewed that concert in Flagpole, going into significant detail about the band’s history.

Besides his turns with the Jesters and Bramblett, Causey played with the Normaltown Flyers for many years. That band were largely responsible for the “river of music” being named after the Normaltown neighborhood. As documented in the Red and Black article from February, 1980, clipped below, the Flyers initially played regularly at the Deli Haus, located at 1375 Prince Avenue. When that establishment closed (only to reappear downtown and later become Yudy’s) the Flyers set themselves up across Prince at Allen’s, playing regularly on Wednesday nights for many years. In their early years, they also played downtown venues like Speakeasy and the Last Resort and subsequently have continued to make their way around Athens’ music venues.

Coincidentally enough, the second iteration of the 40 Watt Club, in the year 1980, was located on the second floor of the building that the Deli Haus later moved to: 100 College Avenue. In the years, 1978-1979, the first 40 Watt, more of an informal practice and party space than a venue, had been across the street at 171 College Avenue, above what was at the time a Schlotzsky’s location and later became the beloved Fifties-nostalgia diner The Grill. In 1980, it opened at 100 College, when the restaurant downstairs was a location of a Sub and Steak, a local chain that operated for most of its history at 1675 South Lumpkin Street in Five Points. (Read in the Red and Black published April 3, 1980, about a night “about 75 people” witnessed an R. E. M. gig there.) By end of the 1980, this version of the 40 Watt had closed and, at the start of 1981, the Sub and Steak spot was taken by Deli Haus.

A brief digression…. Since Yudy’s, after nearly two decades at 100 College, gave way to a Starbucks location, one can see how the interest, or rather the lack thereof, of major national chains in locating downtown is a factor in the flowering of unique, homegrown artistic endeavors. By the late ’70s, Schlotzsky’s stood out, as shoppers had been drawn away from downtown by shopping centers like Beechwood, which opened in 1961, a process culminating in the opening of the Georgia Square Mall in 1981. With three large department stores leaving downtown for the mall, downtown was largely left to local businesses.

One often reads in retrospective accounts of the Normaltown Flyers that they were founded in 1979, but our dig through the newspaper archives quickly dispels that error. In fact, they debuted in 1978. The Red and Black article says that the Flyers had been around for 18 months. An advertisement from the January 5th, 1979, Red and Black, for a Flyers gig opening for Doc and Merle Watson, seen below, would seem to confirm that the band already existed at the start of ’79.

An article by Dan Johnson, published April 22nd, 2009, in Flagpole, further clarifies matters, filling in the details of the band’s early years. The band began as a trio, sans drums, of Brian Burke, Mike Cronic, and Greg Veale. Causey replaced Cronic; a drummer, Cal Hale, joined for the band’s second album; several years down the line, David Blackmon replaced Causey. Subsequent line-up changes are explained by Johnson. Cronic, who had moved to Nashville to work as a musician, also passed away this year.

Returning to the Normaltown family tree, the music scenes of other cities come into play, the ’70s being the heyday of Macon-centered “Southern Rock,” with Bramblett joining both Cowboy and Sea Level and other Athenians briefly backing up Gregg Allman on tour. Meanwhile, later Nashville star T. Graham Brown was establishing himself as a performer in Athens spots like the B & L Warehouse and the Georgia Theatre.

Another striking aspect of the “river of music” illustration is that it was published right around the time that some big changes were coming to the Athens music scene. As of February, 1979, the debut B-52’s single, “Rock Lobster,” released the previous April, was slowly making its mark. It would not become a hit until the re-recorded version of the song, released as both a single and in extended form on the band’s self-titled debut album, came out later in ’79, by which point the band had settled in New York. Back in Athens that same year, Pylon formed, followed in 1980 by R. E. M. Building upon the B-52’s’ success, these bands caught the attention of critics and scenesters from Atlanta to New York and beyond at a fast clip.

At the start of 1979, though, in the world of popular music, Athens was still–dare we say it–third-rate among Georgian cities, after both Macon and Atlanta. The article above, from the May 8th, 1979, issue of the Red and Black, reviewing an all-star benefit concert, indirectly offers a good summary of the Athens scene at the time; especially noteworthy is the information about the Night Bloomin’ Jazzmen.

In short, what would turn out to be an epochal year in Athens music, with the B-52’s catapulted to stardom and Pylon making their first moves, began with the Normaltown Flyers being the talk of the town. Though their mix of Country and Rock was quite distinct from what was brewed by Pylon and company, the Flyers’ career would in many respects mirror those of their “New Wave” brethren, as they would reach the peak of their commercial success in the early 1990’s, at nearly the same time as R. E. M.’s, with a two-album deal on Mercury Records. Whether a novice should listen to those albums, or their earlier independent releases… that’s a debate I’ll leave to those who have been listening to the band as long as I’ve been alive.

–Justin J. Kau