Culture of Georgia (U.S. State) - Music

Music

Music in Georgia ranges from folk music to rhythm and blues, rock and roll, country music, sludge metal and hip hop. The Georgia Music Hall of Fame, located in Macon is the state's museum of music.

Georgia's folk musical traditions include important contributions to the Piedmont blues, shape note singing and African American music. The "ring shout", an African American musical and dance tradition among the oldest surviving African American performance styles in North America, can still be found in McIntosh County, Georgia where black communities have kept the style alive. The McIntosh County ring shout is a counterclockwise ring dance featuring clapping and stick-beating percussion with call-and-response vocals. The ring shout tradition is strongest in Boldon, Georgia, where it is traditionally performed on New Year's Eve.

The Sacred Harp, compiled and produced by Georgians Benjamin Franklin White and Elisha J. King, was published in 1844. The Sacred Harp system use notes expressed with shapes to make it easy for people to learn to sight-read music and performed complex pieces without a lot of training. Foremost among Georgia Sacred Harp adherents is the Original Sacred Harp Publishing Company of Tallapoosa. A Georgia-based music label, Bibletone Records, has released a 28-cut CD of Sacred Harp Music.

Rock legends The Allman Brothers Band formed in Jacksonville, Florida, but moved to Macon, Georgia in 1969 and continued to call Macon home until 1979. The Allman's make numerous musical references to Georgia, in such songs as Hot 'Lanta, their cover of Blind Willie McTell's Statesboro Blues, and Ramblin' Man. Duane Allman famously mentioned Georgia in an interview with Ellen Mandel of Good Times Magazine, when in response to the question "How are you helping the revolution?" Allman replied "I'm hitting a lick for peace. And every time I'm in Georgia, I eat a peach for peace."

The Black Crowes are a group out of Marietta, Georgia that fuse blues, rock, and gospel into a Southern-soul-driven hard-rocking extravaganza with tones of Zeppelin-power and Sunday morning inspiration. The city of Athens, Georgia, home to the University of Georgia has been a fertile field for alternative rock bands since the late 1970s. Notable bands from Athens include R.E.M., The B-52's, Widespread Panic, Drive-By Truckers, as well as bands from the Elephant 6 Recording Company most notably Neutral Milk Hotel.

Rhythm and Blues is another important musical genre in Georgia. Ray Charles was one of popular music's most influential performers, fusing R&B, jazz, and country into many popular songs. Augusta native James Brown and Macon native Little Richard, two important figures in R&B history, started performing in Georgia clubs on the chitlin' circuit, fused gospel with blues and boogie-woogie to lay the foundations for R&B and Soul music, and rank among the most iconic musicians of the 20th century. In the 1960s, Atlanta native Gladys Knight proved one of the most popular Motown recording artists, while Otis Redding, born in the small town of Dawson but raised in Macon, defined the grittier Southern soul sound of Memphis-based Stax Records. Atlanta-based OutKast proved one of the first commercially successful Hip-Hop groups from outside of New York City or Los Angeles. In the 1990s and 2000s, Atlanta emerged as the leading center of urban music. Artists like TLC, Usher, 112, T.I., Ludacris, YoungBloodZ, OutKast, Goodie Mob (as well as the Dungeon Family music collective of which both are members), and producers like Organized Noize, L.A. Reid, and Jermaine Dupri, the later of whom founded the successful record labels LaFace and SoSo Def, have blurred musical boundaries by blending R&B singing with Hip-Hop production. More recently, Atlanta is also known as a center of crunk music, an electric bass-driven club music, whose most visible practitioner has been Atlanta-based producer/hype man/rapper Lil Jon. Before moving to Atlanta, Young Jeezy lived in Macon, Georgia.

Several sludge metal groups have emerged from Georgia, incorporating several features of stoner metal and progressive metal. Such bands include Atlanta's Mastodon and Savannah's Baroness and Kylesa, which have recently garnered an international audience.

Opera singer Jessye Norman is native to Augusta. Famous music director Robert Shaw spent much of his time living in Atlanta directing the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Notable musical groups include the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Chorus, Atlanta Opera, the Georgia Boy Choir, the Atlanta Boy Choir, and the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, as well as symphonies in the cities of Columbus, Macon and Augusta.