The New Georgia Encyclopedia is supported by funding from A More Perfect Union, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Protesters march down Broad Street in Albany during the Albany Movement, one of the largest civil rights campaigns in Georgia. From 1961 to 1962 Black residents protested the city's segregationist practices. Around 1,200 protesters were imprisoned as a result of their activities during the movement.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #dgh231-86.
An old-time string band from Gordon County, the Georgia Yellow Hammers made many recordings in the 1920s.
Located on South Wall Street in Calhoun, the Moss Music Company was owned by Lawrence Moss, the stepfather of Phil Reeve of the Georgia Yellow Hammers. In the photograph pianos can be seen in the right background and sewing machines in the right foreground. Pictured, left to right: the Harper brothers, Phil Reeve, and Moss.
Courtesy of Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia, #
gor298.
Larry Jon Wilson, an Augusta-based singer, songwriter, and composer, began his musical career in 1975 with the release of his first album, New Beginnings. His work is described by critics as a blend of country, soul, and folk.
Courtesy of Larry Jon Wilson
Georgia singer, songwriter Larry Jon Wilson with his guitar. WIlson's released his first album in 1975 and released six more before his death in 2010.
Courtesy of Larry Jon Wilson
Singer, Songwriter Larry Jon Wilson performing on stage. Wilson taught himself to play the guitar at age thirty and soon transferred from a career in chemistry to one in music.
Courtesy of Larry Jon Wilson
Country musician Travis Tritt performs at the Country Fair 2000 in his hometown of Marietta. That year, Tritt released Down the Road I Go, his eighth new album and the first with Columbia Records.
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Travis Tritt, a native of Marietta, is a Grammy Award-winning country musician and member of the Grand Ole Opry. In 1999 he was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. Tritt's platinum-selling albums include Country Club (1990), It's All about to Change (1991), and T-R-O-U-B-L-E (1994).
Courtesy of Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
A publicity photo of Chet Atkins, a famed country music star credited with increasing country music's mainstream popularity. He won more than a dozen Grammy awards over his lifetime, and was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1995.
Copyright 1997 SonyMusic Entertainment Inc.
Tony Merrell drums during a performance of the Georgia Sea Island Singers, as fellow member Frankie Sullivan Quimby looks on. The singers maintain a tradition, begun around 1900, of sharing the Gullah culture through performances and educational programs.
Courtesy of Georgia Sea Island Singers
Norman Blake, a highly regarded perfomer of traditional southern music, married musician Nancy Blake in 1972. Since that time, the two have often performed and recorded together.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Music Hall of Fame Collection.
The McIntosh County Shouters, seen here performing at National Folk Festival, Wolf Trap Farm, Virginia, have helped preserve the southeastern ring shout, one of the oldest African American performance traditions in the country.
Courtesy of Margo Rosenbaum
Fiddlin' John Carson and Gid Tanner, both prominent Georgia fiddlers, are pictured circa 1922.
Musicians perform in 1947 before a live audience on the popular radio show "WSB Barn Dance." The program aired on WSB, Atlanta's first radio station, from 1940 to 1950.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection.
Atlanta native Brenda Lee began her career at the age of five and achieved fame as a rockabilly singer during the 1950s and 1960s. During the early 1970s she transitioned into a country style and is, to date, the only female performer to be inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Born and raised in Monticello, Trisha Yearwood rose to fame as a successful country musician during the 1990s. She was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
Image from Walt Disney Television
Alan Jackson's 1992 album A Lot about Livin’ (And a Little ’bout Love) generated five hit singles, including “Chattahoochee” and “Mercury Blues.” His music video for "Chattahoochee" famously featured Jackson water skiing with ripped jeans and a cowboy hat, as well as tubing while playing guitar.
From "Chattahoochee" music video
Fiddlin' John Carson, pictured circa 1924, began playing fiddle on Atlanta's WSB radio station in 1922. On June 14, 1923, the country-music recording industry was launched when Carson made his first phonograph record. His recording career, which yielded some 165 recorded songs, lasted into the 1930s.
Photograph by Wilbur Smith
Brenda Lee began her career as a singer at the age of five and continues to perform into the twenty-first century. A rockabilly performer in her early days, Lee later adopted adult contemporary and country styles. She is the only woman to be inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Image from Bradford Timeline
Rockabilly singer Brenda Lee began performing in the Atlanta area at the age of five. In 1957 she met Elvis Presley for the first time and performed with him in a Grand Ole Opry performance at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.
As a young man, the rockabilly singer Jerry Reed moved from Atlanta to Nashville, Tennessee, to record with Capitol Records from 1955 to 1958. In 1958 he returned to Atlanta and recorded with the National Recording Corporation before joining the army.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Music Hall of Fame Collection.
Jerry Reed's long career in the country and pop music industry began in 1955, when he was eighteen years old, and continued into the twenty-first century. In addition to writing and recording his own songs, Reed has worked as a session musician for such artists as Willie Nelson and Elvis Presley and as a producer on his own record label.
Image from SSGT Lee Schading
The Indigo Girls are a folk-rock duo from Atlanta known for their inventive blend of Appalachian, pop, and rock influences.
Photograph by cornfusion
The Indigo Girls (left to right: Emily Saliers and Amy Ray) signed a recording contract with Epic Records in 1988. Their debut album on Epic, Indigo Girls (1989), featured what would become their biggest-selling single, "Closer to Fine." The album won a Grammy Award for best contemporary folk recording.
Gid Tanner was one of the most widely recognized names among country music enthusiasts of the 1920s and 1930s. The group that he headed, Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers, was one of the most influential string bands that recorded during the formative years of the country music industry.
Courtesy of Phil Tanner
Fiddlin' John Carson was frequently accompanied on radio, records, and stage by his daughter Rosa Lee (1909-92), a guitarist, singer, and dancer. Under the pseudonym Moonshine Kate, Rosa Lee established herself as an independent performer, thus becoming a pioneer among women country music performers.
A musical group performs in 1955 for the popular WSB Barn Dance program.
Courtesy of Special Collections & Archives, Georgia State University Library, Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection.
Georgia's Riley Puckett was a nationally known pioneer country music artist whose dynamic single-string guitar playing, featuring dramatic bass runs, earned for him an enviable reputation as an instrumentalist.
Courtesy of Juanita McMichen Lynch
Fiddlin' John Carson and Gid Tanner, both prominent Georgia fiddlers, are pictured circa 1922.
Monticello native Trisha Yearwood is well established as one of country music's most popular and appealing female vocalists. Starting with her debut release in 1991, she has amassed an enormous following of listeners who are drawn to her "everywoman" songs of fortitude and vulnerability.
Courtesy of Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia Libraries, Georgia Music Hall of Fame Collection.
Newnan native Alan Jackson has sold more than thirty-six million albums worldwide and has earned numerous Country Music Association Award nominations, making him one of country music's most acclaimed performers and songwriters.
Photograph by Timothy Wildey
