![]() She finished with, “Thank God for healing.” Just at that time, another pal-a doctor-had playfully suggested I should write a song for him. Turned out she’d been having health issues, but she wanted me to know she was better and would come out to see us before long. We’ve seen a lot of folks come and go, got them dancing between the tables, and often heard their stories.Ī while back I got an e-mail from a Downwind friend named Kara, a nurse, who I hadn’t seen for a while. Our audience has grown from people who came for those amenities and stuck around when they heard our tunes. The place is an attraction in its own right: its deck overlooking the Peachtree-Dekalb Airport runway gives a great view of private planes taxiing in and out and an atmosphere ripe with jet-A to accompany the best hamburger in Atlanta. Larry, Them Falcons gonna 'Rise Up' all right.”Ī band without a gig is just a bunch of players wishing they had someone to play for, and our regular first Friday at the Downwind Restaurant and Lounge has sustained the Band of Desperate Men for over ten years. So the last couple days I got to thinking about how much he’d enjoy this year's edition, and I came up with this song, “Rise Up,” that lives somewhere between Ralph Stanley and Homer and Jethro. ![]() ![]() The Falcons were mostly "DIS-gustin'" too. He died the year the Bravos went from worst to first, but he didn’t make it to the Series. Mayes got mighty aggravated at all of the above at times. The other thing we did together was watch the Braves, Falcons, and Georgia Tech. A dozen years, a hundred songs from when he was a boy rambling the hills of Smyrna with his rabbit dogs and Nitro Special. Melodies just came out from his fingers, and I’d add backup and lyrics, if there were any. “Say, I can see you’re a valuable fella,” he said.Īfter that we played together all the time. And he had a guitar in a gunny sack, and he said now you boys get in tune, cuz we’re gonna play 'The Gideon.’ And this is it.” I switched to guitar and followed the tune with its funky timing. “My brothers and I used to play dances over on Campbellton Road for the soldiers at Fort Mac, and this old boy come in from over near Rottenwood Creek. ,” and he sort of hitched his shoulder and started playing a song I’d never heard before. It had rusty strings, but he got it tuned. He came back with what he called a “tater bug,” a mandolin with a round back laminated in strips of different colored woods. I haven’t played it for maybe twenty years. “Y’know,” he said, “I got an old mandolin down at the house. “Just a Girl I Used to Know.” He nodded at the end, encouraging, and I ran through a couple of Hank Williams songs. “C’mon in.” He said to go on, and I played him a tune. “I heard you playin’, and it sounds real good,” he said. Braves cap on his big head, flannel shirt buttoned to the top and running down over his big belly. A knock at the screen door, and there stood the old neighbor from a couple houses down. I was playing the piano one day shortly after we’d moved to Sylvan Hills in southwest Atlanta.
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