It was easy to get Charles McCartney’s goat. Born in Iowa in 1901, McCartney got hurt working for the New Deal WPA in 1935. A religious awakening led him to hitch a team of goats to a wagon and travel the country with his wife and son, dressed in goatskins, preaching the Gospel. Thus was […]
He was hailed as a bold new Southern writer in the Southern Gothic tradition, with his books populated by strange characters in a brutal and darkly humorous South. It was a world Harry Crews knew well. Born in Bacon County in 1935 to poor farmers, Crews grew up with a violent and drunken uncle who […]
They were soul men long before the Blues Brothers. Florida native Samuel Moore and Georgian David Prater were gospel music veterans when they joined together in 1961 to form the rhythm and blues duo Sam and Dave. From 1965 to ’68 the duo worked at Stax Records in Memphis with Songwriters Isaac Hayes and David […]
“Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” are among the greatest hymns ever written. All are the work of Charles Wesley. He was born in England in 1707 and was educated at Christ Church College at Oxford along with his brother John, where they started the […]
“Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” one of the most famous gospel songs ever written, was inspired by the personal tragedy of its author. Thomas Dorsey was born in Villa Rica in 1899 and grew up listening to shape-note singing and spirituals in church. He was also influenced by blues icons Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. […]
Richard Wayne Penniman is not a name most people associate with the beginning of rock n’ roll, but few people did more to make rock one of the hearthstones of 20th-century American culture than the man known as Little Richard. Penniman was born into a family of 12 children in Macon and grew up singing […]
John Wesley lost his labor of love when he came to Georgia. The founder of the Methodist Church was born in England in 1703, becoming a strict man of God who spread the faith throughout England and America. Ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church in his mid-20s, Wesley and his brother Charles studied […]
He was born in a one-room shack in Barnwell, South Carolina, in 1933. He moved to Augusta, Georgia, when he was five. His mother abandoned him, he grew up in abject poverty and was sent to jail for petty theft at fifteen. But James Brown overcame it all to become one of the most influential […]
What Georgian doesn’t feel a tinge of pride every time we hear Ray Charles sing “Georgia on my Mind?” It is Georgia’s official state song, and maybe the reason it sounds especially soulful is that Charles was singing about home. Born in Albany, Ray Charles Robinson later changed his name to avoid confusion with boxer […]
Vocabulary – Charles McCartney “Goat Man” Born New Deal Noun a series of economic programs put into place in the United States between 1933 and 1936. These programs included relief programs for the poor, recovery programs for the economy, and reforms such as Social Security. Awakening Noun A sudden awareness, recognition, or realization of something […]
