Perhaps it’s hard to believe, but nowhere in the Peach State will you find a facility honoring James Brown, the Allman Brothers, R.E.M., Outkast, the B-52s, Little Richard, Otis Redding, the Black Crowes, Usher, and so many other monumental, homegrown musical talents.
But here’s something Atlanta does have, especially in the case of up-and-coming downtown: available space.
Last month, Atlanta magazine took a deep dive into the “wobbly lifespan” of the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, which existed in a facility on Macon’s Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from 1996 until 2011. (Tragically, the “first-class experience” was situated off lightly used Interstate 16—and not the vital north-south vacation artery that is I-75, as Macon writer Jerry Grillo chronicles.) On the bright side, most of the hall’s musical artifacts, statues, and plaques are being painstakingly preserved to this day at the University of Georgia, and people in high places seem at least mildly enthusiastic about the notion of creating another hall of fame.
Which begs the question: where?
Coincidentally or not, a reader reached out this week to say he’s been nudging Underground Atlanta, via social media, to throw its artsy hat in the ring.
“I thought it would be a cool idea, since Underground is trying to be a center of culture like it always should have been,” he writes. “Something like the [Georgia Music Hall of Fame] would [bring] mainstream credibility if it were to ever happen.”
Steps away from Underground, the Atlanta Ventures team continues to add properties to a portfolio that already spans a massive 10 blocks and nearly a million square feet—most of it empty buildings and parking lots right now. (According to New Encyclopedia Georgia, the Macon museum spanned 43,000 square feet—enough to house thousands of costumes, photographs, sound recordings, artifacts, documents, sheet music, recording equipment, and other memorabilia from Peach State legends.)
And there’s mega-project Centennial Yards—we’re spit-balling here, it should be noted—where a full entertainment district spanning 8 acres is now under construction.
According to sources, preliminary discussions have been held about the possibility of building a $100 million FutureVerse museum in Centennial Yards, which would complement other tourist attractions in the area, including the World of Coke, Georgia Aquarium, and National Center for Civil and Human Rights.
Does downtown have the right elements? Is it too saturated with tourist attractions already? Would people visit a Georgia-specific hall of fame? Or should we just do this on principle alone?
Homegrown musician Chuck Leavell—the Rolling Stones’ longtime pianist and organist, and a Georgia Music Hall of Fame inductee in 2004—put it succinctly in an interview with the magazine, saying in part: “When you think of all the great music that has come out of this state, it’s just mind-boggling. It’s crazy that Georgia doesn’t have a music hall of fame.”
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