Tales From the Underground: On ‘Brothers and Sisters’ and Remembering the Rock ‘N’ Roll President

Jimmy Carter died right after Christmas.

My dad told me the news as we were on our way to have tacos on an otherwise-uneventful Sunday afternoon. It’s hard to mourn the passing of a man who lived 100 years and spent all of them trying to improve the plight of his fellow man, but that’s exactly what we did. We were two of Georgia’s native sons, commemorating a third.

“I was thrilled to death when Carter got elected,” my dad told me. “I mean hell, I was 16, so I didn’t have any idea about the issues or what was Left or Right, but a guy from Georgia was the President of the United States. That was huge.”

He had been a hero of mine as well. I grew up in the foothills of Appalachia; Carter grew up a few hours down the highway farming the dirt of Plains. We were both Georgia boys with wild aspirations, and his took him all the way to the Oval Office. It was hard not to be inspired by that.

Our conversation gradually turned to Carter’s friendship with the Allman Brothers Band.

Jimmy Carter met the Allman Brothers Band when he was still the governor of Georgia. He invited them to the governor’s mansion to attend a party he was throwing for Bob Dylan. Legend has it that the band showed up late, after almost all the guests had left. Standing outside was a man with no shirt and no shoes, wearing old Levi’s full of holes.

He would be the next president of the United States.

Rock ‘n’ roll got Jimmy Carter elected. Fundraising concerts were headlined by acts like the Allman Brothers Band, the Marshall Tucker Band, Charlie Daniels and even Toots and the Maytals. Proceeds were used to buy ad space in states like Pennsylvania who would be less familiar with Carter. When Jerry Brown entered the race as a potential candidate and began gaining traction in Oregon, Jimmy Buffet held a concert for Carter that helped turn the tides.

Dr. Hunter S. Thompson saw Carter speak in Athens, Georgia, initially attending in support of Ted Kennedy’s candidacy. Thompson listened to Carter speak while (allegedly) filling a tea glass with Wild Turkey and would wind up changing his mind and endorsing him (with fear and loathing) in the pages of Rolling Stone Magazine.

Discussing this with my dad made me want to go back and revisit the Allman Brothers Band, an old favorite of both of ours. It felt like a fitting tribute, as they were also members of the Georgia family tree.

…

The Review

Allman Brothers Band
Brothers and Sisters
1973

Listening to Brothers and Sisters feels like driving down long and desolate country backroads on a crisp fall day.

The album was recorded in the wake of the Allmans losing two of their brothers. Duane Allman, the band leader and lead guitar player, had been struck by a flatbed truck and killed while riding his motorcycle in October of 1971. Berry Oakley, the band’s bass player, died when his motorcycle was hit by a city bus in the same city, three blocks away from where Duane was killed, in November of 1972.

Deciding to soldier on, the band entered the studio with two new members and a replacement defacto band leader in member Dickey Betts. Betts’ direction saw the band experimenting more with more Americana influences, ultimately resulting in their first and only top 10 hit “Ramblin’ Man.”

The record consists of a mere seven tracks and comes in at just under 40 minutes. It is the tightest and most laser focused album perhaps of the band’s entire career, while still somehow maintaining the loose and free atmosphere that helped catapult them to stardom. There’s not one ounce of fat to trim, as Brothers and Sisters seems almost designed to show the world that the Allman Brothers Band had a spirit too strong to be destroyed.

This was not a soft-retirement record, no dulcet tones of a beleaguered band who were ready to put their boots under the bed and ease into the sunset. Don’t get me wrong, the country foundations are as present and strong as your grandfather’s stoicism, but right behind them is the earth-shattering musicianship that made people stop and take notice in the first place. This was a portrait of the band who would have been ready to point their speakers skyward and play for God himself as the Titanic sank around them if that’s what it took.

Gregg Allman’s Hammond B3 organ on “Come and Go Blues” sounds as graceful and intentional as a dedicated member of the church congregation trying to save a sinner from themselves. The guitarmonies on “Ramblin’ Man” are playful, energetic, fun, helping amplify the lyrics of what was surely set to become a modern deep south fable. The final track, “Pony Boy,” sounds like it was cut from the ending credits of one of the greatest westerns never made.

When it was released, the album shot straight to number one.

It was this triumphant Allman Brothers Band who would one year later be invited to the Governor’s Mansion to meet Jimmy Carter at the party for Bob Dylan. Over a bottle of scotch, he would tell the band he aimed to run for President. By the fall of 1976, they would help him get elected.

Nearly 40 years later, after he was long out of office, I met Jimmy Carter.

…

The Tale

I had graduated from the University of Georgia in 2012 and had set my sights on the gold in the hills of California. My best friend Justin and I packed my tiny Ford Ranger and drove the entire length of the country, stopping frequently so that I could explore the roadside attractions and (to me) undiscovered wonders of the American Southwest. I was seeking my fortune and glory as a journalist, and the wind was at my back.

By the summer of 2015, I was at a crossroads.

I had been hired by two magazines and a newspaper almost immediately, but the freelance fees I was making weren’t exactly paying the bills. I got a glorified data entry position at a marketing company in Santa Ana to survive, but the days were getting longer, and soon I had no energy left for writing. Most days, the only thing that kept me going was the official White House portrait of Carter I had printed off and push-pinned into my cubicle wall. The depression demon had its hooks deep into me, and I was running on fumes.

Out of nowhere, my friend Lizz from back home called and asked if I would be interested in traveling with her to Plains, Georgia to meet Jimmy Carter in the flesh.

I took a redeye flight from LAX to Atlanta as soon as I could. I vividly remember the thick, wet heat of my home state embracing me as I exited the automatic doors onto the sidewalk. My constitution had acclimated to the permanent autumn of California, and it was almost as if I were a tourist in the capital city where I had spent so many weekends of my youth. Lizz picked me up, and we listened to the Statler Brothers as we caught up and headed out for breakfast. I’ll always remember that breakfast; scrambled eggs with peppers and a biscuit with a side of fresh grits, and the first proper glass of sweet tea to hit my lips in what felt like a lifetime.

I had met Miss Lizz when we were teenagers. She was dating a friend of mine, and although they both attended a rival high school, I bonded with each of them quickly. Her boyfriend back then, Jeffrey, was passionate and hilarious and is to this day possibly the purest heart I’ve ever known. Lizz was a ballet dancer with a love of history, a combination I always found endearing. One of the things we first bonded over? Jimmy Carter.

But on this morning in 2015, we were on our way back to our sleepy hometown in Northwest Georgia. She was telling me that her father, Jim, had overheard our plans and volunteered to drive us to Plains. My father and brother had also caught wind and were planning on joining the caravan. Carter would be leading a Sunday School class at Maranatha Baptist Church. It was too late to book a hotel, so we all decided we would sleep in the parking lot between the two cars available and make sure we were first in line to get in that morning.

I rode with Lizz and her father, mainly because I had already met my father and brother plenty of times before, but I had never met Jim. He was funny, and warm, and absolutely destroyed me in the rock ‘n’ roll trivia card game they had brought along. As I later learned, he had at one time been a roommate of Blaze Foley. That was the only time our paths ever crossed, unfortunately, but I hope he’s doing well now in what must be his retirement years. After we made it safely to Plains, I bid them adieu and met up with my dad and brother in the next parking space over.

I remember waking up stiff and sweaty in the front seat of that Jeep Cherokee. The air was sticky and humid already in those early hours as I changed outside. The parking lot had started filling up, and the Secret Service were setting up a perimeter. It was really happening. I, a humble glue-maker’s son from Dalton, was going to meet a President. The reality became clearer as the bomb-sniffing dogs began inspecting the individual cars. Once we passed through the metal detectors and into the building, we would not be allowed to leave again until the service was over.

A local woman named Jan stood at the front of the congregation and spoke for a long time about what was and wasn’t allowed from all of us. She was strict, and protective, and had the entire orchestral operation organized as neat as a pin.

And just like that, there he was.

Jimmy Carter was 90 years old on that muggy Sunday morning. He wore a sharp suit with a bolo tie and argyle socks. Despite his age, he was strong. If I closed my eyes, he sounded no different than when he addressed the nation with his “Crisis of Confidence” speech 36 summers before this one. He spoke of Anwar El-Sadat and the brokerage of peace between Egypt and Israel at Camp David. He spoke a little of his successful relationship with the Clinton administration. He promised to take photos with everyone in attendance if we waited for the regular service to end, and then he shuffled off.

Carter was the 39th President of the United States, the former leader of the free world, and he chose to only lead the Sunday School class that morning simply because it would be improper to take the regular service away from the church’s pastor. I am not particularly religious, but that is hard not to admire.

We finished the service, stood in line, and at last I was two feet away from Carter.

If you’re waiting for a magical moment where I told him he was my hero, and we shook hands with tears in both of our eyes, it isn’t coming. I walked up, posed for my picture, and had to move along for the people waiting behind me. I stood next to Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn (pronounced Rose-a-lynn for those of you at home) for about 20 seconds, and then I was in the parking lot and on my way home. I was not then, nor am I now, disappointed by that brief interaction. I didn’t fly all night and then drive all night so that Carter would give me a hug and tell me I was his favorite of Georgia’s native sons and the certain future of this once great nation.

What was life-changing, the reason I did it, was confirming that he was a fragile flesh and blood human being just like me.

…

The Aftermath

I’ve taken you on this long journey with me, and at this point you’re probably wondering why a one-term president who took office 13 years before I was born is my hero. Why do I think he was so important? Why would I drop everything and travel so long and so far to meet him for 20 seconds? That’s a fair question, and I’ll tell you:

At a time when his young family had almost no money to spare, Jimmy Carter went out and bought the best stereo system he could find in his infinitesimally small town. He let his children play whatever they wanted on it, and he would sit and listen with them. He wanted to use music to bind his family closer and, one could argue, to further his own spiritual growth. This led to him discovering Bob Dylan, taking rock ‘n’ roll seriously, and even taking his daughter Amy to see the Ramones when he was out of office.

Georgia’s governor immediately preceding Carter was a man named Lester Maddox. Maddox was a stalwart segregationist who used to carry around an axe handle to intimidate and terrorize African Americans, in blatant disregard for the Civil Rights Act. One of the first things Carter did when he became governor was hang a portrait of fellow Georgian Martin Luther King Jr. in the governor’s mansion.

While Carter was President, not one bomb was dropped on a rival nation. Not one missile was deployed, nor one bullet fired. He took on an economic crisis for which he was often erroneously blamed. He successfully brokered a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, still the most significant progress of its kind to date. He could have probably won re-election by launching an attack on Tehran in response to the Iran Hostage Crisis. Instead, he was unwilling to lose the life of even one of the 52 American hostages, even if it meant losing the office.

When the hostages were released under the Reagan administration and Carter heard the news, he danced with his wife.

Jimmy Carter believed in a better South. For a lot of us who grew up in Georgia, he was our north star. He wasn’t slick and polished. He was a true Washington outsider who scared the living hell out of the establishment. They made him out to be a caricature, and the truth is, he was a humble peanut farmer. He was also a decorated World War II hero with a college education and a working knowledge of nuclear physics. He was a dirt farmer who worked his way up from nothing to be the most powerful person in the world, if only for a moment. When he left office, he kept right on doing genuine good with no incentive but his own morality. He built houses for those in need using his own two hands through Habitat for Humanity. He travelled to Africa and worked on the Guinea Worm Eradication Program through the Carter Center. In 2002, he even won a Nobel Prize.

All these examples are drops in the bucket of what makes Carter a worthy hero. I believe history will remember him kinder than it did even in his lifetime. He lived a life worthy of example and meeting him when I was at a crossroads in my life made me feel like I could survive anything and ultimately become better for it. I hope anyone reading this will take a moment to check out one of his books, or go online and watch a speech, or just remember that it’s always possible to choose kindness in an unjust world.

And if you’re still not convinced, know that Willie Nelson smoked weed on top of the White House with Jimmy Carter’s son. If that doesn’t do it for you, nothing will.