Atlanta - 3/21 - 3/23

Atlanta was one of the highlights of our trip. We arrived Friday evening just in time to attend a jazz concert at the museum (see left) during the only exhibition of art from the Louvre that’s been outside Paris in years . Another section of the museum was highlighting paintings by Georgia O'Keefe, whose work I have enjoyed for a long time. FireCat finds out about the most interesting things using Google.

Saturday afternoon we visited a pub/restaurant that FireCat's friend Riggs had referred us to. It's called Six Feet Under because it's located on the site of a former cemetery. The food was great and we even met a young waiter there from Templeton near where we live, who was sporting a huge Tomahawk haircut. We asked our waiter for a recommendation on nightclubs and he said his favorite was just down the street, so we wandered down after dinner to check it out. (See photos at right.)

Whew, did we ever luck out! It turns out that once a year there's a benefit concert in memory of Frank Edwards. Frank was a great blues musician from the area who lived to be 95 years old. In his remaining years he supported and encouraged many other blues musicians. Now every year they have a concert benefitting his family and just paying him tribute. Blues bands come from all over the south just to play for half an hour each, and none of them get paid.

The music was great and it was a real treat to hear such a mix of different types of blues. The photo at top right is of Danny Dudeck, a great guitarist and one of the guys with his photo on the wall. We were sorry we couldn’t stay for the Easter concert the next afternoon and evening that was to be completely dedicated to gospel music. We did get to hear Essie Mae and her band perform Saturday night though. She seems to have been a legend “in these parts” since she was a young woman.