As a bonafide son of the South, we note the passing of one who was instrumental in the promotion of our music. The other stuff, we won't mention.
(Pic via Mike in comments.)
UPDATE:
The funeral was held today. I've included the text of the AJC funeral article in the comments.
Despite an empty calendar this week, Dickie Betts was the only Brother to attend. Gregg sent a letter.
There's no mention of Walden's passing on the ABB site. Dickie has a brief personal message up on his Great Southern site.
I don't know what it all means, so I'll just consider it another episode in my favorite long-running soap opera.
(AJC login/email/pswd=nunya/nunya@mailinator.com/abc123)
UPDATE II:
Juan Paxety offers his remembrances.
UPDATE III:
The Macon Telegraph has more, including quotes from Dickey and Galadrielle.
damn, what the hell is dickey smoking so HARD? Stress makes one draw hard on a tobacco cig so i surmise/postulate they are either burning a left handed one or dickey is just silly. :)
Posted by: Ritchie at April 26, 2006 01:43 AMI saw this news Monday and was about to pass it on, but waiting until Wednesday seemed more appropriate. What he promoted for some even manages to outweigh his Jimmycarterism.
Posted by: marc at April 26, 2006 01:43 AMAll but Jimmeh look pretty coon eyed in that photo. I imagine Dickey is mugging for the camera, but I bet they snuffed one out not long before this picture was taken.
Posted by: Mike at April 26, 2006 01:45 AMthe concave jawskin on Dickey is a bona fide cracker smokism, so there. Jimmah looks like
he's wondering if his press secretary matched him up with the right rock band. (little did Jim know
what evil lurked in yon baby bro's pockets..)
I'm sure Jimmeh knew what was in Babru's pocket. He was more interested in what else was in there, which was money.
I was a little slow and sleepy in getting this one up. Yes, what he did to promote Southern music covers a lot of sins.
Doesn't he look like Tom Hanks here?
As Mike noted in the other thread, Rolling Stone has misidentified the principles in this photo. That's Phil, Gregg, Dickey, and Jimmeh.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10107379/southern_rock_pioneer_walden_dies?rnd=1145988416452&has-player=unknown
Posted by: Donnah at April 26, 2006 01:49 AMhe does have a little Hank appeal here..maybe
THAT's what Jimmah is thinkin'.."Hey you're not Duane"....
Whomever wrote the article's caption should be charged under the Duane statute's...imho.
I've known Phil since he was about 14 or 15 - he was a nice guy in many ways. But he was driven to succeed - I always thought because he came from the wrong side of Macon to be accepted by society.
As for Jimmeh, you're right about money. One of his aides told me Phil and his bands, mostly the Allmans, had given Carter the upper hand in the 1976 primaries by raising more than $10-million before the Iowa caucases.
He was the consummate promoter.
Posted by: Juan Paxety at April 26, 2006 06:45 AMFor me, it's hard to imagine that anybody would give a rat's ass what local 'society' thought about them.
There's no doubt in my mind that Phil put Carter in the Whitehouse. But I'm willing to set that aside and honor the good things he did.
Posted by: Donnah at April 26, 2006 07:10 AMI think a lot of people believed that Jimmeh was an honest character and that he might be worth giving a chance. NOBODY could have foreseen the staggering ineptitude of his foreign policy; Carter himself still does not. Jimmeh was the Anti-Reagan before we had the chance to learn what that would take.
Posted by: tfhr at April 26, 2006 07:44 AMone thing we can ALL be grateful for...the Jimmah crew did more damage to the Democratic party than
people realize..after all, I'll never vote Dem again..nor any of my family (a bunch of other folks too) Plus, his
brother boosted Bud sales throught the roof.
Yes, he seemed like a genuinely good man and I was willing to accept him as president. Then Mariel and the hostage debacle made me want to light a torch and head for his house.
I was willing to accept him as a good *former* president until he started shooting off his mouth about a sitting president.
Now I just think he's a total f*ckwad.
What donnah said! Jimmy made a Republican outta me.
Posted by: greg at April 26, 2006 09:53 AMPhil seemed to still care about what society in Macon thought of him - at least during the Capricorn days. Even when the record company put more money in the city's banks than any other employer, he still failed in his attempt to join the Idle Hour Country Club.
A lot of people from the wrong side of Napier Avenue (interestingly the street Berry was driving on when he had his fatal crash) were like this - striving to be accepted.
I, OTOH, don't give a rat's ass for those people - as they probably don't for me. Ha.
Posted by: Juan Paxety at April 26, 2006 10:00 AMRIP...
A lot of my record collection bears the Capricorn label thanks to his efforts to promote relativly unknown artists from the South.
The peanut farmer in the pic needs to sit down and STFU as he hasn't the first clue about what he's trying to pontificate on in a post 9/11 world that he had a direct hand in creating.
Posted by: Gmac at April 26, 2006 10:11 AMyou know, anytime you're a business/money man/manager/record producer/label owner, you're going to be the bad guy. it's a necessary evil. nature of the beast and whatnot. whatever drove phil, i'm glad it did. he worked with real r and b musicians, helped make 'em what they were and capricorn was great and greater for it. i hear he ripped off the guys as far as royalties.....that's SOP in the music biz. the waldens kept it in the family too and that's to be admired. i say bless the guy for trying and succeeding. and other gerunds. :)
didn't we all used to be more liberal in our younger days?(i'm thinking of the churchill quote about if you're not liberal when you're young and conservative when you're older, you're SOL or some such) but i won't hold his politics against him. carter should have known better than to stiff the shah and kowtow to the embassy stormers for a year. imagine if kerry had gotten in? he who never named a cabinet? ick.
anyhoo, carter's last book should reveal what a fool he is for anyone with open eyes.
now as to the cracker inhale, upon reflection, i have seen many a man do that. isn't dickey from bradenton? still, i didn't see the filter at first. i bet carter smoked one now and then. if not, his loss. :)
I don't see any Tom Hanks there... Phil actually reminds me of one former Arkansas Governor in this picture.
Posted by: mike at April 26, 2006 03:12 PMyeah but phil was just a regular guy compared to the gov. used to hear stories from other musicians that played the gov's mansion about how he and hillary would come in separate, pick diff. partners and leave through diff. entrances. charming, just charming. she didn't just stay home baking cookies, you know.
giggity giggity goo!
Posted by: richard at April 26, 2006 03:35 PMFrom the AJC funeral article:
1,200 mourn music legend
Pioneer Phil Walden's 'roller coaster' life recalled
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/27/2006
Welcoming mourners into the Cathedral of St. Philip on Wednesday afternoon at Southern music pioneer Phil Walden's funeral, the Rev. John Mark Wiggers quipped: "We're doing this here today because this is where Phil worshipped. And because we're not going to judge a bunch of rock 'n' rollers."
Just as he did in life by helping to introduce the world to Otis Redding, the Allman Brothers, Widespread Panic, 311 and a certain Plains peanut farmer future president, Walden used the occasion of his passing to put on one last sold-out spectacle.
Walden, 66, a founder of Capricorn Records, died of cancer Sunday at his Buckhead home. More than 1,200 attendees packed into the sand-colored marble and brick Buckhead sanctuary for the 2 p.m. service. Walden will be buried in Macon today.
Former Carter administration White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan, whose friendship with Walden spanned five decades, told the assembled, "Be assured, Phil is not happy to be here. But he is happy to be the center of our attention here today."
Jordan recalled meeting Walden as a 16-year-old growing up in South Georgia, "a place where I didn't meet a Catholic or a Republican until I was 18." He also praised Walden's fund-raising help in getting Jimmy Carter elected president in 1976.
"Many people who helped us in 1976 ended up wanting something," he said. "But Phil never asked us for a single thing." Jordan paused and added: "Although I'm sure Phil would have appreciated an ambassadorship."
Longtime Atlanta attorney and friend Robert Steed reminisced about a 1962 meeting with Walden where he asked for Steed's help in getting a then-20-year-old Redding out of an old recording contract so he could sign with Stax Records.
"Otis was under 21 when he signed the contract," Steed said. "So Phil had a way to get Otis out of the contract. What he didn't have was the $50 to pay for it."
The 100-minute service didn't shy away from Walden's well-known "roller coaster ride of a life" as old friend and former CNN chairman Tom Johnson characterized it. Walden was remembered for his generosity and his love of friends and family but also for his descent into and his recovery from bankruptcy and drug and alcohol abuse.
"If you don't have a dark side, this business will give you one," observed Electric Factory concert promoter Larry Magid, who flew in from Philadelphia for his friend's service. "Phil's the stuff writers turn into novels," Magid said. "Yet he was anything but fiction."
Heartfelt, emotional letters from Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter and Gregg Allman were read during the service. And like any great rock show, there was one surprise guest star not included in the funeral program.
Sporting dark sunglasses, rock legend and Macon native Little Richard took to the pulpit to remember his friend who, as a ninth-grader, first sneaked into the balcony at Macon's City Auditorium to see the future Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer open a show for Amos Milburn.
Remembering his work with Redding, Little Richard recalled: "For Phil to work with a young black guy back then was hard. I was there. I know. I'm so grateful that I got to meet this man. Phil was a genius in his own light."
Then, in a cathedral filled with attendees like Widespread Panic vocalist John Bell, concert promoter Peter Conlon, Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickie Betts, Tinsley Ellis, Col. Bruce Hampton, Redding's widow Zelma, sons Otis III and Dexter and daughter Karla, and entire rows of former Capricorn Records employees, Little Richard offered a five-minute sermon.
"Jesus is coming," he told the crowd as mourners marveled at the service's abrupt detour. "Get down on your knees and talk to God." The rock pianist drew laughs when he ended by adding: "I'm not a preacher but I feel like one today!"
Sitting in a back pew, 360 Media owner Tara Murphy, whose business has been located in the same Walton Street downtown building as Walden's record labels since 1997, just smiled.
Trying to suppress a laugh, Murphy conceded: "Phil would have loved all that."
Posted by: Donnah at April 26, 2006 11:09 PMthanks for that and amen!
Posted by: richard at April 27, 2006 03:08 AM