Macon Music Revue’s debut album release party, more upcoming events

It’s time for an overview of some things to come. Here are some highlights, like a significant album release party Friday at Grant’s Lounge and a note on a traditional Labor Day event you won’t get to attend this year. 

First, what you can’t do next week but will return in 2026. It’s the annual McDuffie Center for Strings Labor Day Festival which brings eight select rising high school seniors to the McDuffie Center for an intensive, three-day workshop and close look at what the center offers.

The three days typically culminate in a free concert with the high school guests playing in chamber quartets and alongside current McDuffie students.

Patty Crowe, McDuffie operations manager, said concerts and scheduling conflicts among the center’s faculty are preventing the 2025 festival but that it should return as normal for Labor Day next year.

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The Macon Music Revue has recorded its first album and is having an album release party Friday at 9 p.m. at – appropriately enough – Grant’s Lounge on Poplar Street. It’s $10 to get in.

Macon Music Revue is a preservation band dedicated to Macon and its musical history, much like the Preservation Hall Jazz Band is for New Orleans.

In fact, that’s where the idea came from.

“We wanted to create a preservation band for Macon inspired by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band that would keep our musical traditions, personalities and songs alive,” said Lisa Love, head of the Georgia Music Foundation. It was her idea to put a band together to do just that. Partnering with Visit Macon and others, the band came together featuring some of Macon’s finest musicians.
Band members are:

• Charles Davis, vocals
• Dustin McCook, guitar
• Ethan Hamlin, keyboards
• Caleb Melvin, drums
• Evan Bentzel, bass.

With Macon music at its core, the band brings a diverse range of music to every performance, from Soul to Blues to Rock and more. And, of course, Southern Rock.

Their debut album reflects that, too.

Band members have put their own touch on tunes while building an amazing repertoire of more than 140 songs honoring legends like Otis Redding, Little Richard, the Allman Brothers, Swamp Dog and others.

The eponymous debut album features 10 songs, including Little Richard’s “Greenwood, Mississippi,” Otis Redding’s “Mr. Pitiful” and “These Arms of Mine,” the Allman Brothers Band’s “Stand Back” and R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.”

“Most people know Otis and the Allman Brothers and Little Richard, but most don’t realize the role Macon played in hits like Elvin Bishop’s ‘Fooled Around and Fell in Love,’” Love said. “There’s such a range and depth to the music that’s come out of Macon, often far beyond what people normally think of. It’s all worth preserving and the musicians of Macon Music Revue do an extraordinary job of it.”

Love said there are many “full circle” aspects to the band and the album’s release, including the fact that two band members, McCook and Bentzel, are themselves products of the Otis Redding Foundation’s Otis Music Camps.

Grant’s ties to Macon’s music history, particularly the Allman Brothers Band and Capricorn heydays of the late 1960s and early 1970s, make it an ideal venue for the release party. Add to that the group plays each Wednesday at 8 p.m. at Grant’s before locals and folks in town to take in the music tourism sites that have flourished in recent years.

I was there one Wednesday not too long ago and met a guy who had traveled from Scandinavia to do just that.

The band represents Macon wherever it plays and it’s played gigs from Food Truck Fridays to Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium to shows in Savannah, Nashville, Tennessee, Little Rock, Arkansas and more. Most recently, they did a set on Garden & Gun magazine’s long-running Back Porch Sessions music program in Charleston. Love said their performance brought Macon’s music and stories to an audience of 30,000 but Garden & Gun claims an overall audience footprint higher than that.

In fact, Macon Music Revue brought their Macon sounds to potentially more than a million folks and invited them to come to town and see and hear it all for themselves.

Side note: guitarist McCook had to fly in for the G&G gig from Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater where Eddie 9 Volt, whom McCook plays guitar for now, was opening for ZZ Top.

The debut album, “Macon Music Revue,” hits stores and streaming services on Friday with the Grant’s release party. It costs $10 to get in and you might want to get tickets early. You can get them through links at
themaconmusicrevue.com and historicgrants.com. Appearing with Macon Music Revue on Wednesday will be Terminus Horn out of Atlanta who played on the album recorded at Capricorn Studios. Copies of the album will be available at Grant’s and at Fresh Produce Records on Cherry Street. 

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Some upcoming events to get on your calendar:

• “Gidion’s Knot” — Mercer Theatre/Tattnall Square Center for the Arts, Sept. 1-21.
• “Into the Woods” — Macon Little Theatre, Sept. 5-14.
• “Decision Height” — Warner Robins Little Theatre, Sept. 13-28. 
• Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration — Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park, Sept. 13-14.
• Ocmulgee to Okmulgee 2025 — McEachern Arts Center: an exhibit in conjunction with the Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration.
• “How to Train Your Dragon Jr.” — Theatre Macon, Sept. 19 to 28.
• Macon-Mercer Symphony Orchestra — Piedmont Grand Opera House, Sept. 22.
• Mercer Fabian Concert Series: Chamber concerts at Fickling Hall beginning the 2025-26 season Oct. 7.
• “I Spy: For Your Ears Only” — Macon Pops, Oct. 10 at the Piedmont Grand Opera House. 
• “Public Lies, Private Truths” — Mercer Opera/Fickling Hall, Oct. 30-Nov. 1.

And of course, next week is a chance to get out to galleries for openings and other downtown events for First Friday.

Contact writer Michael W. Pannell at mwpannell@gmail.com. Find him on Instagram at michael_w_pannell.