Best of 2024

Miniature Golf of the Year – Hotel Greene (Richmond, VA)

 

Atlanta Sandwich of the Year – The Sham Sham Hudson and Alphonse

 

 
Viral Content of the Year – Possums After the Storm

 

Book of the Year – 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool

 

Gig of the Year – Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives

 

Time Waster of the Year – BBC Sound Effects Archive

 

Quest of the Year – Ocky Way at Family Food Center (Brooklyn)

Parenting Hack of the Year – Dental Floss Easter Eggs

 

Appetizing of the Year – Irish Smoked Salmon at Sable’s (Manhattan)

 

Cemetery of the Year – Greenmount Cemetery (Burlington, VT) 

 

Crate Dig of the Year – Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – First Flight to Tokyo @ Low Yo Yo Stuff Records (Athens, GA)

 

Shoes of the Year – Converse All Stars

 

 

Kid Pic of the Year –Waffle House (Avondale Estates, GA)

Guilty Pleasure of the Year – It’s Florida, Man

 

Southern Thing of the Year – Johnny Blue Skies

 

Atlanta(ish) New Restaurant of the Year – Smiley's Burger Club

 

YouTube Find of the Year – Buena on 2 Meter Sessions

 

Georgia Book of the Year – UnStuck

 

 

Wisdom of the Year – Rick Steves "Culture Shock is Constructive" 

Stand Strong Award for 2024 – Ropeadope Records

 

 

Business Book of the Year – Cold Calling Sucks

 

 

Atlanta Urban Space of the Year – Gordon Park

 

 

Song We All Need in 2024 – Richard Petty

 

 

This year’s list dedicated to the memory of my mom Lucy Lee. Thank you for passing on your love of eccentric people and strange places.

RIP John Mayall

Counting Backwards

I plan to be first in line this morning at A Cappella Books to get my copy of Kristin Hersh's new memoir Rat Girl. If you are not a Kristin/Throwing Muses/50 Foot Wave obsessive like me, grab the book and a few of Kristin's albums for an introduction to an American treasure.

Book Bits for Travelers - Pops, A Life of Louis Armstrong

As a Generation X music fan, I admit that prior to reading Terry Teachout's Pops, A Life of Louis Armstrong, I fell into the Hello Dolly/Hot Fives and Sevens camp.

I knew Louis Armstrong as a cultural icon of the post WWII generation and, later, got hip to Armstrong the musical revolutionary of the 1920s and 30s. Teachout's story of the journey between these eras is the core of Pops, and it offers fascinating insights into Jazz, Jim Crow and perseverance.

Teachout effortlessly traverses the party vs. musicology chasm that derails many musician biographies. The reader is presented with a grounding in New Orleans Jazz and the genesis of Armstrong's musicianship free of the pedantic tone that sours me on many Jazz books. We get some insights into Armstrong the viper, but stories of road life, broken marriages and the mob never take over the narrative of Armstrong the musician.

Besides his own writings (two books and hundreds of magazine articles), Armstrong recorded thousands of hours of audio tape throughout his life, capturing his stories, remembrances and occasional rants in his own voice. Teachout takes full advantage of these recordings to flesh out the role Armstrong played in the Civil Rights movement, detail the inter workings of the music businesses, and explore the relationships Armstrong maintained with many of the luminary figures of his age.

Pops reinforces Armstrong's place as the King of Jazz, but also reveals a master of stagecraft, a humanitarian and, in his own unique way, a powerful political operative.

This is a great read for the plane and a top-notch primer on hipster vocabulary! Be sure to check out the appendix for Teachout's list of the top 30 Armstrong tracks, all available via Itunes.

Look for the paperback release on October 7, 2010.

Want more? Check out Miles: the Autobiography, Bird Lives!, Can't You Hear Me Callin, the Life of Bill Monroe, or Django: The Life and Music of a Gypsy Legend