# The Blues Professor, Part 1: Piedmont Blues, the Allman Brothers, and Atlanta's Living Scene

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/groundwater-the-blues-beneath-everything-7851197/the-blues-professor-part-1-piedmont-blues-the-allman-brothers-and-atlanta-s-living-scene
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/groundwater-the-blues-beneath-everything-7851197/the-blues-professor-part-1-piedmont-blues-the-allman-brothers-and-atlanta-s-living-scene.md
Podcast: [Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music](https://stenobird.com/podcast/groundwater-the-blues-beneath-everything-7851197)
Published: 2026-06-23T09:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://groundwater.fm/episodes/the-blues-professor-part-1-piedmont-blues-the-allman-brothers-and-atlantas-living-scene
Audio file: https://op3.dev/e/media.transistor.fm/8ad1f6c1/6d15a4d9.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/groundwater-the-blues-beneath-everything-7851197/episodes/the-blues-professor-part-1-piedmont-blues-the-allman-brothers-and-atlanta-s-living-scene
Duration seconds: 1354

## Resource

Piedmont blues, the Allman Brothers, Lonnie Holley, and the long road the blues took out of West Africa: Thomas Stubbs sits down with Rich Pettit, the man Atlanta knows as the Blues Professor — part one of two. For forty years, Rich has hosted Good Morning Blues on WRFG 89.3, Atlanta's community radio station. He grew up in New Orleans and came to the blues backwards — through classic rock — until he started noticing how many of those songs were covers. Part one is about where the blues comes from and where it went: West Africa and Congo Square, the banjo nobody remembers is African, Atlanta's living blues scene, and the Piedmont players who taught each other on back porches outside Covington — Savannah Weaver, Curly Weaver, Blind Willie McTell, Bar-B-Q Bob, Buddy Moss — before the music climbed the East Coast and rode the rail north. Along the way: Lonnie Holley improvising the blues on a high wire, the night the Dirty Dozen Brass Band rolled in late and blew Michelle Shocked's horn section off the stage, and the $30 loophole that keeps a Grant Park living room packed. Part two, we head to Chicago. Groundwater is the companion podcast to Thomas Stubbs's book Race Records: The Lie That Split American Music — and the Blues That Ran Underneath. More at groundwater.fm. Music Theme — "Guitar Rag," Sylvester Weaver (OKeh, 1923). Public domain. "Crazy Blues," Mamie Smith (OKeh, 1920). Public domain. "Come On In My Kitchen," The Allman Brothers Band, from Shades of Two Worlds (Epic Records, ℗ 1991). Excerpted as commentary under fair use.

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