Macon Homes Guide

Arts

Macon is rare among cities of its size, in that it supports a community symphony, which performs a full season annually in the restored nineteenth century Macon Opera House (which seats more than 1000 people), in addition to outreach events.

Whether it truly counts as “Arts and Culture” is debatable, but no account of Macon would be complete without some mention of the fact that sometime in the 1840s, it became the birthplace of the kazoo. This is far from being Macon’s only, or most important, contribution to American music. “The Georgia Peach”, blues singer Lucille Nelson Hegamin (1894-1970) was born in Macon. So were such diverse American musicians as classical violinist Robert McDuffie and Little Richard of “Tutti-frutti” fame. Otis Redding was born in Dawson, Georgia, and raised in Macon. The roots rock group, The Allman Brothers was founded in the late 1960s in Macon, and many of its original members were Macon natives. It is through the Allman Brothers that Macon finds one of its most enduring, legendary, and sad connections to American popular music: lead guitarist Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident at the corner of Hillcrest and Bartlett on October 29, 1971, and barely a year later bass guitarist Barry Oakley d ied in another motorcycle accident near the intersection of Napier Avenue and Inverness Street, about three blocks away from the location of Duane Allman’s earlier collision with a truck (though not, as many sources report in error, a peach truck).