The Pilgrimage Has Gained Momentum

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Warning: this is boring. The only person who’ll be interested is JJ. Read at your own risk. You know me. If there’s music I’m investigating. This time around I made two music stops, not too far apart geographically but worlds away musically. Let’s start in Athens. The Athens music scene in the late 70s and early 80s was incredible. The biggest names to come from Athens were the B-52’s and, of course, R.E.M. The collage shows my “pilgrimage” (the title of a song on R.E.M.’s first album, Murmur). First, the grave of Wendell Gee. When I did the countdown of people named in a song, real and fictitious, I included “Wendell Gee” as a bonus. It was going to be on the “fake people” list…then I did research and discovered Wendell was a real person. Michael Stipe said he saw the name on a car lot sign and used the name for one of the most beautiful songs R.E.M. ever did (ranks up there with “You Are the Everything” and “Nightswimming”). Gee is buried amid a number of family members in a small cemetery behind a church a few miles outside of Athens. Back in Athens, I stopped to take a photo of the 40 Watt Club, one of the places R.E.M. played early in their career. I’ve actually been in that club for a concert: March 28 and 29, 1988, I saw the BoDeans there. It’s a dive, but absolutely priceless when it comes to its place in the history of shaping American rock and roll in the 80s and 90s. The final photo shows the pitfalls of waiting. The empty space hasn’t been empty long. This site, in Dudley Park, used to be where the old trestle known locally as “the Murmur trestle” or “the R.E.M. trestle” used to stand. It’s featured on the back cover of Murmur. There were successful petitions to save the trestle when a developer bought the land, because of its importance to the local landscape thanks to that photo on the album. Unfortunately, age and the elements don’t care about music history. The wood had deteriorated so much that it became a hazard, and in January 2022 it was removed. I had a great time visiting the sites while listening to the music of R.E.M. I know JJ was with me in spirit (if not marry wanna smoke ). The song “Pilgrimage”: