ATLANTA (AP) — At the edge of downtown Atlanta’s historic core, a nondescript brick building holds a little-known 94-year-old tie to music history — it’s the spot where a song that many deem the first country hit was recorded.
But that physical vestige of Fiddlin’ John Carson may be in jeopardy because a developer wants to raze it and build a restaurant linked to a more modern Southern musician: Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville.
Now, the city is trying to preserve the place where a groundbreaking recording engineer and talent scout captured the sound of a rough-hewn Georgia mountain fiddler on the cusp of summer in 1923.