Macon Magazine

Story by Candace Dantes Photos by Kevin Dantes GRAY MILLEDGEVILLE a 36-h o u r travel g u i d e to wh er e so u l & fu n k i g n ited i n rai lway towns F ootwork like skating on ice. "James Brown was a showstopper," said Larry Evans, 74, of Forsyth, Georgia, validating the "Godfather of Soul" in his silver-tongued Southern drawl. "He could twist across that Macon City Auditorium stage on one foot like it was nothing." Evans ashed back to his pre-teen Chitlin' Circuit days, a smile in his tone. "Now, that Otis Redding had a voice of excellence," continued the retired Norfolk Southern Railway agent and longest serving commissioner in the history of Monroe County. "They were both quite the entertainers," he said – artists who knew how to grow their then "social audiences" among the Georgia pines. Beginning in the 1930s, the circuit's creators fashioned an ecosystem of Black nightclubs, backwoods bars, juke joints, and dance halls and toured a segregated nation – particularly in the American South until the 1960s. The coterie dazzled with gifted performers, musicians, managers, and business owners who participated in these traveling productions. The network earned its name from soul food chitlins (or chitterlings) – meat scraps left over from hog killings enslaved Black people were able to repurpose as a meal and that evolved into a Deep South delicacy. The hidden hotspots often served chitlins while Black funk, soul, and rock 'n' roll mu ed the impact of a Jim Crow era. Although the circuit has since faded into mostly memories, Macon Magazine mapped a modern tour through destinations where a-wop- bop-a-loo-bop echoes in the here and now. June/July 2024 | maconmagazine.com 57 ABOVE James Brown performing at the Macon City Auditorium in 1969. Photo courtesy of Georgia College Special Collections.

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