Photograph by Tim E. White/Getty
My monthly ritual in college was a drive into Atlanta to make the rounds of the rich array of record stores across the city. My favorite haunt was Peaches, a warehouse-sized store that prided itself on having the back catalog of just about every music artist imaginable.
This was long before iTunes and Spotify. There was a sense of exploration and discovery from walking into a record shop that’s sadly absent in the digital age. Most often, I had a couple of target albums I knew I wanted; after that, I could spend an hour or more flipping through the bins of albums in search of something that would catch my eye. The store also had an area for “cutouts,” albums that had flopped on the market and could be had for a buck or two.
I’d usually walk out with five or six albums: a couple of certainties I knew were good and the rest experiments. That’s how I discovered Lucinda Williams early in her career, when she was still on an obscure indie label. I was pulled in by the album cover. It had a glowing blurb from Rolling Stone, and she looked particularly good sporting a black leather jacket in the photo. That was reason enough to take it home.
There were two primary sources for keeping up with current music: Rolling Stone, with its extensive record-review section, and the radio. Many of the Atlanta FM stations still had a free-form format that allowed the disc jockeys to play what they wanted to play, a blend of hits and deep album cuts.
At a certain point, part of my ritual began to include listening to the Saturday night jazz program on WABE as I drove into the city. I knew little about jazz, but I was drawn to it. The host of that show was a deep-voiced man named H. Johnson. He shared his encyclopedic knowledge of jazz between songs, often naming the musicians who played on a song and sharing stories about them.
He also had the annoying habit of starting a song, then turning down the music to talk over the record for a minute or so to share a tidbit he’d forgotten to mention during the intro. But the quality of songs he played made that a forgivable sin.
One particular night, I had just reached what I called “Six Flags Hill,” with its glorious panoramic view of the city skyline, when H. Johnson put on a song that instantly touched something in my soul. It was a singer I didn’t recognize, and she had one of the strongest, most soulful voices I’d ever heard. It featured a long solo section, and I knew I had a target album to find that evening at Peaches.
There was just one problem: H. Johnson often played six or seven songs back-to-back in a segment, then identified all the artists at the end. This song was at the beginning of one of those segments.
By the time I pulled into the Peaches parking lot, the music was still playing, and he had yet to identify the vocalist. I sat in my car and waited, frustrated. Finally, his voice returned, and I learned the singer was Dinah Washington and the song a Duke
Ellington composition: “I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart.”
I walked into the store, proceeded directly to the jazz section, and found the album. Score. It’s still one of my favorite records.
Decades later, H. Johnson remains a mainstay of WABE, with a blues show on Friday nights and the jazz show still on Saturdays. He is a tradition as rich as any in the city, and that’s why we feature him in this month’s cover package on the reasons we love Atlanta.
Those monthly trips into Atlanta began my bond with the city. I explored record shops, bookstores, and music clubs. It offered a world far beyond what I could find in my sleepy hometown.
I’ve lived in lots of places, but Atlanta remains singularly unique. Read on to discover our favorite things about the city. It’s our valentine to Atlanta.
This article appears in our February 2025 issue.
Advertisement
