In January 1974, Jimmy Carter, then governor of Georgia, hosted a post-concert reception for Bob Dylan on the Governor’s Mansion in Atlanta. Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band was on the visitor record, however he had rehearsed in Macon an hour and a half away and arrived after midnight and barely made it in.
That evening, nonetheless, Carter and Allman turned quick buddies and bonded over Elmore James’ blues information (the 2 differed of their recall of how a lot Scotch they drank). While the Allmans had been a multiracial group of long-haired hippies unloved in most halls of energy, Carter was a die-hard fan and quoted the band’s lyrics to Allman. The Allmans’ supervisor, Phil Walden, had constructed his profession in Macon, Georgia, and the band’s label, Capricorn Records, would quickly stage a number of the first fundraising live shows that may kick off the long-term bid of Carter as President of the United States.
“The Allman Brothers helped put me within the White House by elevating cash after I had none,” Carter later recalled.
The former president, who died Sunday at 100, was a lifelong music fan, impressed and deeply moved by the rockers, gospel singers and nation songwriters of his period who typically returned his affection on stage and within the White House. His tastes in rock and pop music had been a refined however unmistakable gesture towards racial reconciliation and, as later evidenced by his assist of the National Endowment for the Arts, a imaginative and prescient of a various and inclusive American tradition.
Well earlier than Kamala Harris was “Brat” and Barack Obama was a Spotify tastemaker, Carter, as a documentary labeled him America’s first “President of Rock & Roll.”
Carter grew up with gospel music in church, telling the Washington Post that it was “it isn’t racial music… it’s music of ache, of need, of analysis, of hope and of religion.” His fame as a seasoned president of the rocker counterculture, nonetheless, was famous by the outstanding gonzo journalist of the time, Hunter S. Thompson.
Thompson was on assignment for Rolling Stone to cowl Ted Kennedy’s nascent presidential marketing campaign in 1974, however caught Carter giving “a hell of a bastard king speech” and “by the point it was throughout he had rung each bell within the room,” as Thompson wrote.
Although it appears at odds along with his fame as a loyal peanut farmer, Carter’s countercultural credibility helped construct the coalition that received him the White House. In 1976, when he accepted the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, America was rising from a divisive and distrustful period characterised by Watergate and the Vietnam War. Carter took the chance to cite his beloved Dylan for hope and optimism.
“My imaginative and prescient for this nation and its future has been deepened and matured in the course of the 19 months I’ve campaigned amongst you for the presidency. I’ve by no means had as a lot religion in America as I do in the present day,” Carter mentioned. “We have an America that, in Bob Dylan’s phrase, is ‘busy being born,’ not ‘busy dying.'”
Carter preferred to cite Dylan. In a 1974 speech he mentioned: “After listening to his information of ‘The Ballad of Hattie Carroll’ and ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ and ‘The Times, They Are a-Changing,’ I realized to understand the dynamism of change in a contemporary society.” Years later, Carter launched the singer on the 2015 MusiCares Person of the Year ceremony.
Dylan was one among many musicians who trusted Carter’s tastes and ethical compass.
The band coated “Georgia on My Mind” on “Saturday Night Live” in assist of Carter shortly earlier than the 1976 election and thereafter released a studio version. At an occasion marking Carter’s inauguration in 1977, Aretha Franklin sang “God Bless America.” During the inaugural live performance, Paul Simon mentioned on stage, “Perhaps a time of righteousness and dignity could also be upon us,” and David Crosby he told Rolling Stone that Carter was “so sensible that he knew the way to be human and approachable and actual. It’s pure genius. Right-wing singer-musician Charlie Daniels additionally known as Carter “a great man… He introduced some credibility again to the workplace of the presidency.” in 2014.
In 1978, Carter hosted a star-studded jazz live performance on the South Lawn of the White House, the place he took the stage with Dizzy Gillespie and drummer Max Roach for the well-known two-word chorus of “Salt Peanuts.”
Carter beloved jazz and in interviews touted the pioneering free-jazz pianist Cecil Taylor. For a former governor of Georgia, only a few years faraway from the warmth of the civil rights period, it was a major gesture of solidarity and respect for a defining black artwork kind.
Perhaps most famously, if apocryphally, in 1980, after performing for Carter within the Rose Garden, Willie Nelson claimed to have taken a joint whereas sitting on the roof of the White House. In his autobiography, Nelson wrote: “Sitting on the roof of the White House in Washington, D.C., late at evening with a beer in a single hand and an enormous Austin Torpedo within the different, I fell right into a reflective temper. None of the Secret Service was watching us – or, in the event that they had been, it was with the intention of retaining us out of hassle as a substitute of getting us into hassle.”
(Nelson clarified that Carter was not current on the occasion, as Carter’s son Chip was on the roof with Nelson that evening.)
In the 2020 documentary “Rock & Roll President,” which additionally included interviews with Nelson, Jimmy Buffett and Bono, Dylan mentioned that Carter was “a easy sort of man, like within the Lynyrd Skynyrd music. He takes his time, does not stay too quick. Problems come, however they may move. Find the lady, discover the love, and remember that there’s all the time somebody up there. There are many sides to him. He’s a nuclear engineer. Carpenter for woodworking. He can be a poet. He is a unclean farmer. If you advised me he was a race automobile driver, I would not even be stunned.
Upon listening to the information of his demise, many musicians wrote heartfelt tributes to Carter.
“President Jimmy Carter was a really extraordinary man and a uncommon politician who all the time stood up and spoke for idealism, compassion and human rights and particularly for the rights of girls and those that suffered actual oppression,” wrote singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel, a longtime good friend who revered Carter’s advocacy for peace, notably his 2007 ebook “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”
“Don’t fear, Mr. President. I’m unhappy for us and glad for you. Your and Mrs. Rosalynn’s legacy of affection will stay on ceaselessly,” wrote nation singer Trisha Yearwood, who along with her husband, Garth Brooks, labored on the 2024 Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project with the charity housing Habitat for Humanity.
Heart singer-guitarist Nancy Wilson known as Carter “an unimaginable bridge between politics and our humanity,” and Georgia rapper Killer Mike wrote on social media that “I’m honored to say I met a ‘good man’ who it actually made a distinction. in an evil world.”
Carter could but earn one final piece of music historical past. On Feb. 2, he is set for his fourth Grammy win, for audiobook, narration and story recording, for “Last Sundays In Plains: A Centennial Celebration.”
