SM: You grew up here. How has a Southern upbringing helped you?
TA: You know, I’ve really appreciated a Georgia upbringing because in all parts of the world and country, they may not have appreciated me, they may not have appreciated the message of the music, they may not have appreciated my reputation, but they’ve all appreciated the good manners I learned as a Southern boy. My mama raised me all right, and that transfers very well. Everybody likes that.

SM: Your stint in rehab, where you infamously met Lindsay Lohan and battled addiction, made national news for quite a few months, if not years. Was it hard to have your personal problems broadcasted?
TA: It was a double-edged sword. It was horrifying and embarrassing. I went from walking in the park to running in the lion’s den. In hindsight, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me because it made me realize you can’t hide behind [anything]. All of my [stuff] out there. This is what I did. What are you going to say about me? It helped me realize how sideways life can go. I saw it firsthand just explode. And it took a long time to get over that personally, professionally.

SM: What was the real deal with Lindsay?
TA: We dated for a while. I didn’t ever admit that at the time because I was going through a divorce, but it’s very much in the open now. It was jaw-dropping because our band was just starting to break and then suddenly there is this whole other level of celebrity. It freaked me out that people would jump out of bushes and follow you in cars. I was bewildered. How do you live in this bubble? How does that go on? They chased me all over Atlanta one time.

SM: What did that do to your life, personally and professionally?
TA: I’ll tell you what it did. I had so many offers, for lots of money, to sell stories, to sell pictures, and I sat back, and Scott [Michael] and I talked; and if you look back in history, you’ll see I did two interviews, period. I said, “You’ve got to knock this off. You’re not getting anything out of me.” I literally had seven figures thrown at me, and I said, “You know what, I will never be taken seriously as a musician if I’m Lindsay Lohan’s flavor of the day, or three months, or whatever.” So we had to sit on a lot of music—for a year—to separate me from that.

Images by Andy Silvers | Hair by Nick Gorlesky
Read more on our August/September Issue now!

Kidsyc

Hometown to notable hip-hop artists Big Boi (OutKast) and DJ Lord (Public Enemy), Savannah has long held its place in the world of hip-hop. But this year, Savannah’s hip-hop face got a makeover, compliments of Lloyd “KidSyc” Harold.

KidSyc is known around town for his affability, passion for music, and commitment to youth and education. With signature red cap and his unique merger of hip-hop with a live band, KidSyc was barely a year into playing together with KidSyc@Brandywine when they decidedly upstaged the overhyped national-touring Das Racist on opening night of the 2011 Savannah Stopover Music Festival. Having won the Georgia Lottery All-Access Music Search competition in early 2011 with his band KidSyc@Brandywine, he is now known far beyond Savannah for his talent as a songwriter, rapper, and front man.

KidSyc’s inaugural music video, “Fire,” was recently released to great fanfare. “The ‘Fire’ video is taking off quite nicely,” says Harold. “We’ve gotten almost 2000 views (between Vimeo and YouTube) since it was posted a month ago.” “Fire” is off of The Kid, produced by Alex Goose. The video was created by Savannah Film Company Production and Meddin Studios. But the best, it seems, is yet to come. “Next up is the KidSyc@Brandywine EP release with the tracks recorded at Capitol Records,” says Harold, “and a music video by Savannah Film Company for the crowd favorite ‘Forever.’” facebook.com/kidsycmusic

Images by Josh Branstetter
Read more on our August/September Issue now!

A night filled with music for the 2011 graduating class of SCAD should not overlook some of the day’s earlier activities. The SCAD School of Design 2011 Graduation Show is from 5-8 p.m. on June 3rd at River Club, 3 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The event, which is free and open to the public, will feature work from many design areas. More information on the event and work that will be shown can be found here.

Their plan for Together with Records focuses around 3 major points: to cultivate music by promoting a place to buy it, to bring new music to Savannah and to serve as a place in which people can find new, creative music. They have started to develop this dream on a much smaller scale, with around 300 records. This has allowed them to ground their idea of a business without the costs. Savannah’s music scene has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years, as showcased with the Savannah Music Festival. This trend, with some help, will continue and bring more artists and larger acts to the city. Together with Records, the brainchild of Emily Chao and Tyler Duddy, are asking for donations to help them gain enough capital to get the business on its feet. These donations will come with an interesting bonus, a 100% return on donations through store credit. Therefore, if you can donate a $30 check for these two to help the business, you can go in and receive $30 worth of music!

For information on the business you can visit their website, Together with Records. If you want to help by donating, visit their facebook page. Indiegogo, a website dedicated to funding and helping different types of campaigns, has additional information here.

Emily Chao is currently a SCAD student majoring in Fibers and Textiles. She is originally from St. Louis, MO with interests such as dogs and music (ex. Florence and the Machine, Fleet Foxes).

Tyler Duddy is a student at Armstrong and is currently studying public health. He is also from St. Louis, MO and his interests include spicy foods, dogs, and music.

There’s no better way to get to know someone than by huddling together in a staircase on a cold day. Haviland Stillwell, actor/singer (and self-proclaimed mover/shaker), and her father, Brooks Stillwell, attorney-at-law, both wear black coats. Brooks stands on the staircase landing, his back to a broad window full of white sky and the silhouetted buildings on Broughton Street. Haviland, though she looks more like she should be descending the staircase with Scarlett O’Hara-esque grace, perches on a step facing him. Beyond the window, the street traffic is faintly audible.

“She started dressing up and singing when she was 5,” Brooks says, looking at his daughter. “She was in every play they ever had in every school she was ever in—her first starring role was as the Little Red Hen.” Though she’s since gone on to perform on Broadway and in film and television, he still swells with pride as he says this.

The Stillwells have been in Savannah for generations. “We’re old Savannah,” Haviland explains. She has a habit of smiling while she speaks. Her mother was president of the Savannah Theatre, her stepmother president of the Lucas Theatre for the Arts. “Haviland literally grew up in empty theaters that needed to be restored,” Brooks says. “And now she’s raising money to help restore the Tybee Post Theater, so it all kind of fits.”

Haviland is named after her grandmother, Gloria Haviland Fritts. That it’s also a name associated with Gone with the Wind is, she swears, happenstance. Olivia de Havilland played Melanie in the movie, a Southern belle full of gumption. “In Hollywood, people generally assume that I’ve been named after her and once they find out I’m from Georgia, they’re convinced,” she says. The assumption is apt—Haviland, who used to carry her birth certificate around to prove the name was really her own, isn’t so unlike the character with whom she’s associated.

One of the defining experiences of Haviland’s childhood in Savannah was going with her grandmother to Emma Kelly’s bar down on River Street. “There I was, only 5 or 6, spending my time in a bar,” Haviland remembers. Her tone reveals that the humor of this is not lost on her. “But I loved dancing with my grandmother and singing with Emma Kelly.”

Though she moved to Atlanta in high school with her mother, Haviland says, “To this day, I still consider Savannah my home because that’s where I was born and raised and still come back to.” And come back she has, from her education at Ithaca College and NYU, from her Broadway performances, and now from her home in L.A. “Every time you mention in Los Angeles—or in New York—that you’re from Savannah, everyone has such a positive reaction to it,” Haviland says. “Everybody is so romanced by the city, even if they haven’t been here before. It’s a really special place to come from.” havilandstillwell.com

To read more on Haviland, pick up the latest issue of South magazine!

Photography by Tim Johnson

B .B. King’s Blues Club in Universal City Walk in Los Angeles, California is packed to the rafters, literally. All three floors groan from the weight of a capacity crowd, raucously salivating over the deliciously rib-sticking soul food and the prospects of steaming, soulful musical offerings by Ellis Hall and The Truth.

From the downbeat, Hall and company own the stage, the crowd and the house. They rip through “Boys Night Out,” a tune Hall wrote as the vocalist/keyboardist for Tower Of Power, as well as a string of high-energy originals and covers. His powerful tenor vocals carve deftly through the intricate weave of blazing hot guitar and keyboard riffs, as a tight horn and rhythm section lay a foundation of throbbing funk that keeps the dance floor packed the entire evening. By the end of the night, both the band and crowd collapse limply into their seats, every last ounce of get-up wrung from their tired but smiling souls. “I consider music my circulation. It’s in my blood. I’m a music man,” Hall says of his passion.

Son of the South

Born in Savannah, Georgia in the early 50s, Hall came into this world dancing and singing, according to his mother, Arvanna Hall. A medical oversight shortly thereafter set a chain of physical developments into play that caused her to notice clouded corneas, formed as a result of congenital glaucoma in her infant son. But both parents dedicated themselves to giving Baby Ellis, as his grandmother called him, as normal a life as possible. By the age of 5, the inevitability of blindness prompted doctors to recommend Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts, notable for its most recognized student, Helen Keller.

It was at Perkins that Hall was introduced to the piano, and thus starting him down the long and rewarding career path he still travels. His musical talents and drive manifested themselves early on, first as a precocious street performer at age 8, then as a budding drummer playing on a makeshift kit of odds and ends with other musically inclined classmates. After a string of solo and collaborative musical efforts, Hall eventually formed his first professional band, the Ellis Hall Group. This band struck a chord, developed a loyal following in the New England area, opening for Donny Hathaway, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Spinners and Tower Of Power.

The energy and musical prowess Hall displayed when opening for Tower Of Power impressed the band so much that they asked him on three separate occasions to join them on the road. The third time being the charm, he accepted their offer to helm the keys and bring his vocal pyrotechnics. From 1984 through much of 1988, he toured with them across the U.S. and throughout Europe, and produced and wrote for much of the Power album, released in 1988.

To read more on Ellis, pick up the latest issue of South magazine!

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With thirty-seven solo albums to date, Grammy-winning collaborations and an emblematic theme to an iconic series, Bob James, a smooth jazz revolutionary—as there was no such thing when he was coming up—credits serendipity in a large part to the success of his long storied career: But it’s about more than just luck. “One way or another, everyone gets a break, but it’s about what you do with it. You have to be able to deliver the goods,” says James.

Growing up in Missouri, James started playing piano at age 4. He studied classical music and was influenced by great 20th-century composers like Stravinsky, as well as avant-garde jazz artists. He was later discovered by Quincy Jones at the Notre Dame Jazz Festival and soon after became the pianist and music director for another jazz legend, Sarah Vaughan.

Serendipity struck when the producers of the soon-to-be hit 70s and 80s sitcom Taxi happened to put on an LP of his and decided they liked the mood. They invited James to score all the original music for the entire series. He was a little uncomfortable at the prospect of recording for television. “I had decided many years back that I wanted the freedom of doing my own music,” explains James. Fortunately, the producers granted James leeway to approach the score as he would any album.

He recalls going into the study, prepared with a variety of moods and concepts. Most of them were geared towards imitating the frenetic, day-to-day experiences of New York City cab drivers. He was surprised when the producers gravitated towards a slower piece that was later called “Angela,” after one of the main characters. Still to this day when most people hear “Angela” they visualize that iconic yellow taxi gliding across the Brooklyn Bridge out of Manhattan.

But he eventually left the big-time city life in New York for the slower pace of Savannah, where he now splits his time with northern Michigan. “Savannah has a rich cultural history, and I didn’t have to give up seeing good art and eating at great restaurants. I also love that they strive to keep their historic personality. I brag about that all the time,” he says. You can catch Bob James this coming March at the Jazz Corner in Hilton Head, and he is working on a new solo album. He also regularly plays with the group Fourplay. To hear some of his music or learn more about him, visit bobjames.com. To hear some of his music or learn more, visit bobjames.com.

Photo by Josh Branstetter

Billy Currington is officially a country superstar; you can tell by his voice. It’s low and deep and a little gritty. It has soul, a hint of pain, and a bona fide Southern drawl, the kind no one can fake or mask, no matter how hard they try. But it also has the confidence that comes from thousands, if not millions, of screaming fans who follow his every move and the fact that his touring partners include Carrie Underwood and Kenny Chesney. Another, and possibly the most telling, sign that he’s not a flash-fry country star is his modesty. He’s a good ol’ country boy from Rincon, Georgia, after all, and spent much of his free time splashing around on the beaches of Tybee Island just trying to catch a wave.

South magazine: You just finished touring with your new album. How are people responding to the CD? Are they connecting with the music?

Billy Currington: Oh yeah. I can definitely tell who has bought the album because the songs they’re singing on set; there’s no way they could’ve heard them unless they got the album. So it’s cool to hear them singing along.

SM: It is a very upbeat album. I bet it’s a fun show.

BC:’s the kind of album I’ve been wantin’ to make for a little while. Nothing sad. Just all really happy and makin’ people have fun and feel good.

SM: And when you’re not on tour, I hear you’re often on the water, right?

BC:Yeah, I’ve always been fond of the ocean, all my life. Ever since I was 3 years old, I’ve been trying to surf or doing something to ride a wave. Now that I’m older, I’ve been going to Hawaii, surfin’ a lot over there. So, yeah, paddleboarding, fishin’, I like it all.

SM: And you learned to love the ocean by growing up right here in this area?

BC: Yeah. I lived on Tybee Island first. My dad was a dredge boat worker and he was dredging the inlets. Then we moved inland to Rincon and I got a taste of dirt roads and no red lights in town, which was a great way to grow up. I had the best of both worlds. I had Savannah and Rincon and the islands. Fond memories there, out fishin’ with my granddad.

SM: Do you make it back down here a lot?

BC:I don’t make it back down there as much as I’d like to, but I’m movin’ back down to Georgia eventually.

SM: That’s good to hear. Everyone in Savannah is going to be happy to hear that.

BC:Yeah, I’m going back, close to home. I moved away back in 1992 when I graduated high school. I didn’t really want to move away from home, but I knew I had to go where the music was. And I still kind of feel like I’m just getting started in this business, but I’ve got my foot in enough to where I can pretty much live where I want to now.

To read more of the interview with Billy Currington, pick up the latest issue of South magazine!

Photos by Kate Powers

Among the myriad of popular music styles that have emerged over the past century, only a handful claim to have inspired-or at least to have come to represent-an entire way of life. Blues, jazz, rockabilly, and punk immediately come to mind as niche genres that boat loyal die-hard fans worldwide, but immerse global popularity of reggae dwarfs them all. From it’s humble beginnings in late-60’s Jamaica as laid-back dance fodder to it’s current status as the preeminent form of grooveoriented protest music, reggae is, simply put, one of the most beloved forms of music in existence today.

The basis of reggae’s appeal is its insistent, mesmerizing rhythmic foundation. Essentially a hybrid of America soul, R & B and traditional African and Caribbean folk, it’s been closely aligned with the Rastafari ideological movement since the late superstar songwriter (Rasta icon) Bob Marley used his own brand of “roots reggae” to spread that universal message of human rights and equality. Marley also promoted the overriding philosophy that all people should strive to attain “irrie,” a sense of well-being and harmony oneself one’s surroundings.

Yet along the way, reggae has diversified and grown. Offshoots such as dancehall, dub, reggaeton and reggae fusion now update the genre, incorporating outside elements forum other forms of pop music. As one of the hottest rising acts on the modern U.S. reggae scene, Savannah’s own Passafire continues that forward evolution. Over the past seven years, they’ve striven to create a unique sound by infusing reggae with their own alternative rock and psychedelic-tinged, trip-hop sensibilities. Known as much for their devoted work ethic and keen business senese as for their knakc of crafting memorable crowd pleasing tune, the group- made up of singing guitarist Ted Bowne, singing keyboardist Adam Willis, drummer Nick Kubley and his brother, singing bassist Will Kubley- is currently riding a growing wave of success.

In fact, their latest full-length release, Everyone on Everynight (when it dropped last September) was iTunes’ No.1 top-selling reggae album in its first week of sales. As if that weren’t enough of an achievement, it also debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard Reggae Chart. No small feat for a group that got its start playing small bars and restaurants in Savannah to a handful of friends and college classmates.

To read more about Passifire check out South Magazine’s August/September Issue!