Restoring the Musical Legacy of a Rural Georgia Town

Decades before “A Country Boy Can Survive” and his unsavory political tirades, an eight-year-old Hank Williams Jr. stepped his cowboy boots onto a since-forgotten stage and warbled the opening notes of “Lovesick Blues.” His first live performance was not at The Grand Ole Opry or Carnegie Hall, but alongside his mother, Audrey, at the crossroads of Augusta, Macon and Savannah: Swainsboro, Georgia. In 1958, five years after his father’s death, the big man with the cowboy hat and sunglasses was a small boy with a cowboy hat and grief performing at the South’s rite-of-passage venue: The Nancy Auditorium.

Between 1950 and 1965, the Nancy featured a roster to rival the Opry–because the roster was identical. Patsy Cline, George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Happy Goodman Family, 3 Dog Night, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Jerry Clower, Minnie Pearl, Jim Ed Brown, Roy Acuff, Ray Price, Brenda Lee and dozens more artists sweat on the much smaller Nancy stage before heading to Nashville. How did so many icons find themselves spending Saturday night in Swainsboro?

It started when local radioster Jack A. Thompson built an auditorium on his station, WJAT. He planned for the venue to host a series of concerts known as the Peach State Jamboree and adoringly named it after his wife, Nancy. The Jamboree was a fast success, hosted by the WJAT’s manager, Johnnie Bailes—one of the four harmonizing Bailes Brothers. Eventually Webb Pierce, who owned the booking company responsible for arranging the roster at the Grand Ole’ Opry, purchased the station. Pierce, Swainsboro historian Michael Bright presumes, agreed with artists that if they booked the Grand Ole Opry, they had to also play the Nancy. For decades, the biggest names in Country and Western played the Peach State Jamboree.

Of course, you would only know this if you saw the “ANTIQUE MALL EXIT 90” billboard on Georgia’s I-16 and followed its call to the Music Memories Museum inside the Main Street Antique Mall. Just as there’s only one Swainsboro in the world, there’s only one private music memorabilia collection in the world that’s as complete as any music hall of fame: Michael Bright’s.

Bright’s Music Memories Museum brings Nancy Auditorium, which is set to undergo restoration, lore back into the sunlight and then some. Here, Johnny Cash’s mixing board, a white eyelet dress worn by Taylor Swift and Marilyn Monroe’s beaded evening bag interplay with over 200 other tangibles from taste-makers such as Karen Carpenter, Dolly Parton, Jimi Hendrix and all four of the Beatles. (Yes, there is a hard-earned piece of Hank Willaim’s Jr. memorabilia, too.)

Bright, whose personality and duo of diamond rings validate his surname, is something of a music history oracle in town. Aside from managing the antique mall, he moonlights as an archivist and is a musician himself. “I started singing secular music, a bit of rock’ n roll, but definitely more country. That’s what led me to befriend Ronnie McDowell, who enabled me to meet many singers like Conway Twitty, Reba McEntire, Roy Clark, Ricky Scaggs, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Acuff and more,” he shares. When Bright says “more,” he means hundreds, all of whom you can see him smiling next to in his album of autographs and archives.

I ask Bright what his favorite memory is, knowing full well this is an unfair question to ask a man with more music memories than Buddy Guy. But he answers immediately: “I will never forget when I had the rare opportunity to stand side by side with Roy Acuff on the Grand Ole Opry stage.” After Acuff, Bright was introduced to his eminent artistic influence in the ‘80s: the Lord. Since then, Bright has put his soul into Southern Gospel music, receiving airplay and acclaim in the US and the UK. In 2006, he became the first and only Southern Gospel artist to have five songs chart on the UK top 25 at once.

Until 2013, the affable road warrior played over 250 concerts a year—all without a radio promoter or booking agent. One could say Bright’s career has been underpinned by good fortune. Once he retired from the road, in an appropriately auspicious ripple, his wife brought him to her native Swainsboro. Now, he’s here to stay. “I learned a lot about the musical history here from my sister-in-law who was of the historical society,” he continues, “I also spent time in the town archives piecing together who played here and when.”

Bright sources his memorabilia from auctions, estate sales and, sometimes, serendipity—his prized item was gained by the latter. Two years ago, a gentleman walked into the museum stunned by the comprehensive collection and told Bright, “the Lord just spoke to me and told me I have something you need to have in your museum.” That something was Gregg Allman’s 1999 Harley Davidson Dyna Lowrider. Though he’s never taken it on the road, Bright does “crank it every so often.” Bright is always ready to reminisce. If you’re lucky enough to intersect with him at the museum, expect candor and sensitivity, maybe even a verse from a gospel tune. Ask him to put on Dolly Parton’s tailored ten-gallon hat and cruise through the single-stop light main street on Greg Allman’s motorcycle (he won’t let you, but he’ll laugh). Linger for five minutes or five hours, he doesn’t mind. All that matters is that “every visitor finds an item from their favorite musician that brings back a special memory.”

Central Georgia towns brim with history—but that history is often overlooked and under-recorded. Wrightsboro, GA, now a ghost town, was the southernmost Quaker settlement in the United States. In Greene County, the abandoned village of Scull Shoals was home to Georgia’s first paper mill. Thousands more towns across America boast forgotten histories that need a Michael Bright to help them draw a second breath. May Swainsboro’s survival and revival serve as a blueprint. “People stop in [to the museum] all the time and have no idea this is here. They’re always surprised by Swainsboro’s musical past. They tell me they enjoy it just as much as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” Bright beams.

The Music Memories Museum, just one mile from the Nancy Auditorium, is free to visit Monday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm. If you would like to donate to the Music Memories Museum to help preserve local history, you can do so here.