Red Clay Theatre
3116 Main St., Duluth. 678-957-7283, www.eddieowenpresents.com.
It was big news in 2012 when Eddie Owen made the move from Eddie’s Attic, the iconic Decatur acoustic music venue that bears his name, to Red Clay Theatre in Duluth.
Owen doesn’t like to discuss the details of his Eddie’s exile, preferring to push on to the subject of what a great place for music and musicians Red Clay has become. But he will state the facts as he sees them.
“If you say that I was the founder and original owner of Eddie’s Attic in downtown Decatur, that’s provable,” he said one afternoon, puffing on an unlit pipe in his office at Red Clay. “I was there for 20 years, except for the three I was gone. Other than that, I was the general manager, promoter, booking person.”
Of course, Eddie’s became synonymous with an Atlanta scene that spawned the Indigo Girls, Michelle Malone, Shawn Mullins, John Mayer, Sugarland and the Civil Wars, among many others.
In Duluth, under the rubric Eddie Owen Presents, Owen is replicating the kind of programing he put together in Decatur, with a Monday night Open Mic Shootout and weekend concerts by singer-songwriters such as Patti Griffin, Michelle Shocked, Mary Gauthier and Jimmy Webb.
In a previous life, the 257-seat Red Clay Theatre was the annex of an old downtown church. The city of Duluth spent nearly a million dollars to convert it to a space for a theater company. When that didn’t work out, city officials asked Owen to help them start a concert series.
“I had no clue where Duluth was, and I grew up in Atlanta,”Owen said, laughing and shaking his head. “I didn’t know it was straight up Buford Highway. But the first day I came up here, I was blown away by the potential for the theater. The facility is suited for everything I’ve ever dreamed about doing and everything that caused me to start Eddie’s Attic.”
On a tour that began with him reveling in the expanse of the lobby, Owen pointed out the sophisticated sound system and stage lighting, and little luxuries like the kitchen, lounge and dressing rooms for performers. Soon, there will be a music school in the basement. And there are plans to open a tavern with a rooftop bar adjacent to the theater.
In some ways, Red Clay is like starting over, Owen said. But what’s always been most important to him hasn’t changed.
“It’s still all about the song,” he said. “The Twitter hashtag I use now is ‘life is in the song.’”
In the early ’80s, while he was tending bar part-time at the Trackside Tavern in Decatur, Owen booked his first shows, showcasing young musicians such as future Indigo Girls Emily Saliers and Amy Ray, who were Emory students, and Malone, who was a student at Agnes Scott College.
“I was a songwriter, and a singer and guitar player,” Owen said. “I was pretty poor. But I became friends with other musicians who were pretty good, and those relationships led me to start booking songwriters at Trackside.”
Owen opened Eddie’s Attic in 1992, and it became known as a “listening room” — a place where audiences were expected to keep quiet and pay attention to the performers and the songs.”
“At Eddie’s, I would introduce every show by saying, ‘Thank you all so much for coming, but now you’ve got to hush up.’ I don’t have to do that here,” Owen said. “This lends itself to being a listening room.
“That’s what I always desired to create at Eddie’s, even though it was a bar. That was hard to do. It took five or six years to pull it off. But then I did, and it was great and the artists loved it. They knew that they could come there and have an appreciative, song-savvy audience.”
Owen admits that Red Clay still isn’t packed for every show. But from the first time he saw the theater, he saw the potential, he said.
“What I knew was that were tons of people here that drive to town to see shows at places like Eddie’s Attic and Variety Playhouse. It’s all about explaining the brand and getting the word out. I don’t think we ever do a show that someone doesn’t say, ‘I’m so glad you’re here. It’s so cool to come to our backyard and see a show.’”
Asked about the artists he’s most proud of presenting, Owen leaned back and smiled.
“I’ve had the same answer for 20 years,” he said. “If I don’t go to the 10 or 12 songwriters who’ve passed away, and say those are my favorites, I have another stock answer. It’s whoever is on that stage; whatever genre it is, whatever songs they are singing will not suck. I won’t book anything that sucks.”
