Denied sight, sound became Macon music scene fixture’s ‘whole world’

“Sound became my whole world,” he says.

Blessed with a cheerful disposition, he liked just about everything he heard. “I got very excited about the rhythms of an air-conditioner or the burst of a car starting. There’s beauty in the hum of an elevator. If it makes a noise — any noise — I’m interested.” But one revelatory outburst cut through the other racket when he fiddled with the radio.

“I knew how to turn the radio on and off, but one day I realized that if I turned the knob, it changed to different stations,” he says. “Then I heard this very energetic music that knocked me out. I knew immediately, even at that young age, that that was what I wanted to play: rock ‘n’ roll.”

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

So Stuckey developed into a human tuning fork, a sonic wizard with in-demand, legendary ears. Today, he runs Shadow Sound Studio in Macon, home base for his work as an award-winning performer, sound engineer, producer, composer, radio personality, accessibility consultant and occasional shredder of guitars.

“A blind musician with insightful vision,” is how he bills himself.

His tools include both old-school analog and the latest in high-end digital recording equipment. He has a console once owned and used by Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics. His musical instruments vary from the usual strings, keys and percussion and includes 60 guitars; ukuleles; a dulcimer; a Japanese shamisen used in kabuki theater; and a Colombian mandolin crafted from an armadillo’s armor. “All kinds of crazy stuff,” says Stuckey, who writes, sings and plays his own music when he is not recording others.

Among the marquee names who have recorded at Shadow Sound include Wet Willie’s Jimmy Hall, Brazilian guitarist Felipe, Rolling Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell and Randall Bramblett.

Credit: handout

Credit: handout

“I think Joey is one of the most passionate and dedicated musician-songwriters I’ve ever met,” says Bramblett, who has collaborated with Stuckey on several projects. “He really gives each song he records everything he’s got. I’ve been a part of his projects off and on since 1998 or so, and it’s always a thrill to work with such an incredible talent.”

Says Stuckey, “I don’t think my ears are necessarily, magically better. The difference is that visual stimulus is so powerful that it dominates what you perceive. When I’m listening, that’s all I’m doing. I’m not staring out the window at the trees the way most people do. My head is always full of beats and melodies, and I feel a rhythmic pulse going through me at all times. That’s just the way my spirit works.”

It reputedly works with uncanny precision. “Joey is a joy to play with because his timing is so tight — he never misses a cue,” says jazz drummer Steve Chanin. “It’s something to behold him work. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and his blindness doesn’t even slow him down. He hustles.”

Fow a while, until his touring schedule heated up, Stuckey owned and operated WTMT, a streaming, 24-hour radio station that showcased independent music of all genres.

“Joey is a hard-working and talented musician,” says Leavell. “Joey is also an advocate and activist in broadcasting, reaching out to the public to promote the rich history of Georgia music.”

A prodigy, Stuckey was born in Green Cove Springs, Florida, where he graduated from public high school at age 14. His family moved to Macon the following year. He is part of the family dynasty behind the Stuckey pecan log — beloved snack of sweaty, Sunbelt road trips — and his father was one of a set of musical twins named Eugene and Talmadge (a hat-tip to the populist governor), who performed as The Stuckey Twins and the Dodge County Playboys.

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

“Um, I’m Southern,” Stuckey says with a laugh.

At 16 he enrolled at Mercer University. Not content simply to play by ear, Stuckey, who had studied Braille, also wanted to read music. He found a mentor in professor Terry Cantwell, and together they embarked on some tactile, Helen Keller-style lessons, with the instructor scratching music notations into sand, which Stuckey would trace with his fingers. He became a certain anomaly: a blind musician who can read music.

Stuckey went on to study with guitarist Stanley Jordan and modeled his playing style after rocker Jeff Beck and the jazzier Wes Montgomery, while his vocal influences include Mel Torme and Gregg Allman. With an ursine build and penchant for generous bear hugs, Stuckey possesses a set of pipes girded by a mighty diaphragm that powers some high-decibel blues shouting, no amp necessary. He is known in music circles for his risqué jokes and bad puns.

“My sound has evolved over the years,” he says. “I would say at first, I played alt rock, which morphed into progressive Southern rock. Over time I got well known for blues and jazz and that is basically where I live for my original music. I have a jazz band and a progressive Americana trio that plays my other music. Of course, we totally made up this genre, but then again, aren’t all genres made up? What it means is that my music is eclectic. It is blues-rock based but with a bit of country and jazz thrown in to keep me interested. It is more cohesive than it sounds.”

At 21, he released his first of six albums, “Take a Walk in the Shadows.” In the 1990s, Stuckey worked the soundboard at Phoenix Sound Studios, which, like its namesake, “rose from the ashes” of the old Capricorn headquarters, and he started opening for acts as diverse as James Brown, Wet Willie, Trisha Yearwood, Ted Nugent, Bad Company and Clarence Carter. In 1996, he launched Shadow Sound Studio.

Recently Stuckey has returned to live music after the pandemic. Earlier this year, he toured Europe and parts of America, playing a variety of venues from small bars to festivals with crowds of 10,000. And he recently co-wrote a song with Diane Durrett and Ed Roland of Collective Soul.

Stuckey brings a spirit of civic-mindedness to his work. He is Macon’s official musical ambassador, and his face appears on the side of the city’s slick, new, electric “music bus.” He was just named an advisor to the Atlanta chapter of the Grammys.

Later this year Stuckey will travel to Milan, Italy, where he is the keynote speaker on the topic of accessibility for the 24th International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference. He likely will play some gigs while he is there; Europeans respond warmly to his rootsy, Americana sound.

Since Stuckey was 2 years old, his family and friends — the “Stuckeyverse,” as he calls it — has honored his unexpected longevity and contributions every year on Sept. 29. Now, the whole town does. In 2017, Macon’s then-mayor Robert Reichert named Sept. 29 “Joey Stuckey Alive Day.” This year, The Joey Stuckey Band and several other acts will provide a daylong festival of music at the historic Douglass Theatre. “It’s a time for our Middle Georgia community to come together and revel in the joy of life and music,” he says.

Meanwhile, he continues to monitor his health, with help from his wife, Jennifer Stuckey, who is a retired nurse.

“While I don’t get sicker than most people, if I do get sick, it is about four times harder on my body and can be dangerous,” he says. “However, the takeaway is that I am a professional at managing this and rarely am not able to do exactly what I want. I take my commitments very seriously and fight through whatever physical issues I am going through to make those commitments.”

Speaking openly about his health is new for Stuckey.

“I didn’t use to talk about this stuff much for fear that people would think I wasn’t up to the job of making music,” he says, “but I have started being more open about it as I want people to know that whatever your circumstance, you can live the life you want and accomplish more than you think.”