Southeast’s folk music venue goes suburban

And city officials in this upscale corner of metro Atlanta are hoping Owen can do for Duluth what he did for Decatur when he launched Eddie’s Attic, one of the southeast’s premier venues for Southern folk music.

Owen and his business partners, Dave Mattingly and Music Midtown co-producer Alex Cooley, are admittedly taking a gamble in trying to replicate the success of Eddie’s Attic in Duluth. Eddie’s Attic has been the metro’s singular acoustic hall, the place where musicians such as Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles, John Mayer, Ed Roland of Collective Soul and The Civil Wars honed their early talent. Though Owen hasn’t owned the Attic in nearly a decade, and briefly quit as its talent booker in October, his reputation as a man with an eye for the next big thing has kept the Attic a top choice for live music in an intimate setting.

Cooley is one of the creators of the Music Midtown festival and a longtime concert promoter. His business partner is Dave Mattingly. On Dec. 1, the pair will close on a deal to buy Eddie’s Attic from its latest owner, Bob Ephlin. On a handshake two weeks ago, Owen, Cooley and Mattingly agreed to a deal that would have Owen managing and booking both venues, and Cooley and Mattingly serving as financial backers.

They are three men who are used to hits, but realize the danger of a flop, particularly in a bad economy.

If Owen and his partners are feeling the pressure, so are officials at Duluth City Hall. Two weeks ago they signed Owen to a five-year lease with a five-year option. At 253 seats, this new venue has more than double the seats at Eddie’s Attic, but it has struggled in its quest to become the community entertainment hub city officials and residents have hoped for. Flooding, mold, and poor management have mired the Red Clay Theatre building for the past seven years. Duluth is betting that the trio music promoters, led by Owen, will light the same spark with the beleaguered 14,000-square-foot theater that sits in the middle of their struggling downtown district, as Owen did in Decatur two decades ago.

“I’m going to use every alliance I’ve built in the last 30 years to assemble a team that builds us the best chance to succeed,” Owen said.

‘A catalyst moment’

Almost 25 years ago Owen was a manager booking songwriters at Trackside Tavern in Decatur. The Stockbridge native was ready to make the jump to club owner, but at a loss as to where to do it. Back then Lyn Menne was on the city’s downtown development authority. She knew Owen and approached him about opening his own place, she said. The city was looking for businesses that would help construct its new image as a safe place for independent and niche entrepreneurs and creative types.

“Usually every five years there’s a catalyst moment that pushes us to the next level,” said Menne, now Decatur’s assistant city manager for community and economic development.

In the late 1990s, after the 1996 Olympics, that was the Brickstore Pub, she said.

“Mick’s [restaurant] was that in the late 1980s. Then Eddie’s was in the early 1990s. He was the first one to nurture acoustic music downtown.”

Patterson Hood was one of those early artists who got his start at Eddie’s. Long before he turned to Southern rock and enjoyed success with his band The Drive-By Truckers, Hood was a kid in Athens trying to make it as a punk rocker. A solo punk rocker. Which is to say he wasn’t getting any breaks. But he was also a songwriter, so he drove down to Eddie’s on a Monday night in 1994 for open mic night. He won. A few weeks later, he won again. Then Eddie gave him some advice: Buy a decent guitar, take your music more seriously and move on.

“What I was doing wasn’t really right for Eddie’s Attic at that time and I knew it, as did Eddie and everyone else, but nonetheless, Eddie recognized what I was trying to do and really supported me anyway,” Hood wrote in an email.

Then there are artists who have looked to Owen for guidance most of their lives. Ed Roland of Collective Soul is one. He remembers Owen as the star quarterback in high school and the neighbor just one door over. Ed Roland’s father was a minister at the Henry County church where Owen’s mother was active and his father was a deacon, Roland said.

“Ed was my hero back then,” Roland said. “I remember throwing a football with him at a church retreat when I was kid, and I was like ‘Man! I’m out here with Eddie Owen.’” Years ago the men conceived a charity Christmas concert honoring Roland’s father and Owen’s mother. This year will be the first time it hasn’t taken place at the Attic. Instead it will be in Duluth on Dec. 17. Roland plans to pull Owen out of his manager’s role that night.

“Don’t let him fool you, he’s a great singer,” Roland said.

The show has the potential to pack the 253-seat auditorium. It will likely be the first time a long while since the room was filled.

Red brick risk

Wanting to build on the success of the Aurora Theatre and the foot-traffic it brought to downtown Duluth, the city of Duluth bought a large red brick church on Main Street in 2004 for $1.8 million. The Aurora was a vibrant, regional, professional theater troupe and the town’s entertainment engine. For 10 years it had operated out of a converted hardware store. A new home would only build on that success. But after sinking $800,000 more into upgrading the place in 2006, the Aurora was wooed to Lawrenceville, Gwinnett’s county seat.

Since then, the theater building, which became the Red Clay Theatre, has been crippled. First by a for-profit theater company that couldn’t get a large enough audience to pay the bills. Then by the historic rainstorms in September of 2009, which caused extensive water damage and mold. At one point, plumbing problems were so bad that the theater had a portable toilet set up inside for patrons. And the evening energy the Aurora had nurtured along Main Street for a decade was gone. So were a lot of businesses that benefited from its clientele. Of nearly 30 buildings, 50 percent or more were vacant in the last year.

“If your core isn’t strong, you’re rotten,” said Chris McGahee, Duluth’s economic development director. “So if downtown is half empty, how can you create an atmosphere where people want to take a risk?”

Owen was ready to take a risk. He no longer owned Eddie’s Attic and as its manager for the past six years he had limited control over the direction it would take. He’d been approached for years by various municipalities that wanted him to start a satellite in their town. Earlier this year he was ready when members of Duluth’s downtown development authority and McGahee proposed a move north. There was the promise of leasing a building with more than double the seats of his existing one in Decatur, and one that was surrounded by 730 free parking spaces.

“I always wanted a little bitty theater and Eddie’s Attic never was that,” Owen said. “Because people are eating and drinking, a lot of times I’d have to tell people to be quiet when somebody was up there playing.”

Acknowledging the economy, the city had begun wooing local entrepreneurs and start ups, people who had been downsized but had enough capital stored up to start their own businesses. A bakery went in recently. A young costume designer who makes garments for Atlanta’s burgeoning film industry. And a major coup for the town this fall was getting a Pure Taqueria franchise, which sits on the corner next to the Red Clay Theatre.

Under the agreement with Owen, the city will share revenues of Eddie Owen Presents, with 60 percent going to Owen and the rest to the city. McGahee said the city paid off the theatre building last year after demolishing part of the building that had been damaged by the 2009 storms.

“We had a fighter jet that none of us knew how to fly, but now we have a pilot who knows how to push every button and make this thing perform,” McGahee said.

Still, Cooley and Mattingly are having to pay for repairs and upgrades to the building to get it ready for its first show. Cooley declined to give specific figures. But Cooley said he’s sure the investment will be worth it. Although the city and Owen have visions of adding a restaurant and bar in the dirt patch next to the theater, Cooley said first they must get a consistent lineup of shows. With their nascent agreement, the principles believe they can have an act play one or two nights in Duluth before moving on to play in Decatur, or vice versa.

“I talked to one agent who was excited and another who had his doubts,” said Cooley. “But there have always been doubters. We’ll have to prove it to be a workable situation.”

‘An absolute buzz’

The Duluth location is booked through February, Owen said. On a recent afternoon he took local songwriter and DeKalb County teacher Cindy Lou Harrington on a tour of the place.

“There is an absolute buzz in the music community about this,” Harrington said. “His [Owen’s] Rolodex is coming to Duluth.”

Just beyond the theater is a picturesque town square, punctuated by a frothy fountain where children and some adults scamper on hot summer days. Owen and Cooley have looked out over that square and envisioned the possibilities. Perhaps an acoustic music festival next year.

“I see the potential here for adding a whole other dimension to the wheel,” Owen said.

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Concert preview

Eddie Owen Presents

at the Red Clay Theatre: Patterson Hood

of the Drive-By Truckers

Doors open 7 p.m.; show begins at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Tickets $20. Red Clay Theatre, 3116 Main St., Duluth; www. eddieowenpresents.com.