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Filmmaker Hal Jacobs’ latest documentary, Northside Tavern: The Mostly True Account of the Golden Age of Atlanta’s Most Exquisite Blues Dive, is an audiophile’s banquet that solidifies his reputation as our city’s auteur of the demimonde.
Atlanta, with its historically less-than-intoxicating brew of blue laws, bulldozers and preening aspiration, has never embraced the dive bar as enthusiastically as other American cities, but it loves the cheerfully seedy Northside Tavern, which has stood its scabby ground against gentrification for 50 years under the ownership of the Webb family. This documentary explores — in a joyful, tuneful, laidback way — why.
Filled with hip-swiveling music footage and interviews with scruffy, weather-beaten musicians and staff, the film highlights the cast of characters who found a home there with the maternal ministrations of owner Ellyn Webb, making the Northside Tavern ground zero for music lovers and a must-see destination for blues lovers from all over the world. Even unexpected artists such as P!nk have dropped in to wail, along with Donnie Mac, who famously played percussion — maniacally — on a chicken coop. (Donnie Mac gets his own well-deserved “chapter.”)
The film premieres December 13 at the Plaza Theatre. It is sold out, but tickets are still available for a second screening on December 19. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for both shows. Fun psychedelic “merch” will be available from Swami Gone Bananas, the longtime “resident graphic designer” of the tavern.
Jacobs describes his usual themes as “arts, environment and social justice in the South.” ArtsATL caught up with him to discuss this gritty party of a movie.
ArtsATL: What made you want to make this film?
Jacobs: Is it OK to say that after the pandemic shutdown, I just needed a good reason to spend more time at the Northside Tavern? Secondly, out of a real concern for its survival. The Northside Tavern is every bit as iconic as the Clermont Lounge. But instead of a legacy involving strippers, it has this legacy of featuring amazing musicians who created a real community together. Of course, it’s situated in that new developer-driven corridor of West Midtown that in recent memory was derelict warehouses and parking lots. So this little cinderblock blues dive with bars on its windows is literally in the shadows of an office tower named after the former Star Metals junkyard across the street. If Atlanta lost the Northside Tavern, it would mean more to many people than losing the Fox Theatre.
I knew the tavern from the late 1990s and early 2000s, so I have some nostalgia about that period. What convinced me to make the film, however, was learning more about the story of how Ellyn Webb created that music community with the help of local blues artist Mudcat and how she resisted developers until her death in 2017. Fortunately, the Northside abides because of her brother, Tommy Webb.
ArtsATL This is an ambitious project with so many voices. How many people did you interview, and how many hours of footage did you wind up with?
Jacobs: We interviewed nearly 75 musicians, staff members, family and regulars. In addition to filming at Northside throughout the year, we gathered thousands of archival images and videos from individuals who were intimately involved with the place from the beginning.
We decided early on that the Northside story would be told by as many different voices as we could reasonably fit into the film, which, as a result, grew from 50 to 90 minutes. The story would focus on the musicians’ experience (“the mostly true” in the movie’s subtitle). Ellyn gave the musicians a place for them to be heard, and we wanted to share their stories of what it was like to play with blues legends Eddie Tigner, Beverly Guitar Watkins and others. Or hear Sean Costello for the very first time, which is what a young Coy Bowles (Zac Brown Band) did one night after driving up from Thomaston, Georgia. Or what Oliver Wood (Wood Brothers) and Charlie Wooton (Zydefunk) learned from playing with veteran Southern rocker Donnie McCormick (Eric Quincy Tate). We also wanted to give viewers a real sense of Georgia blues and funk, so we’ve included lots of music clips from Blind Willie McTell to Albert White to Jontavious Willis.
ArtsATL: An especially powerful aspect of this movie is the “in memoriam” information you lay out about some of these blazingly talented people. Can you talk a little about the artists we’ve lost and what their legacy is?
Jacobs: The movie looks at both the joy of making music and the sorrow of losing those music makers. The Northside has seen its full share of both. In fact, two of the musicians we interviewed in the last year are no longer with us: Lola Gulley and Joseph Burton (Lil Joe from Chicago). In the months leading up to interviews, the community lost Carlos Capote and Ike Stubblefield. We refer to the “Golden Age” of the Northside because in the early 2000s you could see, on any given night, Frank Edwards (1940s street musician), Cora Mae Bryant (daughter of Atlanta bluesman Curley Weaver), Cootie Stark, Donnie McCormick (chicken coop instrumentalist) and Sean Costello (28-year-old phenom) — all deceased by early 2009.
I think their legacy lives on in the young musicians they influenced, the stories they told, the memories of everyone who watched them perform.
Maybe the movie will also remind people of the importance of supporting live music and clubs that exist on such a thin margin line. Spotify and YouTube have their advantages, but nothing can ever replace being there.
ArtsATL: We also learn about the valuable, ambassadorial contributions of Danny Dudeck, better known as “Mudcat.” Can you talk a little about his role at the Northside?
Jacobs: A common refrain from every interview: there would have been no Northside without Mudcat. He was a young local musician playing gigs around town and busking at Underground and Little Five Points. The owner Ellyn Webb was the inexperienced bar owner/manager wanting to keep her little family tavern going with live music. She first heard of Mudcat at Fat Matt’s, which was showcasing local blues musicians. (Blind Willies in Virginia-Highlands was geared up for bigger, out-of-town bands.) Once he accepted her invitation to play at her Northside, he never really left until the year following her death in 2017.
He began introducing the place to other blues musicians, who fell in love with it. And soon Mudcat was connecting with Music Maker Foundation (which supports older blues and roots musicians) to not only book them at the Northside but also hold weekend-long benefits to raise awareness and money for them. Mudcat became the glue that held everything together — his Wednesday nights and weekend shows were a mainstay of the Northside for over 25 years.
ArtsATL: It’s interesting to hear people sum up the Northside with so many emotionally loaded words – – home, family, church, college, refuge. One of the central questions seems to be: Is it a dive or not? (The doorless toilet tells a tale.)
Jacobs: Maybe a dive is in the eye of the beholder? Harp player Stoney Brooks once called it an “exquisitely sleazy dive.” Most recently, it’s where a few scenes from Ozark were filmed — it looks like the kind of place you’d find off some two-lane in the Ozarks.
One thing for sure: you can’t intentionally create a dive. Maybe that’s why some people are drawn to them. They’re organic, authentic, on a decidedly earthly human scale. Why was there an “emergency toilet” out in the open of the women’s restroom? Because it was there. People also say there was magic at the Northside. For decades you would always see the same doorman, the same off-duty cop, the same bartenders, the same buckets on the floor catching leaks, the same odors of cigarettes and PBR, the same regulars, and the same steady rotation of familiar musicians. There’s something magical about that.
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Candice Dyer’s work has appeared in magazines such as Atlanta, Garden and Gun, Georgia Trend and other publications. She is the author of Street Singers, Soul Shakers, Rebels with a Cause: Music from Macon.
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