Sounds of Tucker: Local Musicians Keep the Beat of the City

The Sounds of Tucker: Local Musicians Keep the Beat

of the City

L. A. DISON

Dial Up at the 2021 Taste of Tucker.

From intimate performances in a local bar to full-out concerts on Main Street, Tucker’s music scene is as diverse as the musicians who create it. While the city’s many scheduled events draw artists from across Atlanta and the Southeast, Tucker is home to a wide variety of musical talents. “Tucker is full of fantastic, professional musicians,” said Micah Cadwell, a jazz guitarist who has lived in Tucker for the past fourteen years. “It seems like everyone I work with lives here, or at least nearby.”

The revitalization of Main Street and the establishment of city festivals like Tucker Day and Taste of Tucker have all created opportunities for these local musicians. “I have been playing at the Tucker Day festival for the past three years,” continued Cadwell, “and it is such a treat to get to play for your community and spend time with your friends and neighbors at the same time.”

This year, the city added “First Friday Concert Series” to its TKR Summer of Fun events. (The concerts are held in the Church Street Greenspace, at 6:30 p.m. the first Friday in May, June, August and September.) The city also has discussed adding an entertainment district in downtown that would allow more outdoor dining as well as create an open container district for alcohol consumption, enhancing the attraction for live music. Still, many musicians feel more effort is needed to create a vibrant music scene that would entice fans from across metro Atlanta to Tucker.

“Before we can ask good bands to play here, we have to have quality places known for live music that will invest in their production and paying bands what they are worth,” commented Art Wood, owner of The Art Wood Mortgage Team and lead singer and guitarist for 90s cover band Dial Up.

For this article, we are spotlighting four Tucker musicians, but there are many more worth some attention. You can catch a lot of Tucker artists daily at 6:00 p.m. on Radio Tucker, on “Georgia Homegrown;” every Saturday at 5:00 p.m., hear new music on "Local Time," featuring local unsigned bands from Tucker and metro Atlanta. Follow Tucker bars and restaurants on Facebook and watch for scheduled performances by local talent. Tucker Main Street festivals, like Tucker Day, Taste of Tucker and the Tucker Chili Cook-Off, also often spotlight local artists.

Micah Cadwell

Guitarist Cadwell started playing in middle school, and by high school, was regularly performing in a band. He has performed professionally around the Southeast since 2001, and lived in Tucker since 2008. While primarily a jazz guitarist, he also plays folk, classic country, Americana, Western swing, and modern Appalachian music. In 2007, he began teaching guitar six days a week in his home studio, and recently produced two roots gospel records for a Belgian singer/songwriter. “Music has taken me all over the world and has provided me with so many unique experiences and incredible memories,” Cadwell says of his life as a musician.

Cadwell plays every Thursday in Buckhead at Pricci and every Saturday in Roswell at Vin 25. He also has a monthly residency at the Distillery of Modern Art in Chamblee, and hosts a jam session at High Card Brewing in downtown Tucker on the second Saturday of each month. Follow him on Instagram or listen to Micah Cadwell Music on YouTube.

Elizabeth Grimes

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Grimes has played piano since age 7. Her first paying gig was in high school, when she was booked to play dinner music nightly at Lee’s Chicken Restaurant. “This is where I learned the importance of building a large repertoire and connecting with an audience,” she said about her first shows. She has performed professionally ever since. She spent four years in the Army,

Micah Cadwell with bassist Chris Riggenbach at Roswell’s Vin 25.

where she was cast in The Soldier Show, a high-level production variety show that tours the country and is put on by soldiers for soldiers. When she left the Army, she moved to New York City to continue her career as a performer and working musician, playing at a variety of events, accompanying vocalists, sitting in with jazz ensembles for gallery openings, or contributing to theatre projects. She also took a job as a rehearsal pianist with The New Jersey Ballet. In 2016, she moved to Tucker, and performs as part of the MARTA Artbound LIVE Program, which places musicians across the metro Atlanta area and in Hartsfield-Jackson Airport to Elizabeth Grimes in the perform during commuting hours. Grimes also works Midtown station as part of as the rehearsal pianist for The Atlanta Ballet Company MARTA’s Artbound LIVE and The Northeast Atlanta Ballet, and as the music program. Photo @jayo. director for Lawrenceville Road United Methodist Church in Tucker.

Grimes has a broad repertoire as a pianist and vocalist, ranging from classical to jazz, including all decades of pop music, and her original compositions cross genres of pop, folk, and country. You can listen to Grimes’s album Silk in the Sky and her EP Hard Times (with Steph Hughes as the folk duo Quill) on Spotify and YouTube. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok (@elizabethgrimesmusic) to find where to hear her live.

David Young

Drummer Young has lived in Tucker since 1981. In addition to his percussion skills, Young has also mastered acoustic guitar, harmonica, harp, and the mandolin. Music and performing is in his genes; his father was a Big Band drummer in the forties before giving it up to become a Lutheran minister. Born in Hickory, North Carolina, Young fell in love with the drums at an early age; he often listened to his father playing and began copying the cadences on his toy drums. He played in the school band, and then enrolled in Appalachian State University with a plan to major in music. After a year, he felt the call of the road, and dropped out of college to tour nationally with performers as diverse as Chubby Checker and The Swimming Pool Qs. He then went back to school to complete his music degree at Berklee College of Music, followed by a Master’s in Education from Georgia State University and an Ed.S. in school counseling from University of Georgia. While working as a school counselor in Gwinnett County schools, he formed his band The Amazing Mongooses, with his son, bassist Mike Young, and guitarist Chris Iconis, playing covers of British groups, including The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, as well as blues and original songs. Retired now from his “day job,” Young can devote all his time to his music. The Amazing Mongooses has released three albums, and play local festivals like Tucker Day and Taste of Tucker, and local venues like Shorty’s, Moonshadows and Tucker Brewing Company. Follow them on Facebook @amazingmongooses, or listen on Spotify, ReverbNation.com or YouTube.

Art Wood

Wood is known to many as “Tucker’s Mortgage Guy,” and the monthly financial columnist for Our Town DeKalb. But when he’s not helping clients secure their dream home, he’s guitarist and lead vocal for 90s cover band Dial Up. “My dream

The Amazing Mongooses on the outdoor stage at Tucker Brewing Company.

job was singing for a hair metal band,” said Wood. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have the range or the hair to pull that off.” Born and raised in Tucker (and a graduate of Tucker High School), he developed his vocal talent in church choir – which led to being fired from his first band for “singing too well.” He formed his first band in 2001, then about three years ago, formed Dial Up with friends Jason Green (guitar), Matthew Sones (keyboard and guitar), and fellow Tuckerites Jared Sarubbi (drums) and David Snow (bass). All the band members have day jobs but while music is their hobby, they still perform six to ten times a year. They play regularly at Smiths Olde Bar, as well as local festivals and private parties, especially around the Tucker-Lilburn area. You can check out their music and schedule on dialup.band or Facebook @dialupmusic.