Shaun Oakley, playing in Macon on Sunday, channels legendary roots

Sunday, Shaun Oakley is hosting what he’s calling Shaun Oakley’s Sunday Blues Service at the outdoor Grant’s Eagles Nest, 3115 Masseyville Rd.

It’s from 5 to 9 p.m. and admission is $10.

The event’s name, Oakley said, is a tribute to something his father did using the same name for half a dozen years around Sarasota, Florida, where Oakley grew up.

Oakley’s father is a bass player who played with Blue Floyd – a blues-ified version of Pink Floyd that Oakley said was great – and now is best known for work with The Allman Betts Band.

Oakley’s father is Berry Duane Oakley so, yes, that makes the younger Oakley grandson of Berry Oakley, founding bass player of the Allman Brothers Band.

And it explains the younger’s full name: Shaun Berry Oakley.

And yes, at 21, the younger Oakley plays bass.

“I was born in L.A. but my family moved to Florida when I was 11,” Oakley said. “The first time I came to Macon was for the opening of The Big House Museum. I’m in pictures right behind Gregg Allman and the other guys. I started coming here to play over a year ago and made move here three or four months ago. With COVID-19, things have been tough but I’ve done shows at the Society Garden and Back Door Lounge and then there are the Blues Services that I hope we can do monthly.”

Oakley has a day job in construction but musically he’s with a group called The Maconites. Even so, a lot of his work comes through sitting in and being part of other blendings of musicians.

“One of the great things about Macon right now is how everybody works with everybody and there’s so much friendly cooperation,” Oakley said, “ You may have your group but there’s a handful of other people you work well with and get to do things with.”

As opposed to Sarasota, Oakley said the Macon music scene is more open with more places to play that stay open past 10 or 11 p.m. – not considering the closures coronavirus has caused.

“It’s very homey here, not to mention that housing and the cost of living is way better,” he said. “There’s a younger population and a real sense of community. Overall, players get a chance here, an opportunity to play without being shut out.”

As far as musicianship, Oakley said what he hears is top-notch.

“Frankly, there are extremely talented musicians here – really underappreciated ones. I’m flabbergasted talent agents from all over aren’t raiding the place and taking them off to Nashville and L.A. and wherever.”

Oakley said he’s happy to have the heritage he does and, as a rule, doesn’t mind being asked about it.

Few others can boast the bass they played in their high school garage band was one of only a handful of replicas made by Fender Instruments of his grandfather’s legendary “Tractor” bass, a highly modified Fender Jazz bass. Or that as barely a teenager they were able to make a YouTube video with the real one, both explaining and playing it.

“It’s quite the thunderous beast and was such a big part of the Allman Brothers sound,” Oakley said. “In the studio, my grandfather used a standard bass, a 1964 Fender Precision Bass, I think. He built the “Tractor” in order to replicate the same roaring sound he got in the studio live on stage.”

One Allman Brothers connection Oakley said he’d like to make in the future is to be on call as a session player for Mercer’s re-opened Capricorn Music Studios. “That would be amazing to get to do sessions there for people in the same studio my grandfather and the Allman Brothers practiced and recorded in so much. That’s one dream among many.”

Macon Film Festival Update: The part-live and mostly-online 2020 Macon Film Festival began Thursday and one of its live highlights is tonight at the Grand Opera House at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are running out quickly for limited, socially distanced seating for “Chuck Leavell: The Tree Man” with Leavell and director Allen Farst set to attend and discuss the work.

In addition to daily features and short films scheduled online, the festival has ongoing live fulldome film presentations at the Museum of Arts and Sciences Mark Smith Planetarium and a reservation-required, free, socially-distanced showing of “E.T.” Saturday at the museum’s amphitheater.

The festival runs through Aug. 30 and the best places for information, schedules and ticketing for films and activities are http://www.maconfilmfestival.com/tickets2020, www.filmfestivalflix.com/festival/macon-film-festival, and www.masmacon.org.

Contact writer Michael W. Pannell at mwpannell@gmail.com.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

What: Shaun Oakley’s Sunday Blues Service

Where: Grant’s Eagles Nest, 3115 Masseyville Rd.

When: Aug. 16, 5 to 9 p.m.

Cost: $10

Information: www.facebook.com/shaunbomusic

This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 7:00 AM.