This new Capricorn mural will pay tribute to the Allman Brothers. Meet the artist.

A new mural is set to go up in downtown Macon celebrating Capricorn Sound Studios featuring Duane and Gregg Allman and Phil Walden.

The mural will go up in the alley between the Lofts at Capricorn and the new Mercer Music at Capricorn. Jeks, the artist who recently did a Little Richard mural at The Society Garden, is being commissioned to put together this mural that pays homage to Southern Rock.

“I want to capture emotion and create the strongest image I can,” Jeks said in an email the Telegraph. “I want to paint something that they themselves would be proud to look at.”

Jeks said his style is usually simple composition but “big on symmetry” to let the details of the portraits speak for themselves.

As a kid, Jeks grew up listening to the Allman Brothers Band and Little Richard because his mom was a big fan so painting the Allman Brothers Band members is special for him.

Jeks is also a musician himself.

“It’s really special to me to be able to create these tributes to community hero’s and music icons,” Jeks said. “Being a musician myself, painting these icons that I appreciated and listened to since my childhood give a sense of purpose and kind of the best of both worlds for me.

“In some cities like Atlanta, my murals have become true cultural landmarks that people visit regularly.”

Larry Brumley, Mercer’s senior vice president for marketing communications and chief of staff, said the mural depicts an important piece of the Capricorn Sounds Studios story.

“Capturing the entire Capricorn Sounds Studios story in one mural would be impossible because there were so many key players in its success,” Larry Brumley said in a release. “But without Phil Walden and Duane and Gregg Allman, I don’t think there would have been a Capricorn Sound Studios.”

Walden was the co-founder of Capricorn Records. He brought Duane to Macon, where he formed the Allman Brothers Band with brother Gregg. This put Macon at the epicenter of the Southern Rock movement in the 1970s, and Capricorn featured recordings for acts including Charlie Daniels Band, Marshall Tucker Band and Wet Willie.

The sacred music space received a $4.3 million renovation paid for with historic tax credits, donations, grants from Peyton Anderson Foundation, Mercer University and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation before reopening in late 2019.

It now serves as a music incubator for musicians to use with 12 rehearsal rooms, including an audio editing and mixing room.

The mural is a joint project between Sierra Development Group, Argus Eyed Partners and Mercer university. It will be 700 square feet and is described as hyper-realistic. Jeks has put together hundreds of murals in his career but his goal is always to put together something that the community and his clients can appreciate.

“A lot goes into painting large format murals properly but after a hundred or so it becomes kind of second nature,” Jeks said. “Designing the mural to the client’s liking is sometimes rather difficult but I’ll always say painting it is the easy part.”