123 – Adam Goodhue: Following a Sound from Massachusetts to San Francisco to Atlanta, Exploring American Music’s Southern Roots

Adam Goodhue has been busy on the Atlanta scene for the last four years. Before that, he spent 16 years in San Francisco where he played just about every type of music it had to offer. Adam grew up in Massachusetts where he was the beneficiary of a small but active high school music program. By his late teens, he was hooked on two things; drumming and snowboarding. For short time, he thought competitive snowboarding might be his focus, but a knee injury made that impossible, and he realized that snowboarding was a fun hobby, but drumming was what he really wanted to do for the rest of his life. He was in a band with some friends who made plans to move to San Francisco. He took advantage of the “in” and moved there in 1996. Although the band didn’t last very long after that, Adam had already fallen in love with the city and began getting work with other groups. He also got some formal training for free, when the University of California at Berkeley was in need of a drummer for their jazz program. Adam was allowed to play in some groups and audit classes without actually enrolling. By this time, he had also become obsessed with the music of New Orleans, discovered that it was a sister city to San Francisco, and found how much the two cities have in common musically.

Adam moved to Atlanta in 2013 where he has continued his love affair for the music of the South, performing with Col. Bruce Hampton, Grant Green Jr., Maria Muldaur, Tommy Talton and many others.

In this podcast, Adam talks about:

How his approach to teaching lessons has changed from the kind of lessons he took as a kid

The moment he got serious about pursuing music professionally

How discovering the music and drummers of New Orleans was a turning point for his playing

What brought him to the Bay Area, and the strong connections between San Francisco and New Orleans

Pursuing feel and tone rather than content

The Bay Area when he got there vs. when he left

What brought him to Atlanta, and what kept him there

Treating networking like a full time job when you’re new in town

His outlook as he pushes his career forward and makes plans to get married