Guadalcanal Diary

While frequently lumped in with such Southern alternative pop bands as R.E.M. and Let's Active, Guadalcanal Diary was distinctly different from its peers, with a sound that was at once melodic and rhythmically aggressive, and a decidedly literary and spiritual bent to the group's lyrics. And at a time when Athens, GA, was being hailed as the new center of the smart-pop universe, Guadalcanal Diary hailed from Marietta, GA, an Atlanta suburb where the band formulated its sound with little input or influence from the local rock scene. Guadalcanal Diary was formed in 1981 by guitarist and singer Murray Attaway and lead guitarist Jeff Walls, who'd first met in 1977 when they both joined a punk band called Strictly American. Rhett Crowe, who was sharing a house with Attaway at the time and was learning to play bass guitar, joined the new band's lineup, and shortly before the new group's first show, John Poe, a former bassist who has worked with Walls, was recruited to play drums when their original timekeeper quit at the last minute. Attaway chose the name Guadalcanal Diary from a book by Richard Tregaski about the U.S. campaign against Japan during World War II, enamored of the name's surface ambiguities and undertones of patriotism and warfare. After developing a reputation on the Georgia music scene thanks to frequent gigging in Atlanta and Athens, Guadalcanal Diary cut its first record, a four-song EP called Watusi Rodeo, in 1983 for the Athens-based DB Records label. A year later, DB and the band followed it up with a full-length album, Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man, produced by Don Dixon. Filled with rich but moody songs about faith, doubt, and the legacy of life in the Deep South, and driven by thundering drums and the clarion call of electric guitars, Walking...