{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"27. Bertis Downs on R.E.M., Athens, and a Life Built Around Music","description":"Bertis Downs' life reads like a map of the last sixty years of American music culture \u2014 and if you've ever wondered how a law student ends up managing and giving legal advise to  R.E.M. this episode is for you. Downs traces an extraordinary arc: a childhood shaped by his missionary family's years in Taiwan and the sudden loss of his father in a plane crash, followed by his mother raising three young boys alone. He landed in Clarkston, Georgia for his teenage years, then Davidson College, where a college radio show devoted almost entirely to the Allman Brothers Band planted the seed of his lifelong love of music \u2014 even as he pursued history and, eventually, law. A summer internship at the Fulton County Jail (and a chance bellhop gig serving the Rolling Stones) pointed him toward a legal career rooted in service, which brought him to the University of Georgia and, in turn, to a group of friends who would soon form R.E.M. Downs' early life: born in West Virginia, life in Taiwan as a missionary's son, and the family's return to Georgia after his father's death His path to Davidson College, a deepening love of music through campus radio and concert committees, and the pull toward law school How friendships with Bill Berry, Peter Buck, and the future members of R.E.M. formed years before the band's first show in Athens R.E.M.'s slow-build rise \u2014 from the Radio Free Europe single through Murmur, Reckoning, and the surprising six-year gap between tours that produced Out of Time and Automatic for the People What Downs and the band are doing today, from anniversary reissues to R.E.M.'s music finding new life in shows like The Bear The conversation is warm and unhurried, full of the kind of specific, lived-in detail \u2014 freighter ships to Taiwan, ham radios, the 688 Club, Neil Young record recommendations from a young Peter Buck \u2014 that only someone who was actually there could offer. It's a great listen for R.E.M. fans, Athens locals, or anyone curious how a band builds a decades-long career entirely on its own terms. ","author_name":"Classic City Rewind with Lesley Platek","author_url":"https:\/\/sites.libsyn.com\/600495","html":"