Listen to the Music
Best of Coweta’s Top 3 Musicians/Bands as Voted on by Newnan-Coweta Magazine Readers
Introduction by JACKIE KENNEDY
There’s a bunch of singing and guitar playing going on in Coweta County.
On any given weekend, performers with Coweta addresses can be found on stage picking their best and singing their hearts out.
With a wealth of talented musicians and bands in our midst, it’s an honor to be voted Best Local Musician/Band by those who have listened to the songs or watched the acts perform. In Newnan-Coweta Magazine’s fifth annual Best of Coweta Readers’ Choice Awards, our readers awarded the top 3 spots to Doug Kees, Steven Moore, and Kris Youmans & Her Mighty Fine Band.
Here, we take a closer look at these local musicians, songwriters and guitarists whose gift for song is – no doubt about it – a gift for Coweta.
Doug Kees: Making Music, Teaching Music, Loving the Music Life
Written by JENNIFER LONDON | Photographed by RICK DIAMOND PHOTOGRAPHY
Doug Kees, Newnan’s local guitar hero, performs throughout the Southeast.
Doug Kees has been voted Coweta’s Best Local Musician for the past five years, demonstrating the incredible talent that he possesses.
Yet, it’s the relationships that fellow musicians have developed with him, and the musical instruction bestowed upon his students, that prove what a beacon his music and energy are for this community and his fans.
Kees started teaching private guitar lessons in April 1989. What began as an endeavor to teach for six to eight weeks turned into 11 years.
By the year 2000, with lessons growing to 90 a week and his teaching space outgrown, Kees moved his business, Musicology, to its current location at 48 Spring Street in downtown Newnan. He brought in more teachers, encompassing a variety of musical instrument lessons and teaching all ages, starting at 4.
His poetic nature guides his vision and perspective.
“You’re going where you’re supposed to go, just sit in the canoe and float,” says Kees. “I thought I just need to lay back and I’m gonna wind up down river where I’m supposed to be – and it was definitely that.”
Over the summer, Musicology offers Rock Band Camp, which runs for five mornings with two dozen high school kids and concludes with a performance at the Alamo where students showcase what they learned in the week.
“They’re unfreakingbelievable,” says Kees. “They’re not doing easy songs.”
Kees gives this advice to students dreaming of a music career: “The main thing is to learn to do as many things in the industries as you can. The reality is all the people I know who are actually making a living doing just music, they do a lot of different aspects of it.”
Songwriting and Sweethearts
In recent years, Kees has been recording instrumentals.
“A lot of times, I’ll do an Instagram post,” he says. “I’ll get up in the morning, get a cup of coffee and noodle.”
Initially, he recorded solo acoustic music, then he added a full band.
His wife, Nicole Andrews-Kees, comments: “He did the song ‘Sweetheart’ for me. He’ll write songs for me or about things happening in our lives. It’s pretty awe-inspiring because he has so much talent, but he’s so modest and humble about it. He’s definitely someone who conveys how he’s feeling through written language.”
According to Andrews-Kees, there are stacks of handwritten notes that her husband has written to her since they started dating in 2014.
“I feel like his songwriting, even though there may not be words to the music, that’s still such a strong expression of who he is, whether through music or through written word,” she says.
Kees has recorded several new songs set to release in September. His new songs, as well as previously released music, are available on Amazon, Apple Music, Spotify and iTunes.
“The reason for doing these songs in September is just the satisfaction of creating,” Kees says. “People respond to it in a way that’s positive and say good things about it and it makes them feel a certain way, and so it’s just a gift to hopefully lessen the ugliness out there.”
Kees says watching the reaction to his solo work has been interesting.
“It’s all instrumental, and I think a lot of big truths are beyond words,” he says. “I think a lot of times what separates people is trying to verbally define what we think or how we perceive things. I think regardless of people’s philosophical or political or religious point of view, people respond the same to just pure music, and I think it’s been interesting to see that.”
On tour with Michelle Malone
Along with his solo acoustic work, Kees routinely performs with fellow musician Michelle Malone, a singer-songwriter popular in the Atlanta music scene for years.
“Most of what we do is Michelle Malone’s music and she has 17 to 18 albums and a 30-year career,” says Kees. “We play either as a duo or four- or five-piece band. She and I probably do 150 shows a year, which is tremendous.”
Kees and Malone began working together in 2017 doing the reunion tour for her first band, Drag the River.
“It worked out well,” says Malone. “He fit right in like a glove, and learned the parts from the record. That was our first time playing together. I asked him to play on my record, it came out in 2018, called ‘Slings and Arrows.’ He played quite a bit of guitar on that and, again, we just seem to work well together. We’re very simpatico.”
Malone tells of the moment the lightbulb went off when she heard Kees play “Autumn Leaves” on guitar: “I love Christmas and I love classic Christmas music, and not everybody can play that stuff. Well, guess who can? Doug! He’s just able to fulfill all these very different roles in the same way that I can sing them, right? He can play them and, apparently, it was just meant to be.”
That lightbulb moment segued into The Hot Toddies, a trio consisting of Malone, Kees and upright bassist Robby Handley performing classic Christmas music with a punchy vibe. From Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, the group performs at venues throughout Metro Atlanta, playing Christmas tunes from the late 1940s, ’50s and ’60s with a jazzed up, rock-and-roll sound.
Kees also performs with Malone in a group they call Canyonland, which covers 1970s music from California’s Laurel Canyon, including tunes from Jackson Browne, The Eagles, and others of that era with the same LA vibe.
“Michelle and I had been out there playing for three weeks up and down the coast, and we flew home March 2 of 2020,” Kees recalls. “We had Pacific Ocean and Big Sur and everything in our heads, and then stayed home for a year and she started writing songs with that sort of on her. So her album “1977” was very much that, and so it has a lot of that vibe and Canyonland kind of grew out of that.”
Malone reflects: “I’m just glad that we’re playing together. He wants to play music with me, and we get along so well, and he’s so amenable to all the things that we have to do. He’s very flexible, so he’s just wonderful. When I bring him songs that I’ve written, he seems to know what to do with them, and we work so well together in the studio as well. We can really finesse what we both hear. I just can’t say enough wonderful things about Doug – and not just how well he plays and how well we get along, but how well we work together.”
Learning from a guitar hero
Nashville-based singer-songwriter, producer and musician Adam Wright fondly recalls guitar lessons in Newnan from his teacher Doug Kees.
“When I met Doug, I think I was 12 years old,” says Wright, the son of Newnan residents Lamar and Cathy Wright. “I’d heard a Chuck Berry record and flipped out and said ‘I have to have a guitar.’ At some point, my dad hears about Newnan Music. I walked in there, and Doug changed my life.”
Wright calls it “the most formidable” time in his music development.
“I was still sort of soaking everything up and my fingers were just sort of learning how to do everything, so to have a guy like him instructing me in all of that made all the difference in the world,” he says. “For those of us in a small town in Georgia in the ’80s who wanted to be a part of the music that we heard on the radio and in our tape collection, I mean he was a godsend. He was the conduit to the magic of music, particularly rock-and-roll for me that just seemed unreachable. It was even more fantastic that he just looked rock-and-roll. He had this really long red hair and he wore rock-and-roll clothes and he played guitar like our guitar heroes. He showed me what was cool about music and what was not cool about music and what was important.”
Wright, who penned four of the Top 50 most played tunes on Bluegrass radio in 2021 and had top tunes on the charts this year also, relishes the fact that he’s been able to perform live with his teacher.
“I’ve done some shows with him in Newnan and he’s come up to Nashville a time or two and sat in when me and my band were playing, so we have performed together but we’ve not been on tour together,” Wright says. “We have worked together professionally but most of our relationship was student-teacher and then, you know, friends.”
Stay tuned
On Sept. 13, Kees will perform at Below the Neck (in the basement of Redneck Gourmet) in Newnan, and he’ll play at Napoleon’s in Atlanta on Sept. 14.
Jonathan Hickman, a Newnan attorney and filmmaker with JWH Productions, plans to release a short documentary on Kees, also in September. The documentary will be linked on Kees’ website at
dougkees.com and on YouTube. NCM
Steven Moore: Music as an Outlet - and a Way of Life
Written by CAROLINE NICHOLSON | Photos Courtesy of STEVEN MOORE
Steven Moore sings his heart out during a 2022 show in Newnan.
Born in August of 2001, Steven Warner Moore had a fairly typical small-town childhood, one familiar to those of us who grew up unable to go to the grocery store without seeing a familiar face.
A Newnan native, Moore always knew how to dream big, starting as a young kid when he crafted a costume out of construction paper in the hopes of becoming Superman.
However, as the years went by, he left that dream in the closet alongside his makeshift costume. Moore struggled to find the grownup answer to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
But there had always been one constant in his life: music.
Around the age of 10, Moore began playing guitar at First Baptist Church of Moreland. Music had been around for him before then; he says he grew up listening to country music from the 1980s and ’90s.
While learning to play, Moore didn’t think much about music. It was just something he was learning to do, he recalls; that is, until high school when his view on music changed. It was at this point that he went from just playing music to writing his own songs.
According to Moore, music transformed into something so meaningful.
“Music became an outlet for everything,” he says. “If I was having a good day and all this fun stuff was going on, I could write about it and have this memory and story about it. And if things were bad, music was a way to let it out and a way to cope with whatever. There’s so many different things you can do with it, and you can use it how you want.”
Moore exemplifies this idea – that you can use music however you want. His career started in the midst of a tragedy for the community he grew up in.
In late March of 2021, an EF-4 tornado ravaged Newnan, impacting the lives of those closest to Moore. At the time, he was attending Georgia Southern University in Statesboro when he got a phone call from the executive pastry chef at Heirloom Donuts asking if he would come play at a benefit event to raise money and support for those affected by the tornado.
This event opened the singer-songwriter’s eyes to the joys of playing music for people, and from there he began performing on a more regular basis. His first show after the benefit was at Abide Brewing Company in June 2021, and from there his music career took off. A few months after playing his first show, his first song, “Stuck,” was released in October 2021.
Moore shares that he draws a great deal of musical inspiration from his fellow Newnan native Alan Jackson. Making his debut all the more special was when, at his release party for “Stuck,” Moore received a video message from Jackson congratulating him on the new single.
Moore released two more singles in early 2022 and an EP titled “Got it All” last February. His dedication to music and performing is paying off. His shows are packed with fans and supporters, and he earned the second place spot in NCM’s Best of Coweta’s Best Local Band/Musician category for 2023.
Along with strong lyrics and good musicianship, Moore and his band deliver a great show that’s bound to get the crowd moving. Moore says he and his band seek to get audience members of all ages up on their feet dancing and having a great time.
Moving forward, Moore plans to ride this music wave as far as he can. But at the same time, he understands how challenging the music industry can be and recognizes there are thousands of others who share his dream.
As a backup plan, he’s currently working toward getting a real estate license but spends the rest of his time focusing on music. He has shows planned for the rest of the year across Coweta County.
Moore’s small-town upbringing combined with his ambition and drive create an unstoppable young man who doesn’t shy away from the uphill battle it might take to achieve his goals. Above all else, he says, “I’m going to take this as far as I can; it’s too much fun not to!”
Keep up with Steven Moore’s upcoming shows at stevenmooremusic.com. NCM
Kris Youmans & Her Mighty Fine Band: “It’s all about Family, Faith and Fun”
Written by JENNY ENDERLIN | Photos Courtesy of KRIS YOUMANS
Kris Youmans's brother Mickey Youmans, far left, joins the band on harmonica when they play in Savannah. Joining him, from left, are David Puett on guitar, Jerry Lee on drums, Kris Youmans, Patrick Thompson on bass and Warren Hall on pedal steel guitar.
If you ask Kris Youmans what style of music her band plays, she will tell you “it’s a little this and that.”
Some might call it Americana western swing, others folk-country, but all who hear it call it amazing.
Kris Youmans & Her Mighty Fine Band were Georgia Country Artists of the Year in 2016 (and finalists nearly every year since), featured on Georgia Public Broadcasting in 2019, and have opened for Bret Michaels and The SteelDrivers.
The band tours annually, but can be found playing at local hotspots like The Cellar, Ashley Park’s Groovin’ on the Green, Mainstreet Newnan events, Senoia’s Alive After Five, Line Creek Microbrewery and RPM.
Youmans's musical career began early in life. At the age of 16, she busked along River Street in Savannah where she grew up. Eventually she married and had children, though during that season of life, she rarely played outside of church.
“And then I went back to it,” says Youmans. She’s been playing locally for the past 20 years. At first, she played solo gigs, but she wished to connect with other musicians. A friend introduced her to Warren Hall.
“He plays the pedal steel guitar,” says Youmans. “That’s what makes country music special – that pedal steel. Whenever you hear a country song, it’s in the background.”
Hall and Youmans clicked instantly – and not just in a musical sense. They have been together as a couple for 17 years and married for the last two.
“We love Barefoot Slim,” says fellow band member David Puett, referring to Hall by his nickname. The lap and steel guitarist plays barefoot because his long legs will not fit underneath his instrument if he wears shoes – and because it was summertime when he first began to play and it was too hot for footwear.
“It’s how I learned, and shoes feel awkward now, so I just stuck with that,” says Hall.
The rest of the band includes Jerry Lee who plays drums and “the twins,” including Puett, who plays guitar and bass, and Patrick Thompson on upright bass, mandolin and banjo. Their fathers were members of the same band when they were kids, so they have known each other their entire lives. In the 1990s, they played alternative metal together before branching into other genres.
“They’ve always been together musically one way or another,” says Youmans. Though the two men still both love rock, they now teach music, have families and serve on their church praise teams.
The five band members are a tight-knit group whose conversations are filled with playful banter, and it is clear they respect one another immensely.
“It’s just fun,” says Lee. “They’re like a family.”
“Not to be sappy or anything, but we’re blessed with this,” says Hall. “We count our blessings every time we play a gig.”
“Don’t get sappy,” laughs Puett.
“But it’s true, it’s true!” says Hall. “We know they could play with anybody, so we try to show respect and appreciation, and Kris is really good about considering the needs of families.”
“Yeah, I’m big on that,” says Youmans, who says her children are her biggest supporters. Likewise, she prioritizes her band members’ familial obligations. Youmans is extremely driven but values encouragement over competitiveness, unlike what she has seen occur in a lot of music scenes elsewhere.
“I have to say in Newnan, it’s not really like that,” she notes. “People help each other, they support each other. There’s this network of musicians. Everybody’s passing information back and forth.”
Youmans puts on the Blues Plate Special fundraiser for Meals on Wheels every year, and she created Newnan Unplugged as a way of giving new artists the chance to play publicly.
“I’m constantly trying to provide opportunities for someone that’s just starting out,” she says.
Youmans is responsible for providing their first stage performances to musicians like Sara Greer, Mary Martin, Sasha Hurtado of the TV show “The Voice,” and Callista Clark, who plays at The Grand Ole Opry.
Says Youmans: “I always tell young people just starting out, ‘Yeah, you just played a great set of cover songs; that really was great. So, are you writing anything?’”
Songwriting paves the way, according to Youmans.
“That’s where you’re going to make it,” she says. “To me, one thing that’s important is to encourage young songwriters to go ahead and get stuff out there. Songwriting is, to me, the basis of everything musical.”
Together, the band has produced tunes like “Crazy Nancy,” “Crescent Moon,” and “Whitfield Avenue.” They’re about to release their second album.
When asked what makes Kris Youmans & Her Mighty Fine Band so successful, the members point in unison to Kris.
“No. It’s. Not!” she responds, slapping the table with each word for emphasis. “It is not me. You know why it’s not me? Because I love the fact of the band. I like the band, the whole feeling of everybody working together. It takes everybody contributing to it.”
She is quick to brag about her fellow musicians’ talent and explain how each contributes to song creation, from suggesting sounds like crickets or gunshots in the background to helping write the arrangement.
“I couldn’t do it without all of them,” she concludes. NCM
