As Jimmy Carter nears his 100th birthday, a musical gala celebrates the ‘rock-and-roll president’

ATLANTA– A host of stars from stage, screen and sport paid tribute to the former president on Tuesday Jimmy Carter In celebration of his 100th birthday, the eclectic line-up wanted to emphasize the 39th president’s emphasis on human rights and his love of music as a universal language.

“Everyone here is making history,” Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson, told more than 4,000 people who filled Atlanta’s Fox Theatre to toast the longest-serving U.S. leader in history. “This is the first time people have come together to celebrate the 100th birthday of an American president.”

The benefit concert, with ticket sales supporting international programs at The Carter Center, which Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter founded in 1982 after leaving the White House, brought together artists who spanned generations and genres dating back to his 1976 campaign. The concert will be broadcast in its entirety on Georgia Public Broadcasting on Oct. 1, Carter’s birthday. Carter remains in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia.

“He really was the president of rock ‘n’ roll,” said Chuck Leavell, whose Georgia-based Allman Brothers Band campaigned with Carter in 1976. But more than that, Leavell said, Carter always understood music as something “that brings people together.”

Tuesday’s show indeed brought together artists as diverse as India Arie playing R.&B and soul dressed in a dazzling purple dress; the B-52s, formed in Athens, Georgia, singing “Love Shack” and projecting psychedelic images throughout the concert hall; and the Atlanta Symphony Chamber Chorus performing a classical and patriotic repertoire.

Former President Barack Obama, who is known for his summer playlists that he posts on social media, was impressed with the offering.

“Now I have another reason to respect you,” Obama said in a video message. “He has great taste in music. … I’ve never done a concert with pop, rock, gospel, country, jazz, classical and hip-hop.”

Obama, of course, noted, “Jimmy never misses an opportunity to send a message,” and several artists referenced one of Carter’s oft-quoted quotes about music: “One of the things that has held America together is the music we share and love.”

Leavell took the stage several times Tuesday, reprising music he played and sang nearly 50 years ago when Carter, then an underdog and former governor of Georgia, outsold better-known Democrats to win his party’s nomination and the presidency in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.

“Music was such an important part of his political legacy,” Jason Carter told The Associated Press. “The Allman Brothers helped him get elected. Willie Nelson helped him get elected. He really believed that.

“When he came out of the South and ran for president of the United States, the Allman Brothers and some of those other people really heralded this New South that was turning the page on the days of segregation – their lyrics, their whole vibe,” the younger Carter continued. “He used that to connect generations.”

Leavell traced Carter’s love of music to his church upbringing; the former president has written about his early church experiences, including a visit to a black congregation near his home outside Plains. Carter recalled being more captivated by the music there than what he heard in his all-white congregation. At the Naval Academy, Leavell noted, Carter and a friend bought classical recordings of the same pieces to study how music could be interpreted differently.

Part of the evening was spent talking about Carter’s legacy as president and his work with The Carter Center, which works to advance democracy, resolve conflicts and fight disease around the world.

Hannah Hooper, a lead singer of the alternative rock band Grouplove, praised Carter for dramatically expanding nationally protected parklands, much of which are in Alaska. Actress Renee Zellweger spoke about the lifelong relationship between the former president and his wife, whom he first met when she was just days old and who died last November after 77 years of marriage.

Two former Atlanta Braves baseball stars, Terry Pendleton and Dale Murphy, celebrated Carter as the team’s No. 1 fan. They recalled what it was like to play with the Carters in a field-level box, and they gave the former president’s great-grandsons a Braves jersey to give to their great-grandfather. The jersey number: 100.

Bernice King, the daughter of assassinated civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., spoke of Carter’s relationship with her family: He was close to her mother, and her grandfather played a key role in Carter’s election in 1976. Although Carter was not actively involved in King Jr.’s work, Bernice King thanked the former president for publicly honoring her father for his indirect role in Carter’s political rise. Without the successes of the civil rights movement, she recalled Carter saying, the nation would never have elected a Southern governor who came of age in the Jim Crow era.

The night was largely free of partisan politics. But there were signs of Democratic loyalty to Carter and shadows of the 2024 election.

Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers praised Carter for being ahead of his time and added that the country would have been better off if he had been able to do the job. This was an apparent reference to Carter’s crushing defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.

The list of former presidents paying tribute was bipartisan: Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush were sent packing along with Obama. President Joe Biden added his greetings, noting that he was the first U.S. senator to endorse Carter’s White House bid. “I admire you so much,” Biden said, calling Carter “Mr. President.”

But there was one glaring omission: the former president Donald TrumpThe 2024 Republican nominee has repeatedly portrayed Carter this year as a failed president as he attempts to make a comeback. After the 2016 election, Carter questioned Trump’s legitimacy.

Arie’s selections, meanwhile, include “What If,” whose lyrics include the names of black women who have broken barriers. Among them: Kamala. That reference to vice president and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris drew cheers from the crowd.

Jason Carter, for his part, said his grandfather is fascinated by Biden’s decision to end his reelection bid and the possibility that Harris could become the first woman in the Oval Office. The younger Carter, who now chairs the board of The Carter Center, said Jimmy Carter struggled in the months following Rosalynn Carter’s death but is now excited about a different campaign.

“He’s ready to turn his back on Trump,” Jason Carter said, but more motivated by the opportunity to vote for Harris. “When Kamala came on the scene, it really galvanized the party, and it really energized him.”