Spirit of Atlanta Drum and Bugle Corps
Official logo mark for Spirit of Atlanta
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| Location | Atlanta, GA |
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| Division | World Class |
| Founded | 1976 |
| Director | Chris Moore |
| Uniform | Baby blue jacket w/fade to black down right side & modified logo on chest White gauntlets w/silver buttons White gloves (horns) Black pants Black shoes & socks White shako w/silver bill, chains, badge & white plume |
Spirit of Atlanta Drum and Bugle Corps (also known as "Spirit") is a World Class (formerly Division I) competitive junior drum and bugle corps. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Spirit of Atlanta is a member corps of Drum Corps International (DCI).
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In 1976, Freddy and Linda Martin and Bob Hoehn met with the management of an Atlanta area television station to discuss starting an Atlanta-area drum and bugle corps.(See:Note) After a series of successful meetings, Spirit of Atlanta was founded. The corps was originally named "Concourse". A contest was held to find a new, more appropriate name, and "Spirit of Atlanta" was chosen. The corps was a DCI first in that it was sponsored by television station WXIA, making it the first corporate-sponsored drum corps. The founding director of the corps is Mr. Freddy Martin.
Note: The television station management had the idea of starting new corps across the country, with a corps in every city where the Atlanta station had sister stations. Such was never to happen, and the station sponsored Spirit for only four years.
With Freddy Martin as corps director, members were recruited. A program with no particular musical style was worked up, and Spirit of Atlanta was introduced to the drum corps public at contests in at least nine states in the South and Midwest. At the 1977 DCI World Championships in Denver, Spirit finished twenty-third of forty-five corps.
A first year finish of twenty-third was respectable, but Spirit of Atlanta wanted more and an effort was made to secure the finest instructional staff possible. Two new caption heads were hired; brass head Jim Ott from the DCI Champion Blue Devils and percussion head Tom Float from Toronto's Oakland Crusaders, a corps renowned for their drumming. With these two hires,(along With Dave Bandy writing the drill,Russell Stanton teaching marching technique and cleaning, Patty Williams teaching flags and Margaret Ott teaching rifles) the core instructional group was in place which would take the corps to new heights. Adopting a style that has been referred to as "Southern Jazz", Spirit stunned the drum corps world in 1978, vaulting into eighth place at DCI Prelims in Denver; then at Finals, the corps rose even higher, finishing in sixth place and losing the High Brass title to the Phantom Regiment by half of a tenth of a point. Both the brass and percussion were among the best in the drum corps activity, and Spirit moved up into a fourth-place finish at DCI in Birmingham, Alabama in 1979, featuring the song that would become the corps' trademark tune, "Georgia on my Mind."
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