PUTNAM COUNTY
As an eight-year-old in Eatonton, Logan Pressley received an electric guitar from his father and promptly figured out the intro chords for Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.”
“That really impressed my parents,” the now-25-year-old laughs. “And then I really got into the drums for a while until I wound up enrolled by mistake in a guitar class in high school. That’s when I really got into the acoustic guitar.”
By that time, Pressley’s family had moved north to Rabun County and that’s where he says his musical direction really took hold.
“There's all kinds of bluegrass pickers and mostly country, and I grew up on country music, so I really got into playing acoustic and learned a lot from it,” he says. “Then I moved back to Eatonton after I graduated and because I was just working and wasn't able to talk to anybody I used to know, I just really got into playing.”
That dedication ultimately has led Pressley to the Discover Stage at 9:30 p.m. Sept.1, for this year’s Georgia Country Music Festival in Marietta, where he and his band are slated to perform the same day as headlining artists like Koe Wetzel, The Georgia Thunderbolts, Dalton Dover and The Davisson Brothers. Tickets for all three days (Sept.1-3) are available at georgiacountrymusicfest.com.
With Pressley on lead vocals and acoustic guitar, he’s accompanied by longtime friend and drummer Thierry Bergeron, Blake Seckelick on bass, and Kai Barton on lead guitar.
“I’m getting excited,” Pressley admits. “There's going to be a lot of my heroes there, like Cody Jinks, Jamey Johnson, Muscadine Bloodline, Colt Ford, and just so many other great artists. And it's going to be in front of 30,000-plus fans,” he says. “It’s gonna be pretty cool, I think.”