Partners in the Arts: Crafty culture vets Megan Sexton and Michael Hunter love Atlanta — and each other
The love story of Megan Sexton and Michael Hunter has endured for more than four decades.
The Florida-born artists and academic professionals are happily ensconced in Atlanta’s university system and the local music, art and literary scenes. Sexton currently works at Georgia State as Editor of Five Points literature and art journal, while Hunter is across town at Georgia Tech, specializing in design and writing at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
The metro Atlanta-based duo, who share an equally balanced admiration of academia and pop music, first crossed paths in the ’80s in Tallahassee.
“I actually approached him,” laughed Sexton, noting that she was a fan of his then-current band Red Square. “And I still think it’s funny because now, all these years later, I’m in his band.”
“Well, no, she’s in our band, Hunter corrects.
The group they share is the long-running Atlanta pop outfit The Skylarks. “Being in a band is like a marriage,” said Sexton, reflecting on how their harmonious relationship has endured “35 years, plus. So that’s 35 years of marriage and The Skylarks — and about 10 years before that,” she explained. “It’s all a big blur at this point. When people call someone their other half, I guess they’re not joking. It’s hard to remember a time when we weren’t together.”
“After we met down there, I was supposed to move to Atlanta,” continued Hunter. But he was needed in Florida to help with a relative. “I did eventually move to Atlanta, and, when I did, I kept in touch with Megan.”
As their long-distance relationship blossomed, Sexton traveled abroad to study in London. “We stayed in touch through old-fashioned letters and pay phones,” she said.
Hunter said one phone in particular was a favorite spot for their long-distance communication. “I would go to 688 on Spring Street to hear some live music,” he continued. “And usually after the bands played, I’d run to the pay phone by the door there to call Megan. Because of the time difference, it was usually the perfect time to call.”
After Sexton’s stint in London, she said Hunter had decided he would finish his art degree in Tallahassee. “At that point, I was living in an all-girl scholarship house. He actually would end up squatting in my room for a while. The other girls fully embraced him. He was kinda like the house pet!”
Hunter continued to play in bands, and the two eventually moved into their own apartment. “He loved garage bands, and I had a ‘mirage band’” said Sexton. “My band didn’t really play anywhere, but we’d make fliers anyway.”
After Sexton received her English degree and Hunter finally received his art degree, the two formally moved to Atlanta in 1988. “It turned out there were a lot of people we knew from Tallahassee who’d moved here, too. That’s really the time everything started to come together for us. Mike started a band, and I began to publish some poetry and started to play in some little bands with friends who’d gone to Emory.”
When Hunter conceived of what would soon become The Skylarks in 1991, “I asked Megan to join,” he said. “And we built it around the two of us. We got married that same year.”
Sexton took drum lessons from busy session musician Simone Simonton, best-known for stints with Indigo Girls and Kristen Hall. “I guess Mike noticed my drumming had improved,” she said. “Because I’ve been in The Skylarks ever since.”
“She’s an incredible musician,” Hunter said proudly. “But her lyrics are also incredible. Everything I love about her poetry comes across in her lyrics. She wrote the title track for our first album, Suitcase City, and she’s singing a lot more on our newest record, Bar Talk Symphony. It’s our second official record after all these years.”
The rousing pop-rock collection includes succinct Nuggets-style tunes that sound current while harking back to the Southern gothic new wave movement of the early ’80s. “We love to play songs that would sound good on AM radio, if they played pop music on the radio anymore,” explained Hunter. “Songs that sound good in the car, you know?”
The album, which is planned for an official release later this year, has already received attention from Little Steven’s SiriusXM radio channel, thanks to legendary pop music tastemaker Rodney Bingenheimer. “They played the song called ‘Love From Everyone Here (Paula Pandora)’ which is about the time our bass player Jim Johnson met the Pandoras band in Atlanta at 688. In fact, the 688 club is name-checked in the lyrics.”
Other local landmarks figure prominently in the musical landscape of the new record, Hunter said. “Even the title track comes from sitting near the window at the Euclid Avenue Yacht Club. Megan calls it the fishbowl, because you can just sit and see so many Little Five Points characters.”
Describing the tracks as “basically a love letter to Atlanta,” Hunter said the city has been a longtime musical inspiration. “I’d like to think our music continues in the spirit of [influential L5P-based] DB Records. I saw The Swimming Pool Q’s from Atlanta way back in the early ’80s, and they just blew my mind! I bought records from every artist on the DB label after that.”
Sexton’s new book of poetry has a much more international scope. Swift Hour will be launched in Italy next month, published by Caravelle. “It’ll be a bilingual edition, in English and Italian, and I’m extremely excited about it. I love to read poetry in translation, and I think this is a great way to connect with readers all over the world. It makes my poetry fluent in a way that I can’t even express through normal conversation. It just takes the ideas to a whole new level of cultural exchange.”
Sexton will travel to Rome for a poetry presentation in June.
Even though her works are distributed globally, Sexton said they have no plans to ever relocate from their current home in Atlanta. “We are fully entrenched in the music and poetry worlds here,” Sexton said. “We’ve always felt very supported with any of our projects. It’s great to be here because as a couple we can work together, and we can both do our own things, too. We’ve raised a beautiful daughter, Nora, 24, who is an amazing artist in her own right. She also loves the Atlanta art community, so I feel like we’re carrying it. I believe we’re supposed to be here. Of all the places we’ve been, I think Atlanta was definitely the right place for us to land.”
“Absolutely. Atlanta has everything we need,” agreed Hunter. “The strength of Atlanta is its people — and it’s been that way ever since we’ve been here. The music scene has always been good, but I think we’re approaching a sort of ‘new golden age’ right now. We are so happy to see all the different ages of people who come out to our shows. There are a lot of good young bands, and that’s fun to see. It makes us feel good that so many of the older generation are still at it, too — especially people like Clay Harper and Bill Taft and the whole Star Bar scene.”
“Music and art and culture in general in Atlanta is exciting and healthy,” concluded Hunter. “It’s just as vital as ever.”
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Lee Valentine Smith is an Atlanta-born artist, writer and musician. Currently a regular contributor to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, his work has been syndicated internationally. He has appeared at Music Midtown, on CBS Radio and on Air America. He also served as art director, consultant and archivist for projects with ’80s hitmakers The Go-Go’s.
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