Conversations with Bob Beatty

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bob Beatty.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I’m at third generation Floridian who grew up in Stuart, a small beach town about 100 miles north of Miami. I moved to Orlando in 1989 to attend the university of Central Florida. Five years later, I graduated in 1994 with a degree in Liberal Studies a.k.a. “College.”

After graduation, my then-girlfriend, now wife of 28 years, Candy and I moved to Denver before returning to Orlando and settling there. We got married, earned graduate degrees, and started our family.

I can’t say when in any of this journey, I first caught the history bug. The first time I remember proudly owning the history geek mantle was in fourth grade. From that point forward, I was always *that* kid when it came to anything history-related.

Working in museums and historical societies was not preordained. It wasn’t until I got my first job at a museum in 1999 that I realized there was such a thing as a museum professional. It’s quite comical looking back on it, given my long career in history museums and historic sites as a practitioner and as an educator.

After eight years at Orlando’s premier history museum, I moved to Nashville to take a deputy role at the American Association for State and Local History. I served that organization through 2018 in a variety of roles, but the one I am most proud of is as editor of their quarterly journal History News and their book series. I also published two books while I was there.

In 2016 I found it the Lyndhurst Group, a project management and strategic leadership, firm serving history, organizations and nonprofits. My own history inspired the name. HMS Lyndhurst out of Belfast, Ireland, was captained by my great grandfather Bob Beatty. My grandfather, Robert (Bob) Lyndhurst Beatty was born on the Lyndhurst in American waters in 1900. I was born on the first anniversary of my grandfather’s death and named Robert Lyndhurst Beatty, II. I also own a painting of the Lyndhurst that has been in my family for 120 years or so. As I came to name my company, I realized how much the Lyndhurst story reflects some of my early interests in history.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
How much time do you have? All kidding aside, life is a journey with smooth sailing and choppy waters. I’ve had an abundance of the former and my share of the latter.

I moved to Nashville from Orlando in 2007 as part of the American Association for State and Local History’s succession plan. Four years later, in 2011, the organization’s finance director was arrested for nearly three-quarters of a million dollars of fraud. The fraud put the organization under tremendous pressure. We had massive holes in an already tight budget and a desire as a staff to continue forward through one of the most tumultuous work experiences I have ever had. Morale was low, and frustration was high.

That started a four-year period of tremendous growth and change, personally and professionally. In addition to the professional tumult, I also lost both my parents and started my Ph.D. under Tennessee state historian Dr. Carroll Van West.

In 2014 AASLH and its CEO parted ways. I was hired as the interim director, and prepared my candidacy for a job I spent seven years working toward. Two days before Christmas I learned they had hired someone else.

It was a devastating blow to not achieve this longtime goal, which led me to reassess the goal itself: CEO of a history organization. Turns out, I’m happier where I am today. In 2016, I founded the Lyndhurst Group. In 2018, I completed my Ph.D., published Play All Night! and launched Long Live the ABB in 2022.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I have been working in the field of history and museums for more than a quarter century. I have two graduate degrees in history, have published four books and several dozen articles; and have worked at the national level and with organizations at the community level to spread the “gospel“ of history.

Here’s what I know: history is fascinating, history is cool, hit people love history. What they don’t, didn’t, and will never like is how history is traditionally taught. Museums, historic sites, and other history organizations bridge that gap. They are where folks return to their inherent love of history.

My career in museums and public history has helped me understand the importance of the historian’s role as interpreter. That mindset impacted how I wrote Play All Night! Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East (2022) and the message I convey at book events, guest lectures, and in interviews.

In Play All Night! I argue the Allman Brothers Band was a cultural force that helped to change the South, and by extension, the nation. My interest in music and history as a catalyst for community led me to share those lessons online, through Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads of Southern Music, History, and Culture.

Long Live the ABB explores the rich well of Southern history that is the Allman Brothers Band through social media, digital art, podcasts, and longform writing. My goal is to spark conversation about the power of music.

I am utilizing every skill I have in the digital history arena to build a successful brand exploring Southern history through the lens of the Allman Brothers Band. This project merges my interests as a historian, fanboy, southerner, local history expert, scholar, digital artist, musician, the list is endless.

And it’s been working. As of today, I have more than 50,000 followers across social media and subscribers to www.longlivetheabb.com.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
My fascination with history goes as far back as my obsession with music. I’m guessing it’s because I saw so much of myself in the stories of history. But I was always less interested in the stories of “important” people, I cared most about the everyday people and the everyday stories of history. As I grew into adulthood, I realized I found those tales in museums, historical societies, and at historic sites. This is where I ended up making my career.

The guitar changed my life. I began playing at 12, found the blues, then Jimi Hendrix and the guitar heroes of the 70s. I discovered punk rock in middle school and I came to the Allman Brothers Band in college. Seeing them in 1993 changed my life for good. Sometime a few years later I got the idea that I wanted to write a book on them after I read a review of a book on the Allman Brothers that I loved. The review said the book didn’t answer the why of the story. In my head I thought, “I wonder if I could answer that question?”

That was 1995 or 1996. I finally wrote it down as a goal in 1998. I completed the manuscript in 2021 and published the book in 2022.

From my parents, I inherited a love for language and an unwavering dedication to my passions. My father, a small-town attorney, demonstrated living a fulfilled life. He fostered my interest in current events and he and my mother instilled in me precision in language and a critical eye for accuracy. Together, they shaped my intellectual curiosity and gave me the foundation to explore my interests in music, history, and the humanities, setting me on the path I pursue today.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.longlivetheabb.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/longlivetheabb
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/longlivetheabb
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@longlivetheabb
• Yelp: https://www.threads.net/@longlivetheABB
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@longlivetheabb