Mama Louise, Macon Soul Food Legend Who Nourished The Allman Brothers Band, Dies At 93
“Mama” Louise Hudson, the co-founder of Macon, GA’s H&H Restaurant who famously fed the Allman Brothers Band in their earliest days, has died at age 93. Her daughter confirmed to local news outlets that Hudson passed away in hospice surrounded by her family.
Hudson and her cousin, Inez Hill, who passed away in 2007, opened H&H in 1959 and became a fixture in the Macon community with the hearty helpings of soul food favorites like grits, biscuits, fried chicken, and collard greens that they served to customers of all races and creeds, even during the height of the civil rights movement. While her regular customers through the years included a who’s who of Southern musicians like Bonnie Bramlett, Dr. John, Charlie Daniels, Marshall Tucker, Chuck Leavell, and more, her most notable patrons were the members of the Allman Brothers Band, with whom she forged a familial connection.
Much like H&H, the long-haired, racially integrated Allman Brothers Band was a radical sight for late-’60s Georgia. When the members of the fledgling band first moved to Macon in 1969 to begin their partnership with Capricorn Records, they were living hand to mouth. In Mama Louise, they found not just a mother figure who would still feed them when they were broke but a kindred soul in a hostile time and place.
In 2017, she recalled her first time meeting the Allman Brothers Band. “I went to the table they were sitting at and talk to them,” Mama Louise said of the crowd of “hippies” at her establishment. “They said, ‘We’re here for a while. We aren’t leaving. We’ve come here for work. Once we get a job we won’t forget about ya’ and I said ‘OK, darlin.”’
As Hudson told 13WMAZ that same year, “They came on in. They were hungry, so I fed them, and I just got to be their mama. I enjoyed them boys. We turned out to be a family.”
“I dare ya to finish it,” Gregg Allman, who died in 2017, said of Hudson’s generous portion sizes in a 1995 interview with the Macon Telegraph. “And if we didn’t have the money, she let us go. She’d say, ‘It’s all right, honey, you go ahead. Pay me when you get it.’ We’ve always taken good care of her. … I love her so.”
As Allman added on a separate occasion, “There is a good possibility that without Mama Louise there wouldn’t be an Allman Brothers Band.”
Hudson went on to attend various Allman Brothers Band concerts and even briefly accompanied the band on tour in 1972. At a 2007 birthday party for Hudson at the Macon Armory Ballroom, Gregg Allman shared various stories from their time together in Macon and on the road before performing a few songs—including “Midnight Rider”, Mama Louise’s favorite—with a large ensemble of local artists.
While Mama Louise sold H&H in 2013, it still operates on Forsyth St. using several of her original recipes. Until recently, patrons could still tip a cap to her at H&H as she surveyed the busy dining room from her throne-like leather chair by the kitchen entrance.
In 2017, Mama Louise was recognized with the Harriet Tubman Act of Courage Award for serving the Macon community. H&H remains one of several pilgrimage sites for Allman Brothers fans visiting Macon, alongside The Big House Museum, Capricorn Records, and Rose Hill Cemetery.
Thanks for the love and nourishment, Mama Louise. You’ll be missed.