The Hampton Grease Band

While compiling information for these early 70s Atlanta venues and events, a common link recurred throughout: The Hampton Grease Band. Formed in 1967, they were on the Atlanta scene before the Allman Brothers, before Lynyrd Skynyrd, before the pop festivals, before record companies came sniffing around for "Southern Rock." Various incarnations of the Hampton Grease Band [HGB] morphed over time, but its central figure remained the "Colonel," Bruce Hampton.

The Hampton Grease Band
Bruce Hampton, Glenn Phillips, Jerry Fields, Mike Holbrook, Harold Kelling

Founding member, guitarist/composer Glenn Phillips documented the eclectic history of HGB online. It's a great read. You can't make this stuff up. The band's stage performances were unpredictable, at times chaotic, always artistic (albeit Dada and surreal), ultimately entertaining, and they cultivated a dedicated following in Atlanta and beyond. Live performances were the keystone of their fanbase.

According to Phillips:

The stage was frequently filled with friends doing anything from watching TV, doing a duet with the guitar on a chain saw, or sitting at a table eating cereal. Hampton, who at one point sported a crew cut with an H shaved in the back of his head, would tape himself to the microphone stand while talking to the audience about the supposed Portuguese invasion of the U.S. through Canada. At an outdoor show, Bruce slept through our set under a truck, while at another show, he turned around in the middle of a song, jumped in the air, and kicked Mike [Holbrook, bassist] in the chest. Mike flew back into his amp, which he knocked over and short-circuited. Holbrook recalls another time when "we got the idea that we wanted to put mayonnaise all over our friend Eric Hubbler. We got a gallon of mayonnaise and Hubbler came out and sat down in a chair while the band was playing. I stuck my hand down in it and glopped it all over his head."

The Hampton Grease Band adapted to any venue, from the tiny room of the 12th Gate to fields full of hundreds of thousands at the Atlanta International Pop Festivals. They were already playing free concerts in Piedmont Park on Sundays before the Allman Brothers Band started doing the same in May 1969. Columbia Records got wind of HGB's unique act and contacted Capricorn Records chief Phil Walden to try to track them down. Long story short, Walden brokered a record deal for HGB with Columbia (CBS). Music To Eat, a double LP, was released in 1971. It notably became Columbia's 2nd worst-selling record ever. (The very worst was a yoga instructional record. Unsurprisingly, Music To Eat is now a collectors item.)

Decades later, Julian Cope's headheritage.com declares:

[W]hile the temptation is there to view the Hampton Grease Band as a possible answer to the trivia question "what is the silliest hippy-shit record ever released on a major record label?" in truth it's actually damn near a masterpiece that almost exists outside of history.

Despite their calamitous vinyl debut, HGB maintained a fiercely loyal fanbase, one of whom, Duane Allman, recommended to his friend Bill Graham that he book HGB for the Fillmore in NYC. Graham did exactly that. He perfectly paired the band with Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention the weekend of June 5-6, 1971. HGB performed brilliantly, and Fillmore East manager Kip Cohen sang the band's praises to then-CBS head Clive Davis:

Dear Clive:
As you know, this is the first time I've ever written a letter like this one to you--but even though John Lennon and Yoko Ono guested on our stage last night, my memories of the past weekend will reside exclusively with the Hampton Grease Band.
Aside from their totally delightful, unique brand of humor, and the obvious fact of their being good people, there is a musical intelligence within that band that truly excites me.
I can only hope that they enjoy the total success they deserve. They were one of the most pleasant surprises we have had on our stage in many, many months.

That was likely the high point for the Hampton Grease Band. Unfortunately, the label relationship did not survive, nor did the band. For whatever reason, CBS/Columbia dropped them. Frank Zappa's Bizarre/Straight label stepped in and signed them, but the band crumbled before a record could be completed. It all fell apart in 1973 when Bruce Hampton left for California to audition for a spot in Zappa's band. The audition was unsuccessful, and the rest of the band had gone their separate ways by his return. Years following, various configurations would resurface. Glenn Phillips tells this story best, and I'll refer you back to his site for the rest of the story.

The Allman Brothers & The Grateful Dead

Several acts from the 1969 July 4th weekend Atlanta International Pop Festival stayed in town to participate in a free concert Monday, July 7th, in Atlanta's Piedmont Park. (These included Spirit, Chicago Transit Authority, It's A Beautiful Day, and Delaney & Bonnie & Friends.) Macon's Allman Brothers Band had not performed at the pop festival, but joined the roster for the Monday concert. The Grateful Dead, also not at the festival, played the free concert, too. It was the first meeting of the two bands, and, by the end of the day, their first jam together. The history of both bands would come to include their shared propensity for extensive jams. The Allmans, in July 1969, were already familiar with The Dead, having seen them at the December 1968 Miami Pop Festival. The Allman Brothers Band formed in early Spring of 1969, and by July they drew substantial crowds for their spontaneous Sunday performances in Piedmont Park. Their local following had become well-rooted, and the band commuted weekends from Macon to Atlanta to showcase what they'd worked on during the week. Their eponymous first album would be released in November that year by Phil Walden's Capricorn Records.

Jerry Garcia, photo by Bill Fibben
The Great Speckled Bird,
Vol, 3, No. 20, May 18, 1970

May 10, 1970, the Grateful Dead were booked to perform at Atlanta's Sports Arena. Their equipment was stuck in Boston, the fault of their airline. The Allman Brothers generously loaned them their gear to ensure The Dead could fulfill their engagement. (The ABBs had played the Georgia Tech coliseum the night before.) It helped that the two bands were of a similar configuration. One photo, taken by Bill Fibben of The Great Speckled Bird, confirms the story. The Allman Brothers Band was not on the bill, but Duane, Gregg, Berry Oakley, and Butch Trucks joined The Dead in a legendary jam to close out the show, including "Will The Circle Be Unbroken."

The Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers continued to cross paths and share stages for years. 

Al Kooper & Duane Allman on Free Concerts: Point/Counterpoint

On June 24, 1969, Don Speicher of The Great Speckled Bird interviewed musician/producer Al Kooper prior to the first Atlanta International Pop Festival. Kooper was one of the performers booked for the July 4th weekend event. 

Their conversation included discussion of ticket pricing, corporate sponsorship, and their divergent attitudes regarding free concerts.

DS: There's some talk of sometime during that weekend trying to do a free thing in the park, with some local people and anyone else who might be interested.

AK: No one will do it. No one will do it just because they can't. I mean really. If I'm in a big group and I'm sitting in New York and someone wants us to do a free gig in Atlanta in the park and you're gonna reach about a hundred thousand people I'd say groovy, how are we gonna get there? Where are we gonna stay? Who's doing the sound? How are we gonna transport the equipment? You can't just go up.

...

DS: ...to me, free things in the park, with local bands, are much more of the whole total experience and a lot more overwhelming a lot of times than like a rock festival.

AK: Yeah, but you don't understand that we can get Coca Cola to foot the bill for Blood, Sweat & Tears to come to town. And they got to be groovier than any local band you got. And they're paying the bill for you to lie in the grass and get high and have a good time. Now if that's wrong, then you're wrong.

...

DS: Yeah, but there's this really big hangup about hitting Coca Cola to give us some music because Coca Cola....

AK: You already got the wrong approach. 

DS: I'm not so sure. Coca Cola is like all the evil there is, sitting on Atlanta, Georgia.

AK: You got to trick them. Now, what you're saying is that you want Coca Cola to bring you some music. 

DS: No. No, we don't. I dig that, but it's whether you want to play that game at all.

AK: That's not a game, man, that's a means to an end.

Atlanta disproved Al Kooper's theory on the Monday after the pop festival, when the festival's promoters staged a free concert in Piedmont Park. The Grateful Dead, Chicago Transit Authority, Spirit, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, Allman Brothers Band, and Hampton Grease Band played for free for a huge crowd of fans. [The park by that time had become a popular venue for local and regional musicians. The Allman Brothers were major forerunners.] Duane Allman gets the last word on the subject:

"Playing the park's such a good thing because people don't even expect you to be there. About the nicest way you can play is just for nothing, you know. And it's not really for nothing. It's for your own personal satisfaction–and other people's–rather than for any kind of financial thing."

Sources: 
The Great Speckled Bird, Vol. 2 Nos. 10, 17
Skydog, The Duane Allman Story, by Randy Poe, published by Backbeat Books, 2006, 2008.