The Allman Brothers Band, Atlanta, July 1971

My teenage self attended the afternoon show, which, no surprise, remains in my top five lifetime concerts. Duane and Berry were still with us that summer...

The Allman Brothers Band,
display ad, The Great Speckled Bird, Vol. 4 No. 29

Honorary Locals

In the early 1970s, some out-of-town musicians became so ubiquitous in Atlanta that they may as well have been locals. Those who had settled in Macon (e.g., Allman Brothers Band, Wet Willie, Cowboy) were already part of the family, but others hailed from further afield. They played Atlanta clubs and concert venues frequently, and built devoted followings in the city. South Carolina's Marshall Tucker Band and Florida's Lynyrd Skynyrd are maybe most obvious, but these others gained an early toehold in Atlanta as well. Club venues ranging from the tiny 12th Gate to the larger Richards drew the best. Part of the draw and interaction within those clubs was the physical layout: an approachable open stage adjacent to tabled seating, devoid of extreme risers or other off-putting barriers. In contrast, a venue like Alex Cooley's Electric Ballroom, though technically a club, created a distinct division between audience and performer with a high elevated stage, seating at a distance, and a deafening* barricade of PA equipment flanking the performers. It was simply not very friendly to spontaneous, organic interaction.

Little Feat at the 150-seat 12th Gate in 1971,
for only ONE DOLLAR.

California's Little Feat spent a lot of time in Atlanta early on, as their longtime fans know. In January 1971 they were playing the cozy 12th Gate on 10th Street; by October 1974 they were opening for Traffic at The Omni coliseum. In between were numerous bookings at Richards and return visits to the 12th Gate.
Country rock jamband Goose Creek Symphony hailed from Arizona and Kentucky. After appearing with Bobbie Gentry on The Ed Sullivan Show, they joined Jimi Hendrix and the Allman Brothers at the 1970 Atlanta International Pop Festival. They played for free in Piedmont Park, and also became familiar from bookings at the 12th Gate, The Great Southeast Music Hall, and Richards. (Update 3/23/15: In late 1971, the band actually pulled up roots and moved to Atlanta.)

May 1973, Cactus was booked at Richards.
Johnny Winter and Gregg Allman dropped in.

Texas bluesman Johnny Winter would pop up everywhere in Atlanta. He frequently was booked in the city for concerts, but he was also one who loved to jam and would just show up in clubs unannounced. It is undeniable that altered states were part of the musical chemistry of the time. I recall Winter laid out flat on his back on the stage floor of Richards late one night playing brilliantly unbounded blues solos while sitting (or lying) in. (Might have been that week in May 1973 when Cactus–the Mike Pinera/Duane Hitchings incarnation–headlined. Gregg Allman also sat in that week.)

Charlie Daniels (right) onstage with Leonard Cohen c. 1971

Another familiar drop-in was Charlie Daniels, a Nashville fixture originally from North Carolina. By 1970 Daniels was already renown and respected for his songwriting and musicianship across multiple genres, especially country and bluegrass, working with the likes of Bob Dylan, Marty Robbins, The Youngbloods, Leonard Cohen, and many others. He stepped quite naturally into the arena of Southern Rock as it evolved. Anyone who's ever been around him knows the formidable presence of the man: a tall mountain brimming with big-heartedness. Like Johnny Winter, he would show up unexpectedly in a club to spontaneously jam, no matter the genre. The most interesting impromptu collaboration I ever witnessed was the time Daniels stepped onstage at Richards to jam with British rocker Terry Reid, who appeared as surprised as everyone else. Charlie Daniels towered over elfin Reid, and brought out his fiddle to accompany Reid's reflective folk/blues/rock from his then-new River LP that verged at times on jazz abstraction. I wish there was a photo in existence of the unlikely duo. Their strange musical mesh worked, though, and lifted the room to someplace entirely new.

Bonnie &  Delaney Bramlett with Duane Allman

Icing on the cake was the camaraderie of the musicians themselves. It was still a time when love of music prevailed and contract restrictions were much looser than today. Also key was that the time period was pre-handheld devices, pre-social media, and pre-paparazzi. There was more freedom of movement and more respect for privacy. The players showed up for each other, and late-set jams became the stuff of legend. Credit must be given to Duane Allman, too. During his time as a session player in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, he drew many musicians to Georgia, including California-based Boz Scaggs and Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett. (Even after the spouses split in 1973, Bonnie Bramlett, on her own, was booked frequently in Atlanta.) There was no shortage of talent, no matter which direction you turned.

*I permanently lost hearing in my right ear there during a Bill Bruford performance in August 1979 while taking photographs from stage right. 

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.

Piedmont Park Free Concerts

By Spring 1969 midtown Atlanta's Piedmont Park had become the primary setting for free concerts, usually on Sundays, from the afternoon into the evening. The central location drew local and regional talent, most memorably the Allman Brothers Band, who had recently relocated from Jacksonville FL to Macon GA. Atlanta had yet to open any substantial rock clubs, therefore the park became a key venue for musicians to showcase material to a large audience. 

Piedmont Park, Atlanta, 1969
Photo by Carter Tomassi

Allman Brothers drummer Butch Trucks recalled:

"After several weeks of work learning this new material we were busting to get out of that [Macon] warehouse and play it for people. So... we loaded ourselves and our equipment into our Econoline and what other rides we could glom and headed to Atlanta (later to be renamed Hotlanta, I believe we coined this term but can't prove it). We went straight to Piedmont Park and found a perfect spot to set up. It was a rather large flat space at the top of some stairs with some electrical outlets within reach. We didn't ask permission, we just set up and started pouring out all of this music we had only played for ourselves up to that time.... When we finished some people were so transfixed they simply laid down and spent the night there. Others made sure that the place was cleaned up. Of course the next Sunday we went back and there was a shit load more folks than were there the week before as well as a couple of other Atlanta bands that wanted to play. This grew into a weekly event that went from that little place to a big flatbed stage set up on the end of a very large field that someone provided complete with a massive generator. Plus many more bands. The crowd grew to the level of around 10,000 after a few weeks and I don't recall a single incident of violence in all the months that this magical thing continued."

Duane Allman, Piedmont Park, Atlanta, May 11, 1969
The Great Speckled Bird, Vol. 2, No. 10, May 19, 1969
Cover photo by Bill Fibben

According to Duane Allman:

"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."

UPDATE, APRIL 2018: Glenn Phillips (guitarist, composer, co-founder of the Hampton Grease Band) left a comment 4/4/18 on my 1/19/15 Discovery, Inc. post. Here's an excerpt in which he pinpoints the essential birth of the Piedmont Park free concerts. (For full context, click the Discovery label in the right column, then read the comments section.):

"The [Hampton] Grease Band's spontaneous Piedmont Park shows started [...] in the spring of '68 when I discovered there was a live outlet in the pavilion [...]. We started playing there pretty much every week and did shows there by ourselves on the grass by the pavilion, in the pavilion, in the tall brick gazebo off to the side of the pavilion (which also had a live outlet at the time, but was a pain in the ass to carry our equipment up to), and on the stone steps (which is where the Allman Brothers first appeared with us on May 11, 1969, when Phil Walden called the Grease Band personally to see if it was okay if the Allman Brothers played with us that day)."  

1969

• Hampton Grease Band, Crust, Smoke, Nail, Little Phil & The Night Shadows, Toni Ganim, Anne Romaine - March 29 (The Great Speckled Bird first birthday celebration)
• "BE-IN. Atlantis Rising festivities in the park. Music, food, etc." - April 20
• "BE-IN. Atlantis Rising festivities in Piedmont Park, all afternoon, music, rapping etc." - April 27
  
• "ROCK CONCERT/BE-IN. Celebrate opening of Atlantis Rising community trade fair, six rock groups" - May 3
• Allman Brothers Band, Hampton Grease Band - May 11
• Allman Brothers Band - May 18
• Booger Band - May 25 (during Atlanta Arts Festival)
• "BE-IN. Nexus House sponsors a be-in with bands, 2 pm, community supper, 5 pm" - June 22 
• Brick Wall, The Bag, Jim Cross, Semore, Barry Bailey, John Ivy - June 28 ("Grand Opening Be-In" for Atlantis Rising)
• Grateful Dead, Chicago Transit Authority, Spirit, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, It's A Beautiful Day, Allman Brothers Band, Hampton Grease Band - July 7 (Monday concert following July 4th weekend's Atlanta International Pop Festival in Hampton GA, arranged by festival promoters)
• The Unpolished Brass - August 10
• Solid Blues - August 24 ("Socialist politics, folksingers, rock music, and guerrilla theatre... Jenness for Mayor rally")
• "Free Grease Job - Labor of Love" - Hampton Grease Band, Robin - August 31
• Allman Brothers Band - September 14
• "Mini-Pop Festival" - Allman Brothers Band, Hampton Grease Band, Brick Wall, Sweet Younguns, Booger Band, Radar, Hand Band - September 21 (rally for firebombed Atlantis Rising trade mart; 23 arrests made, initiated by disclosure of undercover narcotics officers; police used tear gas and batons on crowd, some of whom threw rocks; GSB photographer Bill Fibben arrested for taking pictures of police action, "interfering with arrest")
• Allman Brothers Band - September 27
• "Piedmont Music Festival" - Allman Brothers Band, Mother Earth with Tracy Nelson, Billy Joe Royal, Joe South, Boz Scaggs, Second Coming, Royal Blues, Hand Band, Boogie Chillun, Lee Moses - October 17-19
• Community Council of the Atlanta Area, Inc., meeting in the park with free music - November 2

1970

• "Free Music In The Park" - February 28-March 1 (sponsored by Universal Life Church)
• "Free Music In The Park" - March 7-8 (sponsored by Universal Life Church)
• Axis, Handle, Chakra, Paul Hanson & Pat Alger - March 20
• Screaming Yellow, Shayde - April 19
• "Spring Peace Festival" - Stump Brothers, Axis, Ether, Celestial Voluptuous Banana, Country Pye, Eric Quincy Tate, Light Brigade, Eros, Robyn, Perpetual Motion, Ruffin, What Brothers, Stuff, White Lie, Stonehenge, Last Era, Bremrod, Booger Jam, Total Electric, Corn Cobb Jam, Pegasus Lantern Light Show - June 6-7
• Allman Brothers Band, Majester Ludi, Chakra, Ether - June 14
• "Peace Festival" - Stump Brothers, Axis, Celestial Voluptuous Banana, Eric Quincy Tate, Nancy Harmon & The Victory Voices, Robyn, Twelve Eyes, What Brothers, White Lie, Pegasus Lantern Light Show - June 21 
• Hampton Grease Jam, Chakra, Milan, Flint - June 28
• Brewer & Shipley - July 19
• "Free Music" - July 26
• 15 Minutes, Joel, Buckwheat, What Brothers, Malford Mann, Babylon - August 9
• Duckbutter, Axis, Hydra, Flint, Joel, Ewing Street Times - August 16
• Younguns, Perpetual Motion, Hydra, Plymouth Rock, Interprize - August 30
• Sunrise, Horizon, Milkweed, Chakra, Street Explosion - September 13
• Radar, Younguns, Booger, Perpetual Motion, Chair - September 20
• Allman Brothers Band, Hampton Grease Band, Eric Quincy Tate, Avenue of Happiness, Stump Brothers, Chakra - September 27
• Stonehenge, Jelly Roll, Crossover, What Brothers, August, Underground Balloon Corporation, Kaleidoscopic Light Show - October 4
• "Women's Festival" - Anne Romaine, Ruthie Gordon, Carol & Barbara, Esther LeFevre, The Ribs - October 10
• Sweetwater; Warm; Looney Tunes; Red, White & Blue(grass); Chair - October 18
• Hydra; Red, White & Blue(grass); Younguns - October 25
• Joe South, Glass - October 30
• Avenue of Happiness - December 23

1971

• Stonehenge, Chakra - March 28
• Stump Brothers, East Side Blues Band, Horse Roscoe - April 3
• Wet Willie; Alex Taylor, Friends & Neighbors - April 4
• Thunder, What Brothers, Smooth's Barn Dance, Perpetual Motion, John Flynt, Flood - April 11
• Hydra, Flint, Foxes - May 23
• Goose Creek Symphony, Sunrise, Kudzu, Signal, Gladstone, David Harris (speaker) - May 30
• Allman Brothers Band - May 31
• What Brothers, Kudzu, Howling Bull - June 13
• Milkweed, Hansen & Alger, Fox Watson, Doris Abrahams, Vince Quinn, Jeff Espina - June 20
• Hydra, Duckbutter, A Man Called Joad, Glass Menagerie, Perpetual Motion - July 4 (12th Gate benefit)

Sources:
thebutchtrucks.blogspot.com/2011/08/piedmont-park.html
The Great Speckled Bird, Vol. 2 Nos. 6, 7, 11, 15, 16, 24
The Great Speckled Bird, Vol. 3 Nos. 9, 25, 29
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_International_Pop_Festival_(1969)
www.allmanbrothersband.com
www.hittinthenote.com/first_mountain.asp
Midnight Riders, by Scott Freeman, published by Little, Brown and Company, 1995
Skydog, The Duane Allman Story, by Randy Poe, published by Backbeat Books, 2006, 2008.

Note: Entries in quotes are from The Great Speckled Bird calendar pages.