Hey y'all~
I gotta tell you a story about the King's Point Club on Bankhead Lake above Tuscaloosa.
I went there yesterday & today.
Many years ago this absolutely negligent cat who'd already had major disasters at RIVER BIRCH shows up with a brand new JEEP SUV & sez he wants to go get drunk in a dive down on the river.
O.K, it's a new car. He's got the money. I'm game.
The 12 year old kid with him was his girlfriend's & the poor kid was an absolute human wreck. The kid had already done a whole bunch of self-destructive stuff & later died early IN A VERY BAD WAY.
Anywayzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
We go down to the dive by the river...
My buddy parks his new vehicle & we get out & notice this nice looking girl fishing with a cane pole around the boat houses.
My buddy asks, "Can I fish?"
She says, "AW hell yeah grab a pole & use my bait."
So they're fishing & my stupid buddy is flirting with her & next thing you know she lights up a cigarette & takes a couple of drags & next thing you know my buddy walks over and yanks the cigarette out of her mouth & takes a drag.
The girl says,"If you think you can do that, you are damn wrong!"
That girl walked into that barroom & it looked like a cloud of hornets coming out the there. There must have been a dozen guys who did not say one word and just started kicking my buddy's ass.
The kid who was with him started yelling like a girl.
I didn't panic. The keys were still in the Jeep. I walked over, cranked up the Jeep & backed it up to my buddy's body on the ground where the gang was kicking him to death.
I got out of the Jeep, opened the doors & said,"That's enough now, let's get him back home."
Every person who was kicking him stopped & I gathered him and the hysterical kid up into the Jeep & got them out of there.
I love those people down there on THE POINT!
BEST,
rr
RR,
Roberto.....
I am so proud of the articles praising Wilbur's CD. MR. REDBUD could re-establish him as a force in southern
music.
He deserves every accolade and I hope this is the start of an amazing comeback.
David Adkins establishes himself
as the best guitarist in these parts since his brother and I'm sure John Rainey would be proud.
Jimmy Dean's bass was outstanding.
I hope Wilbur will start playing more dates.
The performance at Cowboys was absolutely spellbinding and left everybody wanting
more.
When I was attempting to sing the harmony part that I sang on the original recording of GEORGIA PINES, I got chill bumps
sharing the mike with my friend.
Jim and the gang at Playground Recording have done an outstanding job in both the recording of the record and the promotion
of the project.
Buddy Buie 
Our Guys ~ THE GOOD GUYS
HAPPILY KILLING LOTS OF YANKEES
THE BAD GUYS
MORE BAD GUYS!
I saw a big snake right next to the track while riding this train!
The DAMN Yankees Got Their Asses Wiped Out THE NEXT DAY ~ THANK GOD!!!!
I don't care what you say~
THIS CAT IS DANGEROUS!!!!
The north end of Tuscaloosa County is the south end of the Appalachian Mountains.
No mo' dirt roads! We can ride like hell but no gasoline!
No comment
A COLOSSUS OF ROLL ROOFING!!!!
When you live in the Devil's Hundred Thousand Acres (around Searles, Kellerman, Burchfield Store, Kings Point, Lock 17, Bull City, Adger & Johns), you need all the damn spiritual help you can get. This cat puts about one of these per mile on average but the cat will but three up in three tenths of a mile and then put the next one up three miles away. The cat never puts one near someone's house & always puts 'em way out in the woods.
The only other place I've seen this is around Union Springs & I think it's the same cat.
A Genuine Home Made House in Tuscaloosa!
The owner of THE GENUINE HOMEMADE HOUSE IN TUSCALOOSA Admiring The Five Year Old Collard Plant That's
FINALLY GONE TO SEED!!!!image courtesy of Wonderful Whit
This image is so powerful we'll have to dig a
JIMI STORY up from the
ZERO, NORTHWEST FLORIDA Archives...
Jimi Hendrix performing at the Memorial Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, May 7, 1969
courtesy of WTBC
http://www.wtbc1230.com/history.htmlRobert,
Ok here is the story.
On May 7th I went to the Hendrix concert at Memorial Coliseum (now
Coleman Coliseum) with my room mate Hoagy (Guy Huthnance) and his
girlfriend who's name time has swallowed.
She was the key to this story.
Fat
Mattress, Noel Redding's group, opened the show. At the break we all went
to the bathroom. Hoagy's date was a very attractive person and the head
of the University Program Council had the hots for her. During the
break she ran into him and he said " Why don't you come with me after the
show. We are taking Hendrix to the
Citizen's Club for a party." She
said, no thanks and then came and told us what was going on.
I had run into
Pete Kinnear and told him of our plans to go to the Citizens Club to
party with Hendrix. The four of us crammed into my Triumph Spitfire and
went to the club.
This was the old Citizens Club that burned 20+ years
ago and was later moved to a new location. I had been there several times
before with other mixed race bands that I had played with and felt
comfortable being there.
When we got there, we were the only white folks
there, but that was OK. We waited and enjoyed the soul band that was
playing there. About 30 minutes later, when we were beginning to doubt that
they would show, here came the entourage.
I stood up and shook
Hendrix's hand and told him how much I enjoyed the show. They all sat down at
the table next to us. The British guys from Fat Mattress were seated
next to me and we partied with them that night since Hendrix was
immediately surrounded by groupies. They were a little nervous about being in a
all black club in the south, but loosened up enough to get up and play.
They played a few songs and then left the stage.
After their set, I
went to pee and Noel Redding came in. We had a nice chit-chat about music
while we both emptied our bladders. The rest of the night was spent
drinking beers and talking music with new friends. End of story.
HOPPERThe Jimi Hendrix EXPERIENCE!
You can read the story of the metamorphosis of The Rockin’ Gibraltars into Heart, the band, in the Greg Haynes book “The Hey Baby Days of Beach Music”. We, the Rockin’ Gibraltars (Sonny Grier, Rusty Crumpton, Ed Sanford, Keith Brewer, and Bobby Dupree) had landed a recording contract with Warner/Reprise Record Company. Sonny was married and his wife was expecting a baby, so he decided not to go to LA, which is what prompted us to get Johnny Townsend in the band. After writing a few songs, recording them at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, adding Johnny Townsend, and changing our name to Heart we moved to 12221 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City California. After arriving in LA, our manager Bob Hinkle took us to Warner Brothers to meet Mo Osten, Executive Vice President of Warner/Reprise Records, and the staff members who would be involved with our recordings and promotions. Warner’s and Mo Osten had assigned Russ Shaw as our promotion agent and we met Russ that first day. Russ was obviously a talented promotion man, because Warner’s had also assigned to him
Jimi Hendrix. Of course by that time in June of 1968 Jimi was a huge star, and had already released his first two albums Are You Experienced? and Axis: Bold As Love. That summer of 1968, Russ called us and told us to get dressed, that we were going up to meet
Jimi Hendrix. Russ was gearing us up to be the opening act for Jimi’s new tour. We drove up to a palatial home in Benedict Canyon above Hollywood, and after getting cleared at the gate, went inside. We stood there in the living room looking around and on the wall was a group promo picture signed by the Beatles. It was the very recognizable picture with them in the gray collarless jackets, Paul with a cigarette in his hand. We found out that the house belonged to the guy that owned Cadillac Steel, and that he leased the house to many of the stars when they were in town. Pretty soon Jimi came out, dressed in a red bathrobe and looking pretty sleepy. Jimi was a very calm, laid back guy, very normal considering his stardom. I felt really calm around him, although the earlier anticipation of meeting him had initially made me a little nervous. After all of the introductions and shaking hands, he asked “Where you guys from?” Then, very quickly, he said “No, let me guess. Just talk a little.” So we chatted a bit and he said “You’re from Alabama.” Well, we couldn’t believe he knew, and all anxiously answered, “Yeah, how’d you know?” He said, “Just keep on talking.” So we chatted some more and he said, “You’re from Montgomery, right?” Well that was almost spooky, and someone said “How did you know that?” He started telling us that he’d been stationed at Ft. Benning, Georgia when he was in the Army and used to come up to Montgomery and jam with B.B. King at the Lakos and Elks Clubs, two very popular black clubs in Montgomery. He went on to say that South Alabamians had a completely different accent than North Alabamians. We didn’t even know that! So we sat there talking and he reached over and grabbed an acoustic guitar. He said “I bet you’ve never seen this.” He turned the guitar over and showed us where he’d broken the guitar body right behind the neck, so that when he put the guitar in his lap, like playing a dobro, he could push down on the top of the body and the whole neck would de-tune. He asked if anyone had a lighter, and I had this old Zippo, so I gave it to him. He started playing some slide blues that had the most incredible sound, nothing like I’d ever heard. There was the slide sound, but then he would push down the body and the whole thing would de-tune, producing a very dark, bluesy sound that is beyond description.
Rusty remembers, “Also, I think a few days before, I heard a few songs on the radio from his new album, Electric Ladyland. I think he was there for his west coast tour to promote the new album. The only conversation I took part in & remember was about All Along the Watchtower (a B. Dylan song). I told him it was a masterpiece, so many different guitar styles in one song...he said, “Thanks man, it wasn't easy.” It is still one of my most favorite guitar songs of all time.”
We just hung around for a while, and met some of his roadies. They were all English cats, and they were consuming mass quantities of tallboys, cans of beer. We had a beer and then left.
On the 18th and 19th of October, 1968, Cream played at the Forum in LA in what was billed as the Wheels of Fire Tour, but also was known as their Farewell Tour. Keith and I were sitting at the house in Studio City and Russ Shaw showed up at the door. He asked where the other guys were, and we told him that Rusty and Ed had dates, and Townsend was shacked up in his room with his girlfriend Lisa. He said to get dressed quick; we were going to a party. We hurried up and jumped in his car and took off toward the canyons. We arrived at Jimi’s house, and after being cleared at the gate we went in. Jimi was throwing a party for Cream’s Farewell Concert, and we were lucky to have been invited. We went in and there were lots of folks, some eating the finger food, some with drinks. As I stood there I saw Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. Jack was playing this M or L model Hammond organ, and Ginger was nervously knocking things off the tables. Keith remembers, “Ginger still had a couple of teeth in his head and he looked a little unstable, but I think that was his normal appearance.” Keith and I just mingled as much as we could, but didn’t really fit in that crowd. There was a room off the living room downstairs that had a pool table, so we wandered down there. Keith started playing pool with this skinny guy and I sat down on the fireplace hearth, my elbows on my knees. I was looking down and saw two legs walk up, wearing high top black Converse All-stars and tuxedo pants. I looked up and it was George Harrison. I just about went into shock! As he walked by, I got up and watched him go outside and climb up on a large rock waterfall that connected to the swimming pool. He sat up there and just gazed at the stars.
After a couple of hours Russ brought us back to the house. Keith remembers, “Right before we left the party, some guy came downstairs where me and this guy were playing pool and said, ‘Hey Jeff, let’s go. We’re all going somewhere to jam.’ It was only then that I realized I’d been shooting pool with Jeff Beck.”
A day or so after this night, we were rehearsing a new song, and Townsend, in his condescending manner, started harassing Rusty about the part he was playing. Rusty said,”I’m gonna go up stairs and work on this for a while.” Townsend said, “You’re such a mama’s boy, why don’t you just go back home and work on it.” Now, Rusty Crumpton is probably the most easy going, emotionally steady, laid back guys I’ve ever known. In all the years I’d known Rusty, traveling on the roads in the South and playing all those gigs, and even enduring some pretty harrowing situations rumbling with the local rednecks, I had never known Rusty to loose it. But that night he did! Rusty wasn’t a very big guy when the band started, and after being out in LA where we were practically starving to death, Rusty was even smaller. When Townsend made that “Mama’s boy” crack, Rusty totally lost it. He went in the kitchen, which was close to our practice room and got a steak knife, and came back into where we were practicing, and lunged at Townsend. Lucky for Townsend that Kim Payne, our road manager, was close by and grabbed Rusty before he inserted that knife in a vital part of Johnny’s body. Kim said, “Rooster you can’t kill him,” and Rusty, struggling, said, “I’m not gonna kill him, I’m just gonna cut him a little.” Man what a scene! The ironic thing is that Townsend had said that sort of passive/aggressive thing to everyone in the band, condescending snipes and insults that were sort of jabs below the belt, and we all had probably thought of doing the same thing to him that Rusty had just been stopped from doing. Shortly after this night Rusty went back home to Alabama. Rusty had been accepted to attend college at the University of Alabama and he figured that since we were starving, not playing much-at least not enough to validate staying out there, weren’t recording as much as signed artists of Warner Brothers should be, and playing music that was so far from what our roots in music had led us to be playing, he’d just go on back to Alabama. As Keith tells it, “We had a great band, when Sonny played in it, and we played nothing but R&B and Soul music. Now, Townsend was writing all that crap he thought was gospel music, like ‘The Train’ and ‘Someone Somewhere’ (two of Johnny’s originals that were what I call milk toast music). We’d lost our basic sound and the heart of our music was gone.”
Johnny had been planning to replace Rusty for some time as evidenced by a phone conversation overheard by Keith and Rusty where Johnny was talking Tippy Armstrong into coming out and playing with us, and after Rusty left, Tippy did come out to be our guitar player. Russ Shaw booked us to open up for Jimi at the Bakersfield Civic Center. We played our set and got off stage so Jimi could come on and do his show. I went up to the dressing room to change, and then went back down and stood at the side of the stage. Jimi played a couple of songs, and then started his rendition of “The Stars Spangled Banner”. Not many people know this, but Jimi was very patriotic, he even supported the war in Viet Nam. He was also Airborne certified.
But back to the story.
The manager of the Bakersfield Civic Center was an old WWII veteran, and of course he was very patriotic too. When he heard Jimi playing “The Stars Spangled Banner” the way only Jimi could play it, the guy got so pissed off, that he went back behind the stage and cut off the power. All that was heard was Mitch Mitchell’s drums ringing through the auditorium. Well, Jimi went back behind the curtains and said, “Who turned off the power?” The WWII vet said “I did.” Jimi went over to him and slugged this guy in the face, knocking him off the stage. Of course, all HELL broke loose, and cops and Warner Brothers executives were everywhere. The cops were going to arrest Jimi but after some negotiations, and a $5000.00 check Russ Shaw made out to the guy, the concert was stopped, and Jimi got in his stretch limo with his two white girlfriends and went back to LA.
This is the true EXPERIENCE we had with
Jimi Hendrix. We never saw him or played with him again.
Bobby Dupree with
Rusty Crumpton and
Keith BrewerSubject :
reasons to leaveRobert,
Here are some FACTS about our departures from California. Bob Hinkle, our manager who initially got us a record deal with Warner Brothers in the spring of 1968, got $50,000.00 up front money to sign us to the record deal. Did we see any of that money? NO!!!! Hinkle would, however, occasionally drop by the house and bring us a bucket of Kentucky Chide Fricken, as he called it, just out of the "goodness of his heart". I didn't find out about the 50K until a few years ago when Ed Sanford told me he found this out from our second manager Lee Weisel. Now before moving to LA, we had been playing back down South almost every weekend, and making pretty good money for that time. But in LA we were just another band who were lucky if we made $50.00 a piece a week. Sometimes less. Our band would have starved to death if it hadn't been for Toni, my girlfriend at the time and later my wife, who worked a day gig at Fredricks of Hollywood in the shipping dept. When Rusty and Ed were offered that free steak dinner the night of the Cream party, they jumped on it quick. Why? Because we existed on Spanish rice practically the whole time we were in LA. When Rusty got back to Alabama, he was wearing a size 28" waist pants. I weighed 98 pounds when I got home! Rusty's departure was made for a very good reason. Besides starving, no money even to buy a coke, and having to put up with Townsends' put downs, Rusty was accepted to school at Alabama. I believe you know that is true. I had taken my draft physical in downtown LA in early 1969 and had passed. Kim Payne drove me there on his motorcycle. I had gotton a letter to report back to Montgomery for induction, so in June of '69 Toni and I packed up what we had and left. And not only did Rusty, Keith and I come back, but Ed Sanford came back too! He, of course, eventually went back out to LA. Toni and I got married July 18, 1969, I got drafted into the Army Sept. 4, 1969, and landed in the Republic of Viet Nam February 4, 1970. Although Heart recorded a few songs between the 1st Muscle Shoals sessions in June 1968 (The Train and Heartbeat) and the time we all left, we didn't have another song put out on Warner/Reprise. We lived in LA for less than a year.
Townsend's remark in this last "unpublished" e-mail about us being mama's boys and not being able to hack the big city just shows his level of denigration toward the very people who gave him the chance to be in the big time. But I forget that his memory is clouded by that brown acid..................Bobby
But.....for some reason when we went to New York to play at
Steve Paul's THE SCENE (unquestionably
THE place to play) the other musicians wanted to play with us, and we, for lack of a better word aquiesced.
Though I can't claim that anything remarkable happened while these other musicians "sat in" with us,I guess in hindsight I guess it was in fact,memorable.
Jimi Hendrix as I recall played
Stormy Monday with us but the one that would really enjoy being with us was
Noel Redding Jimi's bass player who liked that we would let him play guitar since he regarded himself as a guitar player
who was playing bass ( which he really didn't like). I thought that was really complimentary when in an article in
HIT PARADER magazine he told the interviewer that
we were his favorite American band.
Rodney Justo
Barto Arnold
