Hampton Grease Band

Atlanta's misfits Hampton Grease Band, formed by former Four Of Nine's guitarist Harold Kelling and vocalist Bruce Hampton, recorded the double-LP album Music To Eat (Columbia, 1971 - Legacy, 2002), on which they attempted a bold fusion of the idioms of Absolutely Free (Frank Zappa), Trout Mask Replica (Captain Beefheart) and Eat A Peach (Allman Brothers). Their manifesto was the side-long 19-minute Halifax that opened the double LP. Boasting amateurish vocals that blended the hysterical tone of Wild Man Fischer, the psychotic tone of Captain Beefheart and the emphatic/clownish tone of Frank Zappa, the band transitioned from a blues-rock section to a theatrical operetta-style section to an effervescent jazzy jam (via tinkling vibrahone and grotesque Zappa-style tempo and melody shifts) only to return to a slow-burning blues section that again rolled into a comic Zappa-esque section. After countless metamorphoses, they finally capped the suite with a catchy pop melody.
The second side of the first LP, after the satirical vaudeville skit of Maria, was dominated by another 19-minute juggernaut, Six, also a collage of styles, from Brecht-ian declamation to boiling soul-rock to abstract jamming to square dancing. The 12-minute Evans, the first track of the second LP, ran the gamut from frantic rhythm'n'blues to cacophony and silence, ending in a canonical psychedelic freak-out. Abstract noises populated the seven-minute Lawton, a mixture of Chicago's creative jazz, Jimi Hendrix's 1983 (second guitarist Glenn Phillips' best moment) and Amon Duul's Phallus Dei. After aping Little Richard in the wild Hey Old Lady / Bert's Song, the album ended with another lengthy excursion into the avantgarde, the 20-minute four-movement suite Hendon, peppered with dissonant swing music, shouted recitation over loose jamming, and dissonant group improvisation that escalates to gargantuan proportions.
The three lengthy pieces ranked among the most visionary pieces of music of the 1960s. In a sense, this album marked the end of the 1960s and summarized its innovations.

They quickly disappeared from the recording studios. However, at the end of the decade Hampton was given another chance and managed to record two more albums: One Ruined Life (Pine Tree, 1978) and Skin Deep Yeah (Jonathan David Earle). During the 1980s Hampton played with New Ice Age and then with Late Bronze Age, groups that released Outside Looking Out (Landslide, 1980), Route Two and Isles Of Langerhan. Then the self-appointed colonel Hampton released Arkansas (Landslide, 1987) and formed the Arkansas Travelers.

The "colonel" returned in 1992, fronting the Aquarium Rescue Unit, a septet of southern freaks featuring Chuck Leavell on keyboards, two percussionists (Larry Jones, aka Count Mbutu, and Jeff Sipe, aka Apt Q258), ferocious bassist Oteil Burbridge, logorrhoic guitarist Jimmy Herring and devilish mandolin player Matt Mundy.

The self-titled live album harked back to the age of live jams. The sound was still permeated by the same oblique and cosmic blend of all the musical lingos of the South (blues, jazz, rock, country, gospel, funk), and still marked by a sardonic hippie spirit. The combo devastated classics of all ages with the domestic nonchalance that was of the Allman Brothers Band: teerrific melodic progressions, breathtaking guitar phrases, acrobatic solos and duets, and, towering over everything else, the raspy, shrill and very "black" vocals of colonel Hampton. The album peaked with Quinius Thoth, a suite that crossed Sun Ra and Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh.

Mirrors Of Embarrassment (1993) continued to promote the revival of the southern jam. However, this time the combo remained more faithful to the song format, despite ornating with mesmerizing group improvisations the funky theme song of No Ego`s Under Water, the jazzy Shoeless Joe and Payday, the western-swing numbers Lost My Mule In Texas and Swing. By their standards, it was old-fashioned music.

Hampton died in 2017 at the age of 70.

Glenn Phillips (not the Toad The Wet Sprocket frontman) debuted solo with Lost at Sea (Caroline, 1975), followed by Swim in the Wind (Virgin, 1977). He then formed his own band for Dark Lights (Snow Star, 1980), Razor Pocket (Snow Star, 1982), St. Valentine's Day (Snow Star, 1984) and Live (Shanachie, 1985). Echoes 1975-1985 (1993) is a double-disc anthology. He then released Elevator (SST, 1987) and Scratched by the Rabbit (Demon, 1990). Supreme Court Goes Electric (1994) was a project with Jeff Calder of the Swimming Pool Q's, another Atlanta band, a project continued more than 20 years later on Sun Hex (Snow Star, 2010). Walking through Walls (Shotput, 1996), Angel Sparks (Gaff, 2003). Guitar Party (Gaff, 2003) was a collaboration with Henry Kaiser At the Rainbow (Shagrat, 2016) documents a 1977 live performance. His memoir titled "Echoes" (2019) was accompanied by the album The Dark Parade (2019) as well as by a live DVD documenting a 2015 live performance. Both the book and the album were about his recurring panic attacks.