The Great Speckled Bird Vol 2, #  oct 27, 1969

FRIDAY AFTERNOON was almost frightening all those big names, the abruptness of the pop festival’s appearance, the overall speculative nature of this ambitious musical venture and when we got over to the park, there was only a small crowd and some folk singer type running through a Dylan (new) imitation of “Lay Lady Lay.” The portable toilets on the ball field looked desolate in their isolation. Nothing looked good about the scene, and Frank Hughes of the Electric Collage light show was saying over and over, “Everybody’s wrecked!”

Then, miraculously, it happened. The Allman Brothers appeared on stage and began their set a familiar set of blues pieces, long, hard improvisations worked on a tight rhythmic foundation. “I’m Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town,” Donovan’s “There Is A Mountain,” one from their new album on Atco which might be called “I Feel Like I’m Dyin’,” some fantastic slide guitar from Duane Aliman on an excel lent arrangement of “Statesboro Blues,” and much more. One of the best exponents of where young pop music is at today, the Allman Brothers got the audience moving and initiated the festival atmosphere that had been absent up until that time.

The crowd was still small by sundown, but it was grooving and becoming larger all the time. We had just begun to realize that the night would be quite cold, but the idea of a pop festival in winter weather seemed oddly appealing (for once a tightly packed audience made some sense). The hippie/freak audience was there, a few straights, some familiar community winos, plus many, many new faces. One short fat fannie dug the music and the people; she thrust her dancing figure up front whenever possible and moved in and around the crowd with a beautiful smile on her face. A wonderful old wino with the face of a leprechaun put down his weather beaten suitcase and umbrella and asked her to dance with him, proceeding to demonstrate his own talents in a Wonderlandish dervish. Soon, everyone was in good spirits.

The band that followed included The Second Coming guitarist from Florida, plus the brilliant, beautiful bass work of John Ivey, and vocals and harp by Atlanta’s Wayne Lackidisi. The lead guitarist was into an erotic contortion bit (he turned in a better performance Sunday), and while Lackidisi’s screaming vocals sum up what is either the best or “the worst of white blues singing (depending on whether you like it or not), some of his harmonica contributions were exciting indeed.

The performance by Joe South in Piedmont Park should have been a major musical event; instead it was a fiasco. South appeared on stage with a trio of accompanists that looked like a Southern Velvet Underground (the suit South was wearing looked like silver velvet). There was an immediate reaction from the audience, one of suspiciousness and distaste from some, amusement from others. To say that a threat to the communal spirit did not exist for a moment would be a lie. South does not relate to the immediate experience of the Atlanta left/hip community in the same way that, for example, the Hampton Grease Band does, and the shiny, luxuriant exterior of the studio talent was perhaps too much in evidence, and with no conditioning for the audience. At the same time, Joe South is unquestionably one of the finest songwriters in all of pop music. We don’t think of him as a performer (though he is a brilliant one), but we are all familiar with his songs through the Top 40. Teenybopper purists who label his three minute pop songs “commercial” and relate to the twenty minute blues extravaganzas of the Allman Brothers as anything other than commercial simply create a false dichotomy between a business oriented around 45 rpm singles and a business built on the 33 1 /3 rpm album. Joe South and the Allman  Brothers are merely extensions of the same pop music experience, and they both make some fantastic music in their own areas.

Unfortunately, the sound system was fucked up throughout South’s entire set, and in the middle of one song, the power cut off altogether. South’s excellent vocal style was lost, some of the best lyrics ever to come out of modern country could hardly be heard, and what could have been some exciting guitar work by South was wasted on electronic distortion and noise. South was trying his best to get through “Hush,” “Redneck” (on the new Pacific Gas & Electric album), “Don’t You Wanna Go Home?” a hymn to the Atlanta community called “Gabriel,” and one of the best pop songs ever “Games People Play.” Aside from some attempts at humor that were often misdirected, a female vocalist whose raucous, out of tune shouting al most ruined what little music the South group managed to force through the faulty sound system, and a certain lack of acceptance from some in the crowd, it was good to hear this musical genius in our own park, and it is hoped that the event can happen again under better circumstances.

Considering the formidable musical achievements of Joe South, his last words “Thanks for putting up with us” seemed incredibly ironic. At this time in our development of a youth culture, we need all the bridges we can get, and Joe South may very well be the most important bridge between white country music and black blues and pop that we have. Certainly if one listens to his album Intercept, he will get one of the most all inclusive statements of the Southern hip youth experience available anywhere.

 Mother Earth followed South, and again the sound hassles seemed insurmountable. Tracy Nelson was there guzzling bourbon and turning what were probably exciting vocals on “Wait,” “You Win Again,” and a couple of others. She didn’t sing often enough for me in any of the sets in which Mother Earth performed. Boz Scaggs, an excellent guitarist but a largely uninspired vocalist, did some bluesy numbers and an “I Shall Be Released” that didn’t stir up anybody too much. The bassist was featured on a song that he wrote, and the pianist/ organist was the dominant voice on the closing number by Bobby Blue Bland. All in all not very heavy, but the things they did on Saturday with a functioning sound system were a more accurate demonstration of how good this band can be.

Frank Hughes’ Electric Collage light show, one of the finest anywhere, was in operation during the ill-fated Joe South performance, and even though the temperature went way down into the forties, people were grooving, and the loud applause that followed South’s exit from the stage showed that we were prepared to be patient and understanding while the hassles were being worked out.

Dope was everywhere. Various people made announcements (including some absurd compliments on our “peacefulness”), pleas for donations of $1, and at one point Robin Conant asked if we wanted a ballroom in Atlanta. Friday was filled with intimations that much more is going on at these musical events than can be confined within the boundaries

Of Piedmont Park. One hell of a lot of work was put into this park music festival; a lot of people deserve a lot of credit; and just as in the past, the community must support the developing music scene in Atlanta by its involvement. Whether we have a music of community, or end up as merely another link in a capitalist chain of “music” entrepreneurs is up to us.

-miller francisJr.

Saturday

Once more into the tentative temple of Atlanta Aquarians, to the ritual womb of the New Age, to get together, to let our music pour over and through us, hopefully like bonding cement same thing churches sometimes still pretend to be about to weld a communist whole, energized to sustain the struggle to smash the atomizing force working to pry us apart. To dig, that is, some music with the Family.

Crystal-blue day, throbbing (not baking) warmth, folks lolling around on the grass. Hand Band just finishing up (“Apologize for doing other people’s stuff, but it’s a fine tune.” Right on.) Comes now from Macon, GA, the Boogie Chillun, setting up their paste-on flower bedecked drums, testing their l-2s, then Thh-wanng! Into their opening/warm-up number like they knew what they were doing. They did. (Their bass man too far into it to perform “intelligently” he just let his fingers follow the rest of his body, which made the axe a supportive appendage of his total investment in his music. Fine.) Much excited appreciation of their vocalist’s copy of Led Zeppelin’s “I Can’t Quit You, Baby.” A copy is a copy, but Boogie Chillun‘s a young band, still putting it together, still, I felt, trying to “prove” something, still “performing” “for” an “audience,” instead of working with us to get off a tribal celebration. But. That’s how bands grow together.

Like Lee Moses. Four black bluesmen who both presented and built upon that genre. Lee Moses on lead guided all of us on a guided tour of the mysteries of the guitar, excitement modulator: advancing and retarding the frenzy building across the grass, until one incendiary riff jerked us to our feet, there to remain until the set concluded, we reluctant, but also relieved from concentration of energy that might have spilled us over our permit-bordered reservation (that’s a no-no). Nor was Lee Moses THE show never having seen the group before, we were several minutes into the set before I knew for sure who Lee Moses was one sign of a together group. Because the denimmed rhythm man toured his own force with a rendition of Tony Bennett’s classic (just-named-that-city’s-official-song) “I Left My Heart In San Francisco.” Not a song, though, not a performance, but an invitation to take a trip. (“If you wanna go, clap your hands, clap your hands now, clap!” We did.) Chanting the intro (Bennett never thwumped a crowd the way this guy did), and then rocketing into an improvised delivery of the (same old, but not really) lyrics, and we were there (that may have been what yanked us off our collective ass). Yeah, fine group-let’s hear’em s’more.

Then 1 split for dinner, despite Hampton Grease Band, who were, I understand, extreeeeeemely greezy, thwacking the skulls of the straight voyeurs with “Gimme an E G G S: EGGS!” (Whaduzitmean, whaduzitwmean?? Suck you ), and putting the Mobe leaflets distributed on the fringe of the park (dig?) to fine functional use the airplanes still filling the air long after I returned just in time to hear the Allman Brothers launch their own airplane.

Which circled for about forty-five minutes before coming down for a landing, hearing occasional reports from the control tower about topographical conditions (“First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is”), and cooking up a fine in-flight meal of intricate interplay, lead bass-rhythm organ, spiced occasionally with individual riffs. Hard number to top, but the rest of the set demonstrated what has been known and said well: the Allmans lay down fine, solid, gimmick-free sounds that do indeed work on you, if not as evocatively as Lee Moses (or the Hampton Grease Band), certainly as thoroughly Before Mother Earth the day’s last rap for funds (how to solve the dilemma: either admission charges or sugar daddies. The festival itself an attempt at synthesis: $1 donation, but when I dropped my buck into the box the attendant responded with “Far out,” like maybe not too many dollars were dropping the final balance sheet on the festival will be most instructive, and, I fear, sad) and a check to make sure most of us had got off (on?). ‘Feared we had.

Then an improvised Mother Earth, short I  understand, some personnel with Boz Scaggs added. Interesting-combination, creating a multi- focus group like Crosby et. al. or Blind Faith. Scaggs, and Toad Andrews traded off the lead, and the group changed coloration accordingly. As it also did, understandably, when Tracy Nelson, sang, the sound pouring from her mouth caked with clay, and oozing the richness of a stout young taproot. They were about the  transcendence of atomized clouds, the building of  power that occasionally thundered over us Saturday in sheets of undifferentiated energy. And when it all came down to borrow from the group’s title song), it was about the basics of life: love, sound health (“I Don’t Need No Doctor”), and making do.

The festival ended Saturday night at 10; permit ran out. But suppose it had not. Then why end at all?

(Concluding park-generated fantasy: how to make revolution. Suppose, I dreamed, enough groups got together to maintain continuous music beyond the saturation point. Two, three, four solid days. So that people could leave satiated, not fearing that they would miss anything/too tired to care. But leaving with the desire to keep it going, for what is more worthwhile, fulfilling, rewarding fuck it, FUN, than a festival? Not, of course, simply for the music, but for the communal consciousness: the shared joint, the freely given and received) food, the common caring for each other. And so people leave just to re- turn, but with sustenance for the festival. Bring back food, or dope, or bread for the generator. Take a job for two days, rap (automatically, unconsciously) on the job about the festival, come back, bringing three new freaks from work. Extrapolate extend the vision, so that ever more complex tasks are perceived and done to keep it going. So that the tribal existence is carried beyond the festival site; all life is viewed through the lens of the festival; all tasks are performed in order to get back to the festival, bringing something with you: food for ten folks, dope for 20, $40 for the electricity. Then it gets too big, so groups break off, start a new tribal campground, and it builds and grows organically, as revolution must in a country which is controlled in no one place, simplistic “Marxist” analysis to the contrary not withstanding. Until the old folks disappear bemusedly, and nobody wants to be PresidentGovernorSenator- MayorPig, and the whole world is a rock festival.

But.)

The permit did expire.

 -Greg Gregory

 Sunday

SUNDAY: after almost two entire days of a fucked up sound system, Sunday’s concert was a pleasure to listen to. The crowd, although sparse early in the day grew to several thousand by nightfall, and still exhibited its beautiful spirit of sharing, with much free grass and fruit circulating.

The old “star” system prevailed, and the local groups played during the afternoon. First to play was Radar, who sounded good for two reasons: one, the sound system was functioning properly, and two (more important), their material was enjoyable. After two days of almost all blues, good old rock and roll was a welcome relief. And they played it well, seeming to enjoy it as much as the crowd did. Only fault of this popular local group was a drum solo which seemed to be added on as an after-thought, especially because no other members of the group did soloes.

Following Radar came an unimpressive, but nice jam session, with the lead guitarist of The Second Coming, the bassist and drummer of the Allman Brothers, and organist and harmonica player of Mother Earth.

Next, the incredible Hampton Grease Band. Saturday they had destroyed the audience with their playing, and Sunday was no different. Playing a great version of “Wolverton Mountain” among their numbers, they again finished up only to have the audience bring them back for an encore with chants of “More, More!” After a set by an unknown Black group, came The Sweet Younguns. Unfortunately this group has been hung up playing too many high school and college dances, with the resulting Top 40 commercial sound demanded by these events. But Sunday night they proved that they have great potential, and given the proper environment to explore this potential, they could become a really first-class group. Their excellent singing and playing are already quite evident. Also they possessed some of the finest equipment seen and heard during the festival, and they used it effectively.

 Lee Moses returned to play again, after a really exciting performance Saturday. Their fine blues playing was one of the most popular acts of the weekend, and included an incredible version of “Love Is Blue” as well as “Hey, Joe” and some other more traditional blues numbers in the style of B. B. King. Real blues, and really singing the blues as well! And a real mind-blower for a finish a young boy about 10 or so came out on stage to play drums on Moses’ last number, and quite well, too!

Finally nighttime, but sadly no light show. Especially sad because Friday night’s show was the Electric Collage at their best. But the Allman Brothers made up for it. Little more can be said about them, other than the fact that only The Grateful Dead in Piedmont Park have generated the same energy that was created Sunday night. The whole experience was highlighted by a lovely girl dancing beautifully on stage.

And so ended Sunday night, but not before two couples were married on stage by a minister of the Universal Life Church, as a finishing touch to the Piedmont Park Music Festival.

-Charlie Cushing