"Let Love Come Between Us"; it also hit with James and Bobby Purify and Delbert McClin- ton and Mavis Staples also did great cover versions. The Rubber Band's version went to Number One in all the major cities of the Southeast or what Billboard called Area 6. We did not need an opening act, but Duane
and Gregg and the other Allman Joys had be- come good and fast friends and they needed the money and the exposure - so I used to hire them to open for us. Duane would eat his guitar and play it behind his back and get down on the floor and do flips while he played and Gregg would be behind a little Vox organ on chrome legs and Bill Connell pounding the drums. I thought they were pretty good, but the crowds gave them a hard time and gave a few boos from time to time. You see, The Rubber Band used three
Johnny in the studio.
saxes and a trumpet (I played trumpet & bass) and no other non-horn band could hold a candle to us back then - we were heavily in- fluenced by a fantastic band from Muscle Shoals called The Mark V that featured Dan Penn, Norbert Putnam, David Briggs, Jerry Carrigan and Marlin Greene (they used to let me go on the road with them and get on stage and dance - I was called "The Action Man") - anyway, The Rubber Band featured Tippy Armstrong on guitar and our singer was Johnny Townsend, who later had the hit "Smoke From A Distant Fire" by The Sanford Townsend Band.
We all knew that Duane was 'way ahead of
any of the other guitar players that were around the Shoals back then, except for two other amazing guitar-playin' cats - one was Pete Carr and the other was Tippy Armstrong. And Pete Carr is the only one that survived the rock 'n Roll Wars. But on a lighter note, I remember Duane
used to say that our Creator had a few thangs backwards. He used to say that "God should have put a fingernail on top of our heads so we could grow it out like the bill of a cap or a visor, and if it rained or somethang fell on our heads, we would have protection--like a helmet or hardhat," and he also said that "God should have put hair where our fin- gernails are." He had a lot of
(Dick Cooper Photo)
reasons for that, includin' how it could serve as a Q-tip and other thangs that involved pleasing women..but I won't go into that here. Duane was really a trip back "in the time." Also, did you ever know about Bill Connell,
the most excellent drummer for the Allman Joys ? I recommended him to Doowang and Gregg and they hired him the night he gradu- ated from Tuscaloosa High School and they all took off that night to go play at Trudy Heller's Club in Greenwich Village in New York City. I know Connell must have gotten a crash course in Rock n' Roll in the fast lane after he left his hometown to hit the road with Allman Joys! Years later, I hired Connell to go on the road with Sailcat in the summer of '72 when we did American Bandstand and
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