moments that it was just there, you know? It came out of the sky and it was a gift. I just think these songs are gifts, if you’re lucky enough to be an open conduit, so to speak, they’ll come to you and if anybody gets too serious and starts taking too much credit, I think that your antenna shuts down, you know. You’ve just gotta be open. Gotta be open.
I was talking to someone the other day about the reaction Fred got at the con- cert I was at a few weeks ago with you guys and Blackberry Smoke. All these Smoke fans, they’re almost like Dead- heads, it’s fantastic. And I kept hearing them talking when he started doing that solo - they just went completely nuts. (Greg laughs) They’d never seen a wild man like Fred before. Well, that’s the truth, and the thing is Fred is the most normal family, Christian fellow you’d ever want to meet.
He lets it all out, when he does the jun- gle drums, it’s all over. There’s a couple of misconceptions about Fred. He’s one of the youngest ones, let’s see, Doug is the youngest, then there’s Fred, then Richard and me.
You’re kidding? He looks the oldest… Fred does. I know. It’s just because of the whiskers. If he were to shave he would look younger, of course. But he’s got his image.
Gotta have that you know, we wouldn’t recognize him without that. Right. So he grew ‘em out back in the early ‘90’s and they turned gray as a lot of our stuff has turned gray. (Laughs)
I know the feeling, too. He’s like one of the younger ones in the band and he’s not a wild man at all. He’s very pas-
sionate about his music; he’s very passionate about his family. He loves playing music and he’s a very Godly man, I’ll give him that, man. He’s a good Christian person, you know.
Nice. That’s great. I remember speak- ing with him. The only time I’ve ever spoken with Fred was on the Rock Leg- ends II Cruise, and it was in the cafete- ria and I ran into Fred. He was with Jim Dandy Mangrum and Ricky Reynolds. Greg laughs. Yeah. That was quite a trip. So I was standing around talking to them for a few min- utes and of course, I asked a friend to snap a picture. That photo tickles me to death to look at it because that’s quite a motley crew, you know, to be in the middle of. (Greg laughs) Fred was a big Black Oak fan, I mean he patterned a lot of his early work - well, a lot of his influence was Tommy Aldridge.
Oh man, Tommy Aldridge, he’d do that song called “Up,” and do that drum solo, it was amazing. Oh, Tommy Aldridge is amazing. Black Oak, I remember buying their first album, I think it was in ’72, the first album that came out on Atlantic/Atco Records. It was produced by Mike Pinera.
“Uncle Lija,” “Hot and Nasty,” - I al- ways thought that was their best record. Oh yeah, that was a great album. But now Fred really, really was influenced a whole lot by Black Oak. I kind of veered off into the Cream and the Jimi Hendrix thing. and then the Allman Brothers came out and that was a big eye-opening thing, ear-opening, you might say. But you know, to get to work with Jim Dandy and those guys. Jim Dandy’s a re- ally cool guy. I like Jim Dandy a lot.
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