ever heard of playing in some little club in some little nowhere town that can kick my ass" I'm sure Duane was flattered by the com- pliments. He knew he was good. But he was not egotistical about it.
JW Can you tell us about some experi- ences on the road with Duane that you will never forget. WP Yeah. Basically I never forgot any of them from the first day. He and I ended up bunking together. Originally, I was so tight with the dollar I hated for them to ever get more than one room to just clean up in and then we would sleep on the Winnebago. Nobody really liked that idea. We would get rooms with two double beds in them and we would sleep two guys to a bed. There would be like four guys to a room and maybe we'd get two rooms. And then of course as things got better finan- cially we went to double rooms for two guys. Duane and I would double a lot of times. So he and I spent a lot of time together talking and listening to music. He was just an amaz- ing guy. Just so magical. He could literally walk into a room and light it up with his charisma. But he was not infallible. If he did something stupid and someone brought it to his attention he would learn from it.
JW According to Macon legend, Otis Redding's ghost was purported to have haunted Frank Fenters office at Capri- corn studios back in the 70's, and Duane's ghost has been alleged to have haunted the "Big House." Several peo- ple have claimed to have felt Duane's presence there. Have you ever heard any of these stories before? WP I haven't heard anything about the Otis Redding story. As far as Duane is concerned, without being supernatural, you can just feel his presence in the whole town. In the Big House, in the old Capricorn Studio and the whole town. Just generally from him being
around. I have never had any supernatural experiences with Duane though.
JW What was it like backstage before, during, and after the shows with the various guests and fans. WP Well it was equal opportunity for fans. The band loved their people backstage. It was not always conducive to what I wanted to do. Because I just never have liked people hang- ing all over the stage. To me it was unprofes- sional, but that was part of what the Brothers were about. That's what they wanted. They wanted friends on stage. Hey, they can have ‘em onstage. I mean promoters everywhere hated our guest list. It was just incredible the number of guests we'd have.
JW How difficult was it dealing with promoters and police to get curfew ex- tensions? WP That could get a little hairy sometimes. Sometimes we'd be running late and I would be standing there telling the promoter, well it's only going to be another five or ten more minutes and then the band would break into “Mountain Jam!” I knew the show was going to go for over a half-hour or so. A lot of times members of the band would say, “hey just pay the promoter if we were going into overtime.” Most of the promoters were cool about it. They absorbed it. They were all making money. There was one occasion in Birming- ham where they brought the police and dogs on the stage and this guy was at the power switch and it looked like it was going to get real nasty. But we resolved it. There was a lot of madness involved with that. Because when they wanted to play that was it. I wasn't going to go out there in the middle of “Mountain Jam” and tell the band they had to quit.
JW What was your first meeting with Bill Graham like and what is your last- ing impression of this man?
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