over we decided to put a band together. At the time, Bill and I were playing guitar and Pete was a guitar player, so we mixed with Tommy who had been playing with a drummer and bass player. The drummer was Tom Wynn and a bass player named George Clark. So we ended up with a six piece band
and it just so happened that everyone played the right instruments, except we had too many guitar players. So Bill went and bought a piano and he learned how to kind of play it. It all worked out well for us as long as it lasted.
How did you get signed by Capricorn Records? Pretty much because Duane showed up on our doorstep one morning. We were living in an apartment house that had been sectioned off into an upstairs and downstairs apart- ment. We had a practice room downstairs and in this old house. About 7 AM one morning someone comes pounding on the door. It was Duane and he was driving a camper on his way back from Daytona to Macon. He wanted to hear us play something. So I woke every- one up and scrambled down into the music room to play a few songs for him. The next thing I know, Johnny Sandlin, whom I previ- ously knew from Miami, showed up and we did a set for him. After that we were called up to Macon. We had a place in Coco Beach, a little split level home in suburbia and these high school girls that lived there thought we were cooler than heck, but their parents didn’t really want us in their community. So we called Phil Walden and he said to come on up because they had a band house. We went up there and got there late at
night and we were taken to this grey house that had cots, similar to army cots and we all fell asleep on them. At 3 AM we were awak- ened by the police who wanted to know what we were doing in there. We explained to them
that we were musicians for Capricorn Records and had been put up there. Nevertheless, it was a harrowing experience. After that the band moved to Cochran,
Georgia and we had this huge farmhouse. There were only three bedrooms but they
were 50 x 50 feet. There was someone living in the corner of each bedroom. We had the band which was six people; Tommy, myself, Tom Wynn on drums, George Clark on bass, Pete Kowalke on guitar and Bill Pillmore on guitar and keyboard. Those are the original six fellows. We lived in Cochran for a while and the neighbors down there would come out and sit on the hoods of their cars on the weekend and just watch us because we had long hair. These were just good old country folks and they had not ever seen hippies be- fore and they would just sit out there and watch.
There was a junior college in Cochran, 43
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62
