the singer. But then I saw pictures in the rock magazines. Growing up, my favorite singer- actually, my favorite of all time, is Ray Charles. Second was David Ruffin, the original lead singer of the Temptations who sang “My Girl,” “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”- I loved David, and he used to come in the club where we played. I even hung out with him for a little while, went to his apartment a couple of times, he was just a great guy. When he passed, it was a very sad day. I never really got to know Levi and the Four Tops. We’d see each other and say hi, but David was one of my friends. But I loved the way Levi sang, and Mary Wells and Tammy Terrell. Aretha- So I grew up loving that soul and r&b music. To this day when I write- and I write every day- I’m really slow. I don’t play guitar or piano, so I go slow and have to pick out things and try to put it all to- gether in pieces. Then I take it to my friends, a keyboardist and a guitarist and I try to give them enough information to show them how I’m hearing this thing in my head. And they put the real chords and stuff in.
What do you remember about playing the Atlanta Pop Festival?
The year before that we got a call to play at Woodstock, but we looked into it and it seemed like it was going to be a lot of hassle. Which it turned out to be. So, we got the call from the Atlanta Pop Festival guys and we got in the car to go to the festival in Macon, Geor- gia. We were on the road two miles from the site and it was already bumper to bumper. But we finally got there and there were mas- sive amounts of people, 200-300,000 people, and we went up on the stage. We were gonna play “Losin’ You” for the first time, and we were backstage, and you know it was a big backstage area with drinks and food and all that stuff. I was hot so I got a tall glass of lemonade, and I sat down drank it and re- laxed a bit. It was about 45 minutes until we played. About 15 minutes before we played, I looked up at this street light, and the light bulb was changing shapes. I thought, what’s going on here? Suddenly I didn’t know why I was there, and the roadies were coming up and saying you’ve got ten minutes. Everything is morphing in front of me. Square things are getting round and round things are becoming square. I don’t know how I did it, but I made it to the stage. And I’m sitting behind my drums with my hands in my lap looking at the drums and saying, “What are these?” The next thing I knew it was three songs later. And Michael, it’s like driving a car when you say ‘I don’t remember how I got here.” You say “Wow, where was my head while I was driving.”
Oh, my. You got dosed. LSD. Yep. But we got through the show, and I was convinced that everybody knew I was high, but you know what? The band never knew! I don’t know how I played, but evi- dently, I did okay because nobody said any- thing. Of course, I never had the desire to do acid again. I got done and walked down the steps at the back of the stage and I’m drying myself off. A limousine pulls up right beside me. The door opens and a leg comes out
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