group strictly as a singer; Wynans remained on keyboards. The Green House was getting crowded.
Duane and Rhino hittin’ ther note. The Second Coming was a very busy band.
Instead of taking a day off on Sundays, the band members would convene at a patio bar called the Forest Inn in the Lake Shore district, a couple miles west of Riverside. These afternoon jam ses- sions, called “be-ins,” grew so large they had to be moved to Willowbranch Park—only a few blocks from the Green House—where the members played for free for an enthusiastic audience of local hippies. This was a genius marketing move, because the local hippies were too young to get into the Scene; these free concerts enabled the Second Coming to find its audience and vice versa.
The group garnered a substantial and loyal
following, myself and Glass included. Glass and I hitchhiked all over Northeast Florida—as far as Ravine Gardens in Palatka—to hear Betts and his band at every possible opportunity. Alan Facemire, a part-time jock at WAPE,
signed on as the Second Coming’s manager in late 1968. He co-produced a single for Steady Records, owned by Fairfield, N.J.-based Interna- tional Tape Cartridge Corp. The record, which Facemire proceeded to play his Sunday-night program, The Underground Circus, consisted of Betts’ off-key rendition of Cream’s “I Feel Free.” The B side featured Dale Betts doing Jefferson Airplane’s “She Has Funny Cars.” These record- ings and others, made at Sound Lab, were trans- ferred to Hourglass Records, also owned by ITCC, along with some other tracks intended for an album that was never released. Dale Betts was having a baby, so classically
trained keyboardist Reese Wynans came up from Bradenton to take her place. She returned to the
Oakley and his wife, Linda, along with the Bettses, had moved to the roomier Gray House a block down the street at 2844 Riverside Ave., which was carved up into five apartments. Facemire, wanting to expand his management roster, invited the Load to Jacksonville to share bills—and accommodations—with the Second Coming. Reinhardt, Price and Young moved into the Gray House. By November of 1968, Duane Allman had
become a regular guest as well. He reported in a letter to Donna Roosmann about ... these huge gatherings of freaks [i.e.,
hippies] in Jacksonville, Florida, every Sunday for the past few weeks. Millions of bands play, and it’s really fun; I wish you could be here to see it—it’s a miracle…. I’ve been living there for quite a while with friends, and I’ll probably stay until move to Muscle Shoals. The Scene had changed management, be-
coming a country-and-western nightclub called the Forum. The Second Coming found itself at liberty to branch out and play one-nighters. Sometimes the band would promote its own shows, with Facemire renting halls on the group’s behalf. One of these was the Woodstock Youth Center on Beaver Street in the Paxon district. On a spring night in 1969, Glass and I set out on a hitchhiking excursion into one of Jacksonville’s toughest blue-collar neighborhoods. This was a risky undertaking for semi-longhairs, but we braved our way to Woodstock to get our dose of Betts’ magic. This was not the band’s best performance.
The HourGlass.
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