Russell Buddy Helm

What do you think happens? It comes in a box? Our new consciousness downloads when it can. If our brain is obsessed with details, it may not happen.

We are Hybrid Starbabies and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden…It’s pretty obvious that we have not evolved to our present state all on our own; we had help. Call it what you will, the fact remains that we are a mix of animal and star being. Genetic experiment still evolving by higher consciousness beings. Maybe even a sense of responsibility on their part. They created us to mine their gold by using a local primate and mixing in their own genetic make up and voila! You’ve got a muscular ape that can take orders. Nice for a few hundred thousand years but now this hybrid is spewing waste out into the universe on a number of different dimensions  and they are becoming a nuisance. Gold or no gold. But the fact remains that it is a successful genetic experiment; what was created was a new species with eventually the capabilities of higher consciousness. But do the other species who created us really have a high regard for us or are they just being held responsible by some galactic federation prime directive that states you have to take responsibility for messing around with universal genetic material. Even when it grows up into a nasty attitudinal adolescent developing bad habits.

The original Allman Brothers was the greatest blues band in the world. Yes, grammatically speaking, they were a single coherent entity. That group desire is always present in people. It’s why we drum together. Creating a single out of many. The resultant power is incredible. The mingled psychic energy of a group of gifted composers and players creates an energy that changes the world. That’s what was happening back then. And now too. What I call, “Marching Through Georgia” was the special groove Jaimo and Butch and the rest of them would get into during the spirited jams in front of a totally supportive Southern audience. It loped along and snapped at you all at the same time. Gregg’s solo signature moan and Duane matching the moan with his solo etherial slide with only the drums cooking behind them created a transcendental moment; Ancient and modern shamanic rites, echoing back to and calling forward to the eternal connection between the earthbound soul and our higher self out there. It’s what we are hungry for. General Sherman marched through Georgia; but it was not nice. His army raped burned and pillaged a 5 mile swath from the Georgia border on down to Atlanta, burned Atlanta, turned left and burned and pillaged all the way to Savanna on the coast. At midnight on Christmas eve General Sherman stood poised on the outskirts of the most beautiful southern town. As the story goes, the women of Savannah told their men to go hide in the swamp, THEY would take care of this situation. General Sherman’s telegraph to President Lincoln: “Savannah intact. My Christmas gift to you”. An irate little girl who witnessed General Sherman’s muddy boots on her mother’s white antimacassar grew up to start the Girl Scouts. That groove has everything in it; unstoppable. And it feels great. It’s a really cooking groove with a lot of little syncopated second line snaps on the snare drums with counterpunches on the bass drums. Jaimo and Butch’s drums were not tuned like typical classic rock drumsets. They were more like jazz drums; higher, more penetrating. Nice, clean tone yet they could also sound like a military marching drumline with a whole lot of funkiness. Sweat dripping off those cats! Working hard and sounding amazing together; like one drummer with four legs and four arms, but also tapping into the Cosmos. Bringing the starlight just a little bit closer to us mortals down here on the rock.

Gregg Allman in Century City was a great event for me and a lot of other people. It was like taking a hit of something really good after swearing off of such dangerous activities for many years. His voice was strong. It was almost the same voice he had back in nineteen seventy when my band Bethlehem Asylum opened for them on countlesss occasions all through Florida and the deep south. The Allman Brothers was the first integrated band of any consequence in the deep south. My band was also mixed racially and it was not easy traveling through certain areas of the south. The fact that Gregg is still singing superbly is a testament to the blues as well as his personal initiative. That music is survival music. He still is humble and unassuming on stage except when he sings and then there is no question there is authority. The parts I missed were adequately covered by the guitarist with Gregg and the other players but the lingering bittersweet feelings of the era when it was Duane’s Band still haunt my recollections.The original Allman Brothers band was the greatest blues band in the world.They changed the blues into something new. The intro to Whipping Post got everyone cheering in the strange 11/8 time signature, then it settled down into a basic funk which worked pretty good. But the old days, in the heat of those sub tropical nights back in Florida, that groove went on forever in that otherworldly time and never settled into a safe groove.