Chicago, Atlanta Jam among reader Fred Bailey’s top musical memories

I’ve been to a LOT of concerts in my years, including (the second Atlanta Pop Festival at) Byron, Ga., in 1970 on July 4th weekend. Wow!

But my favorite concert memories?

First would probably have to be seeing Chicago for the first time in 1970 at Auburn University — with the lady that would later become the mother of my children. We got lost driving from Blakely to Auburn, but we were making really good time driving. Those guys were monsters, much more so than what was usually played on the radio. Terry Kath was a beast on guitar — I love his licks even today — and what a voice. And what a stupid way to die. (Kath accidentally shot and killed himself.)

Second would probably be at what we called the first “Georgia Jam.” I don’t know what the official name was, but it was at the old Atlanta Stadium, and I think it was in 1974. It was the first of several there.

A little-known band called Grinder Switch opened, followed by an up-and-coming band me and my musician friends had all heard on record — but saw live for the first time that day — called Lynyrd Skynyrd. Skynyrd were followed by the boys from Spartanburg, S.C., the Marshall Tucker Band. (It rained like crazy during their set — Toy Caldwell announced, “We’re gonna play ‘til we get the sh shocked out of us.”

A little-known fact about the namesake of that band: Marshall Tucker was a blind piano tuner whose name the group saw on a door at a venue somewhere and liked.

Finally, very late in the evening at the Jam, came the Allman Brothers Band. Not a good performance, but very memorable. Gregg had to be carried out onto the stage while sitting on his piano stool; he was out of it so bad he forgot the words to “Midnight Rider.” I can still see Dickey Betts leaning over his red guitar and speaking the words into Gregg’s ear, and then Betts butchered his hallmark “Blue Sky.”

Included in that repertoire of my “concert days,” there were The Allman Brothers Band with Duane (Allman) and Berry (Oakley) at free concerts in Piedmont Park in Atlanta and at Grant’s Lounge in Macon. (They also actually played at Albany Junior College, in ‘69 I think it was.)

Duane was THE best guitar player I ever saw, and I saw them all: Hendrix, the Grateful Dead (awesome concerts — best sound system of the day), Ten Years After (Alvin Lee invented fast before Eddie Van Halen was born), Clapton so many times through the years — he’s still great! — Carlos Santana (who had a drummer named Michael Schrieve — Google his drum solo at Woodstock — awesome), and so many more that I can’t even remember.

(I saw) Waylon Jennings and an up-and-coming short-haired Willie Nelson, Tompall Glazer, along with Jesi Colter, who called themselves “The Outlaws,” I think (at least that was an album name, the first “country” album to go platinum) in front of about 800 people in the Macon Coliseum in the mid-70s. Then there was the Bluegrass festivals (Doc and Merle Watson, the Red White and Bluegrass Band, etc) at a venue called Coney Grove, in a pecan orchard somewhere over in Crisp County. We also used to drive from Albany to the Fox Theater in Atlanta on a weeknight, go to a concert (even saw the Dead once on a Wednesday night), and drive back home to be at work the next morning. I don’t recommend it.

Memories? Yeah, I got a few. A guy in Texas that you never heard of who was a friend named Bugs Henderson, another named Jimmy Wallace and a group called the Stratoblasters in Dallas — Junior Clark, WOW!

There’s also a lot from that era that I don’t like to think about too much. Friends lost in the war, and friends lost to drugs right here at home. How any of us ever made it through those days is beyond me … it was purely by the grace of God.

But we sure made a lot of memories and had a blast doing it.