Col. Bruce Hampton, Ret. - Part 1

Slightly Trashy

Offering #2 - Side A

Sometimes I find inspiration in the strangest places - tonight it was in my basement.

Not in a mystical way. Not in a “sign from the universe” way. In the most unromantic way possible… a stack of old magazines sitting on shelf that I hadn’t touched in years covered in the kind of dust that tells you you’ve been too busy to be sentimental.

Lately it seems popular to announce your toxic trait.. Well, mine is I’ve kept every music magazine I’ve ever bought in my entire life. (You can debate amongst yourselves if this is devotion or a diagnosable condition.)

Anyway, buried in that pile was an old issue of Hittin’ the Note - a long since out of print publication I used to buy religiously. As I sat there flipping through this particular issue I remembered how my annoying younger self would seek out the musicians written about in these articles and get them to sign them when low and behold there it was - A Col Bruce Hampton signed article. A legend. His handwriting. My old friend. A flood of memories. Not a documentary. Not a story I tell myself to feel like I belong in certain rooms. Just ink on paper that survived multiple versions (and house moves) of me.

And suddenly I had this annoying little moment of clarity that I didn’t ask for - Id spent years thinking I was chasing this “scene” because of music. I was also chasing him because my ego thought proximity was a currency.

That’s embarrassing to admit. But I’m not here to be impressive. I’m here to be honest - and I’ve learned the hard way that honesty is usually where the actual story starts.

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I think the one thing that we can all agree upon in this age of uncertainty is that we do indeed live in what HAS to be the most confusing era the world has ever known in the history of its existence. Everyone you know could without hesitation riff off ten topics that could then be debated - with valid points all around - on both sides of an aisle that seems to be getting wider and wider… which could THEN get taken and ripped apart by someone with a microphone who has decided their feelings are research.

What even is truth?

Who gets to make all of these societal rules?

Every issue has a side. Everyone is connected and has access to countless platforms to express an opinion. This very essay lives on a site (thank you substack) designed to offer anyone with something to say an outlet to say it.

And I love that.

I mean it. I love that people who would’ve never gotten a shot before can now put their words in the world. I love that you can find the niche inside the niche. I love that talent can surface from anywhere.

But the weird part is this - the microphone used to come bundled with friction.

With waiting. With apprenticeship. With some built in requirement that you had to listen longer than you talked.

Now the microphone comes with an upload button… and no requirement to earn your own attention.

And I’m not judging anyone for that. I’m saying it out loud because I can feel what it does to me. I can feel how easy it is to turn into a commentator instead of a participant. How easy it is to form an opinion before you form a relationship with the thing you’re talking about. How easy it is to mistake having a take for having taste.

Somewhere along the way the world got too small. And my ego - like everyone else’s - got louder.

Which is why the old process still matters to me. Because before the internet, obsession required effort.

You didn’t “discover” music. You pursued it. You went to the library. You dug into a card catalog. You thumbed through an encyclopedia like curiosity was a manual transmission and you had to know how to drive it. You read magazines. You read liner notes like scripture. You found an address in tiny print and sent a letter like you were stuck on an island throwing a bottle in the ocean with a note inside it. You waited for the mail like an insane person. You went to the record store and ordered the thing and then waited another week because waiting was part of the relationship. (Or at least thats what my crazy ass did.)

That whole old process was like a governor on the engine of anxiety. It throttled down the part of you that wanted everything instantly. And whether you meant to or not, it taught you a form of ego management.

Because ego hates waiting. Ego hates not knowing. Ego hates the idea that you might have to work for your own opinion.

——————————————————————————————————————

I love guitar. I love playing guitar. I love playing guitar with my friends.

I took years of piano lessons and played in competitions and recitals and showcases - all centered around regurgitating material I had memorized. Technique, dynamics, interpretation… all important, valid devices in music.

But it left me wanting that thing I couldn’t explain until I experienced it. I wanted to play with an ensemble of musicians from a place of improvisation. I wanted to be in a band.

The fuse got lit when I cold called a local legend named Hank Becker out of the phone book like I had any right to do that.

Let me set the scene, because this matters.

I was a teenager reading the weekly Friday entertainment section in the Mobile Press Register like it was a survival guide. That section also had the classifieds on the back - and the classifieds had a music gear section (section 167 to be exact) - and I read it religiously as a high school kid who didn’t have a car and had no realistic chance of seeing most of the bands I was reading about.

Obsession doesn’t care about logistics.

Every week on the way to school we’d pass a place called T.P. Crockmiers that had a sign out front. And every week I’d see the name “Hank Becker” on the sign. Sometimes my Uncle Dave’s (my dad’s younger brother) name too (much to my mother’s annoyance). Those names became landmarks.

Then one Friday as Im pouring over the entertainment section, there it was - Hank Becker was releasing a record he cut with legendary producer Johnny Sandlin. And up until that point in my life I had never identified with anything as much as I did that day.

So I did what any kid in my position would do.

I went to the phone book. I looked up Henry Stanley Becker on Overlook Road and I called him.

“Hello?”

“Hello, my name is Ben Jernigan. You may know my Uncle David Jernigan. I would like to get some guitar lessons from you.”

And off we went.

It was a week or two later that I showed up at Hank’s house after school on the day we had scheduled. As circumstances would have it - he forgot I was coming. I still remember ringing the doorbell and waiting. Minutes go by. Hank - pajama pants, bed hair, just wakin up at 4 in the afternoon - cracks the door like he’s answering a noise complaint.

“Can I help you?”

“Uh… hi… I’m Ben… I’m here for a guitar lesson.”

“OH! Right!”… he said in a friendly tone.. “come on in.”

We sat down and he warmly asked what kind of stuff I liked to play. Immediately, I started rattling off a list of music I was sure would impress this seasoned veteran of the road.

As I was running through this diatribe of my musical intellect Hank sat there listening as he picked up a shoebox, flipped the lid open, and started breaking up some marijuana and ever so casually began rolling a joint.

Friends - This was my first time ever seeing anything like that.

Not to be deterred - I continued on with whatever I was rambling about, sweat running down my back, completely convinced the police were about to kick down the door and my life would be over.

But Hank - laid back, the epitome of cool country boy, old Jewish sage, scholar of blues and Americana before Americana was cool - finished his task and leaned back to light this small offering of jazz cabbage, inhaled thoughtly, exhaled in a polite direction, picked up a guitar, and said -

“Check this out.”

And off we went.

He played records for me. He showed me things on guitar. He let me mess around with his guitars, pedals, amps - all of it. This “30 minute” lesson lasted hours. When it ended, I was shell shocked in the best way.

I remember I wrote him a check for the lesson to which he said, “See you next week?”

Are you kidding, I thought to myself.. I’d move in here if you’d let me.

Every week I would go back and just try and soak up whatever it was Hank wanted to talk about until one day he said..

“I don’t think you need any more of these lessons.”

It felt like a death sentence.

“What?!” I thought. Please no. This can’t be true.

But he quickly followed up..

“I think you need to just come out to one of my gigs and play with my band.”

Ladies and gentlemen, that was my Super Bowl. That was my winning the Publisher’s Clearing House moment. The balloon drop. The giant check. A real gig. In a real bar. With a real band.

So Friday came. I told my mom I was staying at a friend’s house and myself and this particular buddy showed up at Hank’s, loaded his van, and drove to the South end of Mobile County to a bar called Julie’s - run by two older women both named Julie, which already felt like a prophecy.

We loaded the gear onto a darkly lit, carpet covered excuse for a stage and were immediately marked with giant black X’s on the backs of our hands and instructed to stand in the corner by a bouncer who was obviously annoyed that we were there - probably in shorts - in my first bar, surveying the scene like I was on safari.

It was a normal bar gig. Twenty or thirty people. Barely paying attention. Two drunk girls playing making an effort to kind of intermittently dance. The band was working.

And there I stood waiting for Hank to point at me.

Finally he did - Welcoming me with a “Y’all give a hand to my buddy, Ben.” You would have thought someone shot me out of a cannon I was on stage so fast, plugging into Hank’s amp. We proceeded to play what was absolutely the most piss poor guitar offering that has ever been played in public from yours truly. of both the Allman Brothers’ “One Way Out” followed by the Grateful Dead’s version of “Lovelight” - (Lovelight was a song originally recorded by Bobby “Blue” Bland that featured a signature beat that was played by a legendary drummer and Mobile, Alabama native - John “Jabo” Starks)

But it was the greatest moment of my life.

Not because it was good.

Because it was real.

And then - because the universe loves irony - across the room behind the bar the two Julies (both clapping for me) started counting down in tandem

5… 4… 3… 2…

And on 1, they pulled out the first two sets of boobs I had ever seen on real live older women.

I got red as a fire truck and practically levitated back to my corner in the dark, barely able to process what I had just experienced, and I remember thinking -

“This rock & roll thing is for ME.”

On Monday nobody at high school could’ve understood what I’d been through. I walked around unsure what to do next, like I’d played Madison Square Garden.

Which is adorable in hindsight.

But Hank launched me. We played countless gigs. We opened for everybody from B.B. King to John Prine. We logged thousands of miles together that still live in my bones. But just like so many other musicians that never retire.. Hank got sick - terrible COPD - and eventually succumbed to it. But he taught me so much more than guitar.

My mother taught me to play piano.

Hank taught me to play music.

And without ever sitting me down and giving me a sermon, Hank taught me the first lesson in ego management - The song doesn’t care about your identity. If you make it about you, the whole thing dies.

——————————————————————————————————————

In an effort to finance this one big adventure I couldn’t stop chasing, I needed a job with a schedule that allowed me to keep playing.

In hindsight it may have looked strategic.

The real story is I woke up one day and wasn’t doing anything, couldn’t make anything come together but remembered a conversation with my cousin who told me he thought I’d be a good EMT, and I did what I always did when I didn’t know what to do..

I picked up the phone book.

I called around.

On the second or third call, a lady at a local junior college said, “If you come down here right now, we’re starting an EMT basic class tonight and we can probably get you in.”

So once again, in the blink of an eye, I made a life altering decision without really stopping to admire it. And one semester later, I was an EMT basic which led to working on ambulances which led to a second attempt at getting a degree.. and then the Mobile Fire Rescue Department’s fire academy.. and THEN flight medic on a helicopter. Twenty four hours on forty eight off.

Which meant more gigs.

I saw things in those years that none of my nineteen year old friends could relate to. All for six dollars an hour, but with a schedule that gave me oxygen to keep chasing music.

And my life became this weird rhythm that didn’t make sense to anybody, including myself - uniforms and sirens and actual emergencies… and then on my days off, guitars and dive bars and whatever stage would have me.

I wasn’t the best guitar player. I had no illusions of superstardom. I just liked playing and I liked being around people I thought were interesting - especially musicians who were great at their craft.

And everywhere I went, there was a name.

Col. Bruce Hampton.

Every band I admired credited him with influence - Aquarium Rescue Unit, Widespread Panic, Derek Trucks… the whole Southern constellation. In my head he was the South’s Frank Zappa. A shaman. An oracle. The man on the mountain.

I saw him with his band, The Codetalkers and I tried to talk to him outside the bar where they were playing on set break. It was pleasant enough, but I cringe thinking about it because I was doing what young hungry people do.. trying to offer something relevant, as if relevance was an admission ticket to being near someone you admired.

One random day a friend of mine who hosted a Sunday afternoon FM radio show called “Jams Plus” told me Bruce was coming in for a live interview, and asked if I wanted to come by and say hey.

Of course I did.

I showed up with the copy of Hittin’ the Note magazine rolled up under my arm because they had done a big article on him in that issue and I was thinking maybe he’d sign it, like I was collecting proof.

I walked into the studio, and Bruce - talking very animatedly - turned to me, pointed, and said it.

“April 12.”

(Side note - April 12 is my birthday.)

I was stunned. “What about it?”

“I believe you already know, sir.”

And off he went into a whole Age of Aquarius riff like we were old friends and I’d missed the meeting.

I sat there quietly, a few feet from this human being I’d built into a myth. They talked about the the state of music. Baseball. The movie Sling Blade. The usual questions. The usual answers. After the interview my friend introduced me formally and I handed him the magazine.

He signed it over his picture.

And as he was leaving, he pointed at me and told me he just knew the path we were on was going to lead us many memorable places.

At the time I took it as a nice thing a legendary guy says.

Years later, in my basement, holding that same magazine, I realized - that was so much more than just casual pleasantries.

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A significant portion of my youth - and then my adulthood - was spent trying to become friends with musicians I looked up to. I carried amps in New Orleans for artists like Gatemouth Brown. I drove older players [legends] like Jody Payne around. I cold called heroes, such as Jabo Starks, like it was my job.

A thousand lifetimes of scenes, one after another, all connected in ways I couldn’t see until I was older and (slightly) tired and finally willing to admit that maybe I wasn’t just “getting lucky.”

Maybe I was also being pulled.

And to keep pulling the thread, I started curating one off fundraising performances - concept shows, super jams, musicians from New Orleans or Nashville or Atlanta or wherever I’d wandered, all put together for charity.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I ran into a snag on one of these events - a sponsor backed out (a catastrophic situation for a firefighter/guitar player). Fortunately, a friend on the fire department heard about my predicament and reached out to a fellow Mobilian - Jake Peavy.

I wasn’t there when it happened, but I was told Jake just pulled out five thousand dollars and handed it over without thinking.

That kind of philanthropy - default generosity - became one of the defining things I came to know about Jake. The shirt-off-his-back type. And because of that moment, that event worked, and the next domino fell.

A few weeks later Jake won his second World Series as part of the San Francisco Giants becoming the only player (as I am told anyway) in the history of the MLB to wind back to back championships in opposing leagues. Jake was a superstar. A week later my phone rang and it was his brother calling to ask if I would help put together a homecoming party.

I said yes.

And off we went.

What we pulled together was REALLY something. We threw a multi day event at Jake’s ranch - a place so absurd it felt like a movie set - complete with a lodge, saloon, bowling alley, waterfall, and a baseball field replica of Fenway with the Green Monster sitting out in the middle of nowhere like some giant prank.

Rockstars. Athletes. Local musicians. Regional musicians. Family. Friends. It didn’t make sense. It was incredible. There were late night jam sessions and much raucous fellowship. However, the real takeaway from the weekend was I learned Jake liked to play guitar. He loved music. He loved all the stories that surrounded a song. And just like me, he really liked being close to it.

One of the strangest, sweetest parts of that weekend was my interaction with a woman named Jules Marvin - also lovingly referred to as Mama Jules. Jules had been in Jake’s life since his earliest days in the big leagues. Her partner - who had passed away - was Jake’s first pitching coach. Following his passing, Jake made sure Mama Jules was always taken care of and a part of the crew.

She kept calling me “Woodpecker.”

I laughed it off at first. I was being called all kinds of names that weekend. But every time I bumped into her, she said it again.

“How ya doin, Woodpecker.”

Finally I asked, “Why do you keep calling me that?”

And to that she said, like it was obvious, “Because it’s your spirit animal, silly.”

(Aw, hell.. here we go, I thought to myself)

“But how do you know that?” I asked.

“It’s in your eyes,” she said.

I took off my glasses and asked for a do over because even though I had never heard of this sort of thing I immediately hoped for something more a tad more macho. She laughed and said she’d send me a page from her book.

A few days later she texted me a description - persistence, determination, digging beneath the surface, self-reliance, stubbornness, repetitiveness.

Woodpecker….

[END OF SIDE A]

If you’re reading this like a record: that’s the needle lift.

Side B starts with the text message that (unfortunately) turned out to be accurate.