Atlanta, Georgia was in some weird adolescent state in the seventies--somewhere between sleepy southern city and regional mecca and mess it was to become. It had survived the worst of the rage and anguish of the sixties and was emerging with its own cheesy southern-fried version of the summer of love. There was about a three-year gap between happenings on the Left Coast and the scrambled echo that eventually resonated in Atlanta. There had been free concerts in Piedmont Park that featured the Allman Brothers from Macon, and local bands like The River People, Radar, and The Hampton Grease Band in 1970. Around that time you could drive down to the strip and buy some pretty weak pot from Mexico or a capsule filled with God-knows-what, being hawked as mescalin, psylociben, or LSD. FM radio had not yet been coralled by corporate media conglomarates and local jockeys were playing weirdness from all over, including local music. The Great Speckled Bird wrote about the bubbling creative/political stew, and this all made for a pretty interesting place for kids just out of high-school and into the purgatory between college and the draft.

I had been called to do some sessions at Pete Drake's Studio Bee in Nashville with Joe South. While up there, Pete talked me into moving to Nashville. It lasted about nine months. I was sleeping in the closet of a shared efficiency apartment and spent weekdays hanging around the studio waiting for a chance to sing or play bass. The weekend would come and there would be absolutely nothing happening for me so I would drive down to Atlanta on Friday night to close down the Place on Paces and crash with friends, then drive back to Nashville on Sunday or Monday. This continued until my car died at Crestwood Apartments in Atlanta. I was back in town and pretty bored.

My brother Britt was involved with some people who were putting together a party at the funky old Egyptian Ballroom at the Fox Theater which was slated for demolition soon. I talked him into letting me put together a band for the party. I got hold of Steve Wofford and Bruce Baxter from Fletcher and the Piedmonts, a really great roots rock and roll band, and recruited them for the venture. They enlisted Steve Marsh and Richy Height to help.

At the first rehearsal/meeting I declared I was bored out of my mind with the lame glitter and hair band shit that was currently playing on the radio and my response was to paint myself green and call myself Thermos Greenwood. Without a missing a beat they said, "We'll paint ourselves too and be the Colored People." Submitted by Thermos 07/21/08 <back to stories>