RST – Do you remember when you first met Frank Zappa?
CBH – Yes, I met Frank in New York. I had no idea who he was. It was the mid-sixties; he had just gotten there from LA. I was at a place called The Tin Angel on Bleeker Street, which was across the street from the Garrick Theater, and in he walked, and I just said, ‘what a weird poot that guy is.’ I mean, this guy had long hair down to his knees. I had never seen anything like that coming from the South in the sixties.
He was just, you know freaked out looking. I looked at him, but I didn’t say anything, I was just like, ‘that guy is poofed out.’ I mean I really didn’t like him. I was in the Blues Police or the Jazz Police at the time. I wasn’t open to any weirdness at all. It had to be avant garde, or it had to be blues or R+B. So then the next day I was at another place on Bleeker Street called the Dugout, I think it’s still there. You know, a sandwich place, or a bar, and we were eatin’. He came in again at about the same time, ‘round noon or something. I was talking to my friend. I was talking about a Polish composer named Krysztof Penderecki, and he heard me, and he went, “Penderecki?!” And I turned to him and said, ‘yeah, do you know who he is?’ And he goes, “yeah, very well, I have all of his stuff.” He sort of invited us to his house, and we came over. We ended up hanging out every day for about a week or so. We went to his shows, and the first show I heard I really didn’t like it at all. I just didn’t like it a bit. The second show I went to, I thought, ‘man this guy is putting Stravinsky to rock n’ roll. He’s truly mixing classical music and every influence there is.’ I really, really liked it the second time I went and I was more open. The musicianship and the whole thing was just amazing. Frank was such a gentleman it was unbelievable. It actually fried me that anybody could be that gentlemanly. I didn’t know that people could be that nice. He wasn’t anybody at the time, he had no name. I haven’t told this story to many people, but one time we were walking through Washington Square Park, and there was this girl crying. He went twenty feet out of his way, and went over there to this 18 year old girl and cheered her up, spent ten minutes with her, had no idea who she was. In New York no one will ever do that for anyone. And I just said, ‘what an amazing guy.’ And then we went out one night to hear Jimi Hendrix, and he was supposed to be on the guest list, and he wasn’t, and he never used his ego and insist that he should have been on the guest list or anything. He just paid for himself and me to get in and never said a word. He just always showed class all the time. He was a big inspiration to me as a person more than anything else. He always helped me quite a bit. If I had an album out, he would play it on radio stations for me. Especially the album “One Ruined Life Of A Bronze Tourist.” He took that to many, many radio stations, and helped me quite a bit.
RST – That was The Late Bronze Band?
CBH – No, that was my own album. It was Hampton B. Coles, I think it’s under Col. Bruce Hampton now. They’re re-releasing it July. “One Ruined Life Of A Bronze Tourist” is the name of it.
RST – What record label will it be re-released on?
CBH – It’s on Terminus Records.
RST – OK.
CBH – The guy was nothing but a class gentleman. I really sort of lost touch after about 1980, I only saw him one or two more times. But during the sixties and seventies I stayed very tight with him. I got to do cameo appearances on “We’re Only In It For The Money,” and “Lumpy Gravy.” He was just a class, class cat. I wish the world were full with him. He was just amazing, what did he do 50 albums, and he had four kids? I mean, my God! (laughs) An amazing cat to say the least. He never ran out of energy, man!
RST – And what a guy to see Hendrix with!
CBH – Yeah, that’s true. We saw Hendrix stick his guitar up through the roof. His guitar was moving back and forth with the strings hittin’ it. It was quite amazing. I had no idea who the guy was, and Frank took me to see him. He was in a little club; it was called The Dom. Richie Havens was the closer, and Hendrix was the opener, it started at seven in the evening, and Richie came on at about nine o’clock. It was like a dollar and a quarter. And another funny story, since we’re telling war stories, is about Miles Davis. I guess it was about 1968 when Miles Davis was ah….right in the period where jazz was truly dead, nobody was going to see him, and “Bitches Brew” was out. One Sunday night we went to the Café A Go-Go, it was like a buck to get in. You had to buy two drinks. He had everybody I wanted to see Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett or Herbie Hancock was in the band. I couldn’t wait. Then they announced that a comedian was coming on and I got really upset. I didn’t want to see any comedian. It turned out to be Richard Pryor, and it was his first New York show. After that, I didn’t want to see Miles Davis or anybody. Back then nobody knew what a comedian was; there was no such thing. They would just send some guy from the “Borsch Belt” or something. You didn’t want to see comedians. But Richard Pryor in the late sixties, that was it too (laughs).
RST – He would work the whole stage, and he was pretty explosive I’ve heard.
CBH – UN-BELIEVABLE, is the only word I can say. That was still the greatest I’ve ever seen, for comedy, although Chris Rock is great today. It was unheard of what Pryor was doing at the time, I mean he broke ground. You know what’s also funny as hell, I’m sitting’ here looking at a paper and the headline says, “Unrest in Fiji!”
RST – How about Duane Allman?
CBH – Without Duane, I probably wouldn’t be in the business. I owe that guy everything. He got us the record deal, the Pop Festival, the Fillmore East gigs, and was always an inspiration. I guess we played with the original Allman Brothers a good 15-20 times. He took the Hampton Grease Band to Capricorn Records and saw to it that we got the record deal.
(RST note – I have since learned that when Duane was so impressed with the Hampton Grease Band that he compelled Bill Graham to book them, which resulted in HGB opening for Frank Zappa at Fillmore East in 1971)
RST – What was Duane like off-stage?
CBH – He was just a nice, quiet gentleman. I hung out and talked with him, mostly about Blind Willie McTell. He played with the Isley Brothers and Little Richard in the mid-sixties. Duane actually got fired by Little Richard here in the mid-sixties for out-dressing him.
RST – How much would he get to actually take solos back then?
CBH – Not really much, he’d take a couple. He wasn’t the Duane Allman that he would later become. I couldn’t even recognize him when I went to New York and saw him years later. By that time he was on fire, he had really become an amazing player. I owe Duane Allman and Frank Zappa a lot, they both older brothers to me. Just amazing people to say the least. I wish Duane had lived, it would’ve been a different world for The Allmans. He was just finding his own self. He was just coming into who he was. He was gonna revolutionize a lot of stuff.
RST – You would have to wonder what he would think that his band is still popular today.
CBH – Well, they’re pure man; they’re pure as hell. I guess you’ve heard the news that Jimmy is taking Dickey’s place.
RST – uh-huh.
CBH – OK, what was the next question.
(RST note to ABB fans – I got the impression Bruce didn’t want to discuss this matter, my apologies)
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