Swampland.com

Shootin’ The Camel on the Top of the Mountain

Part One

The primary goal for the weekend was to shoot the camel on the top of the mountain.

Well, that, and to hand deliver finished copies of the Scott Boyer Florence Benefit to several of our friends in Alabama.

Dave Peck and his wife Peggy shot video on both the Florence benefit for Boyer and the second one in Birmingham. Dave recently completed the edit on the Florence/Muscle Shoals show.

Our plan was a simple one, but you know what they say about the "best laid plans of mice and camels."

I drove back down to Macon on Wednesday so Dave and I could finalize our battle plan, and leave out early on Thursday on a Big Adventure Pee Wee Herman would be envious of..

We took off on Thursday, listening to some Outlaws music on the CD player. We hit I-20 through Atlanta toward Birmingham. It was a beautiful day, and the driving was easy.

In Birmingham, we stopped at a Kinkos to finish printing the liner notes together. That was quite an experience. The staff at that Kinkos was great and really helpful. We also met some Rastafarian musicians who have a reggae band, who handed off their CD to us. Unfortunately, the CD was.... well... don’t look for a review in GRITZ.

We went to the hospital, where our friend Carl Weaver had been for several days, having some tests run, and waiting patiently for the moment when he could get sprung.

Carl Weaver is the owner and founder of Rockin’ Camel Music, based in Gadsden, Alabama, a young record company he owns with legendary Capricorn Records producer Johnny "The Duck" Sandlin. Rockin’ Camel has a great roster, including The Capricorn Rhythm Section, Bonnie Bramlett, Microwave Dave and The Nukes, Danny Brooks, Jimmy Hall, and most recently, Cowboy, who are reforming to record and all new record.

We got up to Carl’s room, and he was sitting up, smiling. He had the laptop open on the bed beside him, and the cell phone. Carl was working. As usual.

We delivered Dave' s video to Carl, sat down and had a visit. Pretty soon, Carl’s sister and mother showed up, and it was an added treat for us to meet and chat with the ladies. Carl had us in stitches with his wit and jokes. We gave him a get well card, and it must have worked, because he was out of the hospital the next day.

After an hour and a half visit, it was time to leave Carl and head for Decatur, Alabama. We were in the wind.

Now, I am lucky. I have a lot of friends in Alabama these days. I had planned on dropping in on John D. "Sailcat" Wyker for a visit, but time and fate kept us from meeting this trip. I thought of trying to see Billy Teichmiller and Owen Brown and all the Crawlers guys in Huntsville, or Sonny Edwards. Time was moving far to quickly.

We arrived at our next delivery destination Thursday night. The home of one of my true musical heroes. Legendary Capricorn Records producer Johnny Sandlin. A man with a resume any Southern Rocker would simply drool over.

We visited for a long time with Johnny and his lovely wife Ann. Johnny’s Duck Tape Studio is there at his house, and Peck and I were simply enamored with all of the platinum and gold record awards from his Allman Brothers and other work, and all the great photos on the wall of Duane Allman, Bonnie Bramlett, Eddie Hinton - so many great pieces.

It was great seeing Johnny and Ann again. Ann took us into a room where she keeps her crystal collection, and showed us all of these great crystal skulls, and various stones and artifacts and healing tools, tuning forks, and various items. It was interesting for me to learn that Ann is a healer, and she actually performed a bit of Reiki on me.

In a bit, we went back into the studio for a special treat. Johnny played us tracks from Bonnie Bramlett’s upcoming album. Just allow me to say, "wow." Every song is a winner. The title track, a song called "Beautiful," is one of the prettiest tunes I have heard, ever. "Some of My Best Friends are Black" is a great, thought provoking song, and her updated cover of Stephen Stills’ "For What it’s Worth" rocks. Sandlin also played us a Christmas song Bonnie recorded. It was great.

We had a great time talking about the good ol’ days, Eddie Hinton, Duane and Capricorn. After a fun visit, we were off to the Comfort Inn for a restful night in Decatur. Thank you Johnny!

The next morning we took off for Muscle Shoals. Well, Killen, actually. We drove straight over to the home of my friend Dick Cooper. Now, Dick has a real musical legacy, having worked on two Bob Dylan albums, worked with Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eddie Hinton, and most recently The Drive By Truckers. Cooper was also the promoter behind the two Boyer benefits, and we wanted to deliver DVDs to him as well.

Our visit with Cooper was a blast. We sat outside his home, surrounded by plants of all types, talking and drinking bottled water. We later went inside Cooper’s house for a tour. He has some great antiques from the Civil War era with really interesting history worthy repeating in a book at some point. I hope Dick does that. He’s quite a writer as well.

After watching a little of the video with Dick, we all went over to Scott Boyer’s house, which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Cooper’s. Dick had to head out and we said our goodbyes, then we sat down with the Cowboy front man for a nice interview for GRITZ. It was great seeing Scott feeling better after all he has been through recently with his health. There was no shortage of entertainment during the visit, as Boyer’s baby beagle, Rusty, was getting into everything and jumping all around as puppies do. What a cute doggie.

We were faced with a decision. Our original plan was to make it back to Macon, Georgia for the Marc Ford concert that night. Apparently, that wasn’t going to happen. We had been invited by Dick Cooper to come see The Drive By Truckers in Birmingham, and Scott had invited us to a jam he was doing with Kelvin Holly, David Hood, Donnie Fritts and more. Wow. It was so hard to turn down all of the offers, but we had to. We had to shoot the camel on the top of the mountain.

Keep it Real. Keep it Southern.

Buffalo

Photos by Dave Peck and Michael Buffalo Smith