On May 1, 2017, Col. Bruce Hampton celebrated his 70th birthday at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. Bruce’s enormously talented musical family—including John Bell, Dave Schools, Jon Fishman, Warren Haynes, Karl Denson, Jimmy Herring, Chuck Leavell, John Popper, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Brandon “TAZ” Niederauer and so many more–came out to pay their respects to a the jam scene elder statesman. The event quickly sold out, thousands packed the theatre, then the unthinkable happened.
From the almost overwhelming musical star power featured throughout the night to the stranger-than-fiction manner in which the evening ended, Hampton 70 instantly became one of the most meaningful, beautiful, tragic, stupefying rock concerts that has ever occurred. Until the end of time, people will talk about the night that Colonel Bruce Hampton gathered the best and the brightest for one final, incredible performance, and left it all on the stage. An iconic occurrence on the timeline of music history. A truly legendary send-off.
Stranger Than Fiction: The Cosmic Curtain Call Of Col. Bruce Hampton
Singer/songwriter Todd Snider was one of the artists that performed at Hampton 70. In preparation for his upcoming album, Cash Cabin Sessions, Vol. 3—due out March 15th—Snider has released an instrumental bonus track entitled “The Legend of Col. Bruce Hampton, Ret.”. The song was recorded in October of last year at Cash Cabin Studio in Tennessee, where Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash recorded most of their later music.
Snider described “The Legend of Col. Bruce Hampton, Ret.” in a poem:
some day duane trucks will make a comprehensive documentary about the church of zambi
its origins, its mysterious rituals, its cosmic giggle
and its grand imagineer the legendary col. bruce hampton retired
until then we have only this ballad
to help shed some understanding on the long and complicated story
that was the life and death of a comet.
You can listen to “The Legend of Col. Bruce Hampton, Ret.” and download it here.
Todd Snider isn’t the only artist to release a song about Col. Bruce Hampton this month, as Tedeschi Trucks Band‘s final track on their newly released SIGNS also tells the story of “The Ending”. The influence of Col. Bruce Hampton extends far beyond the music world and into the intergalactic blast-off that exists beyond our comprehension. Keep an ear out for more from Col. Bruce Hampton because he’s certainly not finished communicating with us through music.
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