Col. Bruce Hampton (Ret): The Daddy of Us All

He came out on the road with us for a while. The best compliment I ever was paid, Allen said, "The Allman Brothers are crazy, but y'all are for real! He said "Y'all don't have to try! It was funny as hell. I miss that cat a lot man.

Tell me what "Zambee" is.

Wow. If you can explain "life and jazz," I'll explain it! In 1974, I met a gentleman who was a sound man, and his name was Zambee. It's an actual person. And he went 250-thousand miles an hour backwards on the Skylab program. 1300 g's backwards, which is impossible. It broke every bone in his body. He's the fastest man ever, backwards. In 1979-80, we tried to open a Zambeeland theme park in Georgia. It was an absurdity, but I actually started getting some momentum. Then in 1980 we had a Zambeeland Orchestra for one gig, dedicated to Zambee. Then Aquarium Rescue Unit came along later, in 1990 or so, and we always praised Zambee, He was our spiritual leader, our mascot you might say. He's also the world's fastest man, backwards. You know Chauncey Gardner, in the movie Being There?

That's one of my all time favorites.

What's weird as hell is in 1980 when it came out, I went to the theatre with him, and I said "Zambee, that's you!" He looks like him, talks like him, walks like him. Peter Sellers as Chauncey Gardner is Zambee. When it finished I said I'm not leaving. I've got to sit through this again. It's a masterpiece. So we sat. And I noticed the black kid in the movie, and I said "Who the hell is that black kid?" Seven years later, that black kid in Being There turns out to be O'teil Burbridge! He said "If you see that honky, tell him I'm gonna cut his ass." It was O'teil. The odds of that are 45-billion to one. So seven years later, I'm sitting there explaining Zambee to him, and he lays it on me that he was in the movie. That's just too crazy. O'Teil had a talk show on NBC called "Stuff." He was on every Saturday morning. He interviewed people like Kareem Abdul Jabar. He was also a ballet dancer, and did a lot of commercials and movies when he was a teenager. He was a drummer first, and didn't pick up a bass until he

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