Capricorn Experience

This show is OUT OF SERIES. Reserved Seating only. No tables, coolers or carry-ins.

Capricorn Experience featuring Chuck Leavell with the Randall Bramblett Band, Wet Willie, Cowboy, Col. Bruce Hampton & Paul Hornsby.

Chuck Leavell has been pleasing the ears of music fans for more than 30 years now. His piano and keyboard work has been heard on the works of Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, The Black Crowes, George Harrison, The Allman Brothers Band, The Indigo Girls, Blues Traveler, Train, Montgomery-Gentry, Lee Ann Womack and many, many more. In addition to being a well established pianist/artist in the music industry, Leavell is also a published author, long time tree farmer, co-founder of the popular website The Mother Nature Network, and keeps busy with his advocacy work on behalf of the environment.

Randall Bramblett has kept great company over the years. From his early career with Capricorn Records in bands like Cowboy, Gregg Allman and, Sea Level to his more recent tours with Widespread Panic, Traffic and Steve Winwood, he has worked with the best in the business.
Randall’s solo career began in the mid ‘70s with albums on Polydor Records and has continued to the present with his releases on Capricorn and New West Records. His talent as a songwriter is well documented and his songs have been recorded by folks like Bonnie Raitt, Widespread Panic, Jorma Kaukonen, Bonnie Bramlett, Delbert McClinton and more. Randall has also been sought after as a side musician. His multi-instrumentalist skills landed him on the speed dial of some of the greatest names in rock history, including Steve Winwood (16 yrs) Levon Helm, and Bonnie Raitt. His live performances confirm what the Allman Brothers, Widespread Panic, REM and others have attested to – Bramblett is one of the finest southern rock/soul players, ever.

Wet Willie, after The Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd, was the hardest-rocking of the Southern bands to come to national attention in the early ’70s. For seven years, from 1971 until 1978, they produced an enviable array of albums awash in good-time music, rollicking high-energy blues-rock, and white Southern soul. The band had a Top Ten hit with “Keep On Smilin’” and several other chart toppers, including “Weekend,” “Airport” and “Dixie Rock,” and a lot of admirers. In contrast to The Allman Brothers Band, Wet Willie was a band closer in spirit to Booker T. & the MG’s, much more steeped in sweaty, good-time R&B than the blues-rock of the label-mates The Allman Brothers Band or the country-rock of the Marshall Tucker Band. In 1996, Wet Willie was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and, in March of 2001, the band was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.

While not exactly the house band for Phil Walden’s Macon, GA-based Capricorn Records label, the members of the acoustic aggregate Cowboy — consisting of Scott Boyer (guitars/violin/vocals), Tommy Talton (guitars/vocals), Bill Pillmore (piano/guitar/fiddle/vocals), Tomm Wynn (drums/percussion), George Clark (bass), and Pete Kowalke (guitars/vocals/drums) — could be found on recordings by the Allman Brothers Band, Gregg Allman (whom they regularly supported), Alex Taylor, and Bonnie Bramlett. Their debut “Reach for the Sky” (1970) amply shows off their rural whimsy and substantial acoustic capacities. While their country-rock leanings are comparable to the Hearts & Flowers, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, or Pure Prairie League, they rely on their solid original material rather than adaptations and variations on traditional works and standards from the genre. After touring in support of Gregg Allman, only Scott Boyer and Tommy Talton remained of the original band. The release of “Boyer & Talton”(1974), still using the Cowboy moniker, proves justified, as this record is a natural progression from “5′ll Getcha Ten” (1971) and a compilation LP “Why Quit When Your Loosing” (1973). Utilizing a crack support band made up of musicians in the Capricorn corral, Boyer & Talton deliver the goods and then some. From the opening “Patch & Pain Killer” right on through to the close, “Houston,” this Cowboy outfit rock and soul with just the right amount of smooth Southern charm to grab hold of and keep your listening attention. Possibly this band’s finest hour until the release of their self titled LP “Cowboy” (1977).

Col. Bruce Hampton may well be the single most important figure in the history of rock music in Atlanta. And yet he will talk about failure until he throws up his hands in defeat and succumbs to a fit of laughter. He talks about his first band in high school, and how he’d get onstage and jump around like a madman, and about how he got so crazed during one school dance that the chaperones turned the lights on and told everyone — especially the band — to go home. You want failure? He helped form the first significant rock group in Atlanta, the Hampton Grease Band, in 1968. Before long, they were playing free concerts in Piedmont Park with the Allman Brothers Band and eventually signed a deal with Columbia Records. Their first, and only, album — 1971′s Music to Eat — became infamously known as the label’s second-worst-selling release in history — just above a spoken-word yoga record.

Failure? Try living out of your car during the 1980s because your music isn’t earning you a living, even when one of your albums is being lauded on the front page of the arts section of the New York Times. Col. Bruce added it up once — he made approximately $28,000 … the entire decade. The Colonel shares those experiences because he wants to remind me that we all fail. In fact, he encourages failure. Failure is not only a teacher; it denotes that something meaningful was attempted. His eyes are piercing, and his voice reassuring. “It’s OK to fail, man,” he says, “if you’re reaching for the impossible.”

Paul Hornsby is represented in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame and the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. He was a member of The Allman Joys and Hour Glass. Both bands were early versions of the Allman Brothers. He also remains active with his Muscadine Recording Studio in Macon, GA.

Website: http://www.randallbramblett.com

Additional Website: http://www.wetwilliemusic.com

Additional Website: http://www.facebook.com/Cowboy.Boyer.Talton