The Living Bubba

I didn’t know either of Greg’s wives, and have still never met his son. I know he loved him, because folks who knew him better said so, and I certainly never saw any hint of a guy who would ever feel otherwise. But I was just a hired soundman with a beer and a joint. I was the guy you tell to turn up your monitor, someone who you might talk about a rock record with. Not someone you confide in or share your personal feelings with. Greg wasn’t that type anyway, and he just didn’t know me that well.

The next to last time he ever played the High Hat, he was feeling a little better and was “on” as shit. He played one of the most amazing rock shows I have ever seen in a small club (and Lord knows that’s where the best rock shows live). He and his band were all obviously having a great time. I was thrilled I’d thought to bring my boombox so I could at least get a good room tape of the show. Unfortunately, the boombox was very old and decided to crap out and eat my tape that night, so the show only lives in my memory (which is probably alright anyway).

Three weeks later he returned, but it was all different then. He looked 90 years old, and his weight had fallen to well below 100 pounds. Death was definitely closing in on him and he knew it. As we were smoking upstairs, he suddenly looked me square in the eyes and said, “You know, I’m dying, man.” “Yeah,” I said. There wasn’t really anything else to say, but I guess he just needed to verbally acknowledge it.

I did manage to get that night’s show on tape, and it’s one of my prize possessions. Technically, it wasn’t nearly the equal of the one that got away. The show was, however, even more miraculous, given his deteriorating condition. After the show, Greg went ahead and booked the band for another show the next month. He also asked me if I wanted to open for him at a show in Atlanta.

Later, after Greg’s death, another member of “The Redneck Underground,” Redneck Greece compiled a CD of Greg’s songs (Bubbapalooza Volume 2). Most were covered by other people, as Greg didn’t get to record nearly enough during his too short life. They did use one of my “boombox recordings” (Smalley’s gnarly “State of Co-Dependency”) from that evening.

I was still in the process of putting together my band, Drive-By Truckers (our first show was still three months away), and I was picking up gigs whenever and wherever I could with a band called The Possibilities. They had been together for years by that time, and would sometimes, as a side project, back me up on my own songs under the name The Lot Lizards. (Lot Lizard is trucker slang for a prostitute who sometimes frequents truck stops and rest areas, providing her service for lonely truckers).