Col. Bruce Hampton Ret. (Live)

I got this song I'd love to try on you It was based on a thing I heard Jerry Jeff Walker say But when we were talking, I called him and I asked him what he meant And when he told me, I knew that he was sick But I didn't know how close, you know? Very close But when I was working I, the reason I was asking him was 'cause I had a song I was working on About another, er, legend named Colonel Bruce Hampton, retired And he had just, er, passed away in the most fantastic way He, he er, started a band called The John Hampton Grease Band, when he was really young And in the first interview he ever did for that band They asked him what his goal in life was And he said he wanted to make grease And they said, "What's that even mean?" He said, "I wanna die on stage, while I'm singing my music" And then, many years later, on the eve of his 70th birthday, last line of the last song He dropped dead in front of seven-thousand people It was amazing thing to behold Brian and I were both there He had this religion, it was his 70th birthday party And he had invented this religion called the Zambi religion That was the religion of the travelling musician And there was all these big, famous musicians there that night That were gonna jam with him And they all, there was a pre-show song that he had taught everybody in the Southern Rock World To sing before they go on I can't show it to you or sing it to you, 'cause it's a sacred thing But that night I couldn't believe how many people knew that song And right before the show, everybody gathered and sang it And I thought, man, this is a deep, long historic thing I'm part of right now And er, I asked him one time what the Zambi religion was And he said it was based on this cat that he had gone, er, to high-school with That had aced the SATs and was the valedictorian of his class And he decided that what he wanted to do with his future Was set the record for driving a car backward, faster than anyone had ever done that before And he didn't set the record, but he broke a lot of bones in his body And then John Hampton would say "And if you can't see the genius in that, maybe the Zambi religion isn't for you" I've made this up for him, but I guess I also do it for Jerry Jeff Walker, who said-