The Hampton Grease Band was an American rock band, beginning as a blues-rock

Blues-rock

Blues rock is a hybrid musical genre combining bluesy improvisations over the 12-bar blues and extended boogie jams with rock and roll styles. The core of the blues rock sound is created by the electric guitar, piano, bass guitar and drum kit, with the electric guitar usually amplified through a...

 group in the late 1960s in Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

. They performed with several major bands in this period, including Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

 and the Allman Brothers. The band gained a reputation for wacky stage antics, and eventually garnered enough attention to sign to Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

. They recorded a double album, Music to Eat

Music to Eat

Music to Eat is the only album ever produced by avant garde rock band Hampton Grease Band. It was released in 1971.-Track listing:# "Halifax" – 19:39# "Maria" – 5:30# "Six" – 19:29# "Evans" – 12:28# "Lawton" – 7:48...

, which is apocryphally said to have been the second-lowest selling album in Columbia's history, second only to a Maharishi Mahesh yoga instructional record. This record compares with the likes of Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, and Pere Ubu.

The band then signed to Frank Zappa

Frank Zappa

Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...

's Bizarre/Straight label, but broke up in 1973. Several of the members went on to more renowned music careers, including Glenn Phillips

Glenn Phillips

Glenn Phillips is a guitarist and composer with a dozen albums released under his own name. He has also played on many other recordings, including those by his first group, the obscure Hampton Grease Band....

' solo work and Bruce Hampton

Bruce Hampton

Bruce Hampton is a surrealist American musician. In the late 1960s he was a founding member of Atlanta, Georgia's avant-garde Hampton Grease Band...

's work with the Aquarium Rescue Unit

Aquarium Rescue Unit

Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit is an experimental rock group originally founded by Col. Bruce Hampton. The band gained popularity in the Atlanta club scene in the early 1990s and went on to tour with the first H.O.R.D.E. Tour. During the initial years, the band was composed of...

. Sam Whiteside was also the road manager for a short time and designed the cover art and most of the artwork on the inside of their album Music to Eat. Music to Eat gained a significant cult following, and was re-released on CD in 1996 with several minutes of additional material that had been edited off the vinyl release.

Lead guitarist Harold Kelling died in May, 2005.

The Hampton Grease Band held their first reunion concert on June 2, 2006, at the Variety Playhouse

Variety Playhouse

Variety Playhouse is a music venue in the Little Five Points neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It is located on Euclid Avenue and features a variety of music acts including rock, country, folk, bluegrass, jazz, blues and world music as well as other live shows.-Details:The building...

 in Little 5 Points, a commercial area in Atlanta, Georgia. They played the Music to Eat album but also played some covers

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 in their two encores, including "Rock Around the Clock

Rock Around the Clock

"Rock Around the Clock" is a 12-bar-blues-based song written by Max C. Freedman and James E. Myers in 1952. The best-known and most successful rendition was recorded by Bill Haley and His Comets in 1954...

".

Band members

• Jerry Fields - percussion, vocals
• Bruce Hampton
  Bruce Hampton
  Bruce Hampton is a surrealist American musician. In the late 1960s he was a founding member of Atlanta, Georgia's avant-garde Hampton Grease Band...
  
    - vocals, trumpet
• Mike Holbrook - bass
• Harold Kelling - guitar, vocals
• Glenn Phillips
  Glenn Phillips
  Glenn Phillips is a guitarist and composer with a dozen albums released under his own name. He has also played on many other recordings, including those by his first group, the obscure Hampton Grease Band....
  
  - guitar, saxophone