"When we first started this, we'd all been in bands playing this music that we weren't too excited about. I was in a band, and we had this producer. His real line was 'Record these songs and in six months you'll be farting through silk' There were songs we didn't like. It was commercial kind of crap. ⁠

We got together in Jacksonville and started jamming. Just experimenting, going in all these directions, just stretching the limits of what we'd learned. We got together the best players we could find in the area, people that could get out and stretch the limits a bit. We started having fun with it. ⁠

As the band fell together, Jaimoe turned us on to people like John Coltrane and Miles Davis. I'd kind of grown up with a classical background and Duane and Gregg with the blues. Plus, my background was gospel. But then with Dickey with the blues and the country background, it all kind of melded. ⁠

That first year or two, all we listened to was Miles and Trane and people like that in the jazz idiom. We started trying to bring that element into what we were doing, putting more of the jazz spontaneity in structure, or lack of structure into what we were doing. I think that's the unique element we added, that, with that passion we had for playing." Butch Trucks 📷Twiggs