Bruce Hampton

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Bruce Hampton (born Gustov Berglund III in 1947) is a surrealist American musician and founding member of Atlanta, Georgia's avant-garde Hampton Grease Band in the late 1960s. Adopting the moniker "Colonel Bruce Hampton, Retired" and often playing a sort of dwarf guitar called a "chazoid", he later formed several other bands, including the Late Bronze Age, Aquarium Rescue Unit, Fiji Mariners, and his recent project known as Col. Bruce and The Quark Alliance.

As a member of the Hampton Grease Band, he helped record the 1971 album Music to Eat, said to have been the second-worst-selling album in Columbia Records history.^[1] Hampton and his bands were frequent participants of the seminal H.O.R.D.E. tours throughout the 1990s—the best-known is the jazz-rock outfit Aquarium Rescue Unit, which featured improvisational music all-stars Oteil Burbridge, Jimmy Herring, Rev. Jeff Mosier, Matt Mundy, and Jeff Sipe. Hampton plays a character based on himself in Billy Bob Thornton's 1996 film Sling Blade, and also appears in Mike Gordon's 2001 film Outside Out.^[2]^[3] Basically Frightened, a film chronicling Hampton's career, is expected in 2007.

[edit] Discography

1971 - Music to Eat - Hampton Grease Band
1978 - One Ruined Life of a Bronze Tourist - Col. Bruce Hampton
1980 - Outside Looking Out - Col. Bruce Hampton and the Late Bronze Age
1982 - Isles of Langerhan - Col. Bruce Hampton and the Late Bronze Age
1984 - Arkansas - Col. Bruce Hampton
1992 - Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit - Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit
1993 - Mirrors of Embarrassment - Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit
1994 - Strange Voices: A History 1977-1987 - Col. Bruce Hampton
1996 - Fiji Mariners - Fiji Mariners Featuring Col. Bruce Hampton
1998 - Live - Fiji Mariners Featuring Col. Bruce Hampton
2004 - Deluxe Edition - The Codetalkers Feat. Col. Bruce Hampton