Blending the hallucinatory sprawl of the Allman Brothers with the groove-driven sprawl of the Grateful Dead and a hint of Commander Cody’s twang, Col. Bruce Hampton and his rotating ensembles—most notably the Aquarium Rescue Unit—helped shape the jam-band wave that rolled across the United States from the early 1990s onward. Born in Atlanta, Hampton had already carved out a singular presence on the Southern club circuit since the early 1960s; under the name Hampton Grease Band he issued the Columbia Records album Music to Eat in 1969. Once that group dissolved, he issued the solo album One Ruined Life of a Bronze Tourist in 1978 before assembling New Ice Age, which soon morphed into the Late Bronze Age. That outfit delivered Outside Looking Out in 1980 and Isles of Langerhan in 1982. Hampton cut a second solo set, Arkansas, in 1984; by 1987 the Late Bronze Age had called it quits.
He next assembled the Aquarium Rescue Unit, a freewheeling collective equally fluent in country-swing jazz, high-voltage Southern boogie, and turbocharged gospel bluegrass. When Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit appeared in 1992, the lineup included bassist and vocalist Oteil Burbridge, guitarist Jimmy Herring, electric mandolinist and singer Matt Mundy, and drummer Apt. Q258; the release captured a live performance from the preceding September. The band’s debut studio effort, Mirrors of Embarrassment, surfaced in mid-1993 at the same moment the group joined the H.O.R.D.E. tour. Shortly afterward Hampton departed, yet the Aquarium Rescue Unit kept touring and recording, issuing In a Perfect World in 1996.
Hampton compiled the retrospective Strange Voices: A History 1977-1987 in 1994 and promptly launched Fiji Mariners, which released its self-titled LP in 1996. That same year he made his screen debut as Morris in Billy Bob Thornton’s Sling Blade. The Fiji Mariners spent the following years on the road, resulting in the live document Live in 1998. The ensemble toured steadily until May 1999, when it disbanded. During the subsequent break Hampton sat in with assorted lineups and appeared in Mike Gordon’s 1999 film Outside Out. In 2006 he convened another all-star jam collective, the Quark Alliance, which released Give Thanks to Chank the following year. Two further Colonel-led projects followed: Songs of the Solar Ping in 2008 and the Ropeadope-issued Pharoah’s Kitchen in 2015. On 1 May 2017, during an all-star 70th-birthday celebration at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, Hampton collapsed onstage while the ensemble encored with “Turn on Your Love Light,” was taken to a nearby hospital, and passed away shortly thereafter.
