For those of us that love music, some songs and artists hit it big and will always be favorites. Then there is another tier, often called “one-hit wonders.” That phrase is often used in a derogatory manner, insinuating that an artist just got lucky and couldn’t produce another hit. The reality is that, of the hundreds of thousands of songs released yearly, getting even one on the charts or near the top is a remarkable feat.
Then, there’s another level of artists, those who had what it takes to become huge but, for various reasons, just never got over the hump. It could have been timing, bad choices in producers, management companies, or signing with the wrong label, but, for whatever reason, it never happened for them.
This is the story of one of those acts, considered by industry insiders and stars in the business as having had what it took, but the chips never fell their way. Warm, from Albertville, Alabama, is one of those stories. Over forty years since the original band last took the stage, fans and others from the music world recall details of the songs and shows.
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Warm had its roots in a garage band called Suspended Animation. When the first version of Warm was assembled, they chose a name based on the first letter of each original member’s name, guitarist and singer Wain Green, bass player Allen Breland, lead guitarist Ray Honea, Jr., and drummer Mike Bruce started playing together in the late 1960s. Around 1971, Lanice Morrison replaced Allen as the bass player, but the band stuck with the name Warm.
Terry Gilbert, a friend of the band’s, was booking bands at Auburn University. After booking Warm for a couple of gigs, he took the band to Capricorn’s studio in Macon. After a couple of songs, Warm was offered a record deal and a management contract.
The Capricorn days put Warm in the center of one of the great rock n’ roll urban legends. The story goes that after the tragic death of Duane Allman, Warm guitarist Ray Honea was offered his spot in the Allman Brothers Band. In the tale, Ray declined, choosing to remain with his band and friends in Warm. As retaliation, Capricorn did not promote Warm or finish their album. It does make a great story, but it isn’t true. Mike Bruce was there for every part of the story and shared it with me in our interview.
Warm’s actual brush with fellow Capricorn artists ABB was much less dramatic. The band was recording in Capricorn’s Macon, GA studio when the label signed the Marshall Tucker Band. Warm was instructed to play some gigs around Macon for a couple of weeks to give the studio over to Marshall Tucker and then return to the studio to complete the tracks for their debut album.
The band was assigned to a top-notch producer, Paul Hornsby, who had played in an early Allman band, the Hourglass, and would later produce several hit records for the Marshall Tucker Band, Charlie Daniels, Wet Willie, and others. Mike Bruce recalls, “We had cut two or three tracks at that point. Paul called and said, ‘y’all need to take some time off from the studio.” The label had just signed Tucker, and they wanted to get them in the studio as soon as possible. They suggested that Warm take some local gigs.
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It was at one of these gigs where the real Allman/Warm story got its start. Warm took a gig at a local club with a predominantly black clientele. It was a small club with no a/c in the middle of a Macon, GA, summer. As the band was playing, they heard Harleys pulling up front. Gregg Allman and a group of his friends entered the club and sat up front.
Among those in Gregg’s group were ABB road manager Twiggs Lyndon, accused but acquitted of murdering a Buffalo club owner over a dispute about ABB pay, and Scooter Herring, long reported to be a “supplier” to Gregg and the band, who was later convicted of drug trafficking.
When the band started their next set, Ray slid the Coricidin bottle that he used for a slide onto his finger, and the band launched into a bluesy number, The Hunter. At the song’s end, Allman had tears rolling down his face. He said to Ray, “You’re my brother; you look just like my brother playing.” Ray said, “I don’t know that I’m that good,” to which Allman replied, “You’re that good.”
Gregg was in the process of cutting his first solo album, and he insisted that Ray play on it. Conversations continued, and later in the evening, Allman and his group left the bar.
The following morning, Ray asked Mike if he knew where Gregg Allman lived, which he did. The two of them went there and knocked on the door, but there was no answer. The door was slightly ajar, so they went in.
Initially seeing no one, Mike walked down the hallway and came upon Gregg’s bedroom. Gregg was sprawled across the bed, naked, his hair spread across the bed. Mike tried to rouse him but got no response.
Fearing the worst, Mike returned to Ray and said, “Let’s get out of here. If he turns up dead, we’ll be killed for it” They left, and neither ever saw nor heard from Gregg again.
As for the parting of ways with Capricorn, it happened after they were asked to step aside for Marshall Tucker. Mike said, “We were a little bit arrogant. We were convinced we were gonna be big stars. We walked in and said, ‘we’re quitting.’ It couldn’t be that hard to get a record deal. We’ve already had one. We spent about ten years after that and never got another deal.”
The band soldiered on, playing major venues and supporting huge headliners. Even without a record deal, Warm was tapped to open for acts like Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, Mother’s Finest, Ten Years After, Black Oak Arkansas, Charlie Daniels, Alice Cooper, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, Marshall Tucker, Robin Tower and so many more.
Mike recalls his favorite venue to play was Richard’s in Atlanta, one of the South’s great musical showcases. Warm was the only unsigned act to headline Atlanta’s Alex Cooley’s Electric Ballroom. To put the significance of that into perspective, the first week they headlined there, the other feature acts were the Atlanta Rhythm Section and Rush. Their ability to weave rock, blues, a touch of country, and soul made them popular with audiences wherever they played.
Mike Bruce shared a great Warm road story. The band was set to open for Ten Years After in Atlanta’s Omni. Before the gig, a decision was made to swap their Fender amps for Marshalls, so the band was set to play in front of their largest crowd ever, 18,000 people, with new equipment they hadn’t had a chance to practice with.
The show was, in Mike’s words, their worst ever. The next day, they returned to the music store in search of their Fender rigs. They were told it was sold soon after they left, so the band had to pay for all new equipment, a costly experience.
Warm would later add a keyboard player, David Martin. In 1977, the band released a single, Centerpoint Hotel, backed by Sarah So Far Away, on the independent label Beaux Geste, but never had another recording contract offered.
By 1979, Warm wound down, realizing that the possibility of a record deal was likely in the rearview mirror. After years of five or six nights a week playing their hearts out, it was over. The band reunited for a final show in Guntersville, AL, in early February 1979. A couple of the members had decided to stay in music, with others opting for new paths.
Could Warm have been as big as The Marshall Tucker Band or the Allman Brothers? Those bands are certainly rare successes, but Warm was considered very talented, not only by their fans but by those in the know in the industry. We’ll never know what could have been had one or two occurrences happened differently. A 1979 Huntsville, Alabama newspaper article described Warm’s journey as “A gold record producer. Headline billing. Good reviews. A heartbreaking string of almosts.” In that same article, Ray Honea said, “You don’t have a better chance at one point, or the other-it’s the chance that’s made for you, arranged.”
Those insiders hold Warm in the highest regard. Spencer Kirkpatrick, for one, and he has quite the rock resumé. He was a founder and guitarist for the 1970s band Hydra. They recorded two albums on Capricorn and one on Polydor. When he was fourteen, his band, The Atlanta Vibrations, opened for the Beatles at Atlanta Stadium.
Hydra and Warm were label mates at Capricorn and shared managers Frank Hughes and Steve Cole. The bands shared the bill on multiple stages all across the Southeastern U.S.
Spencer said, “We had first met them about 1970 or 71, when we first started playing in Alabama a lot. We became good friends with them. They were a little bit different from us, musically. We were a bit more of a heavy sound. They were definitely a rock sound, but they had really good vocal harmonies.”
He says of Warm, “The band had a very distinct personality. A lot of times, you’ll see bands with big egos. These guys were self-assured, but there was not a lot of ego going on.”
He continues, “Ray Honea was a world-class player. He played with a lot of finesse. Lanice Morrison was a really good bass player and good singer, Mike was a good drummer and good singer, and Wain had a great stage presence.”
In 1972, rock journalist Tom DuPree wrote, “Warm is the best unrecorded band in the South.” Another rock journalist, Jim Pettigrew, called a Warm show “a locomotive-like furor of the stuff your parents warned you about.”
No less of an authority than Alan Walden, Capricorn Records co-founder and the man who signed Skynyrd, Otis Redding, and so many more, recalled hearing Warm play live. “They were really good,” he told me, but at the time, he had his focus entirely on Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Bobby Golden, a guitarist from the band Stillwater, said of Ray, “He was a great guitarist”
Ray Honea was tragically killed in an auto accident after an Atlanta area gig on February 25, 1989. Local musicians organized a series of fundraisers for his family, with overwhelming support and participation. The first, at a club called The Point, included members from the Georgia Satellites.
The Atlanta Journal reported that the second event, held at Rupert’s nightclub, had over 100 musicians who showed up to play, so many that they couldn’t get onto the stage. Included that evening were Don Barnes, guitarist from .38 Special, Matthew Broderick, Patrick Buchanan (guitarist for Hall & Oates and Cyndy Lauper), and Ray’s Warm bandmates Mike Bruce and Lanice Morrison. Another fundraiser, held in Birmingham, included Damon Johnson (Brother Cane, Thin Lizzy, Black Star, Alice Cooper, and now Lynyrd Skynyrd) and Wayne Perkins (Leon Russell, Rolling Stones).
Mike and Lanice later formed a country band, Hillbilly Romeo. They were close to signing a record deal when the two long-term friends had a falling out, all patched up now, but then it spelled the end of the band. Lanice went on to play with former Doobie Brother Michael McDonald, and Mike spent years behind the kit for Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters. A fellow Boxmaster was Teddy Andreadis, who played with Guns N’ Roses and Alice Cooper.
Mike had a serious motorcycle accident in 2013. Pat Upton (Spiral Staircase) and Damon Johnson hosted a fundraiser for Mike, who has recovered and still plays shows today. Warm has reunited for some shows in their hometown, with other musicians filling in for Wain and Ray, including Tracy Honea, Ray’s brother, who also happens to be the Mayor of Albertville. Efforts are underway to be able to provide some of all of Warm’s catalog in the future. In the meantime, searching Warm band on YouTube will lead you to a dozen or more Warm tracks, and you’ll see why this band was so highly regarded.
