Circa 1975 or 1976. Festus Pettus Bionic Band promo picture. Left to right: Lynn Smith, drums; Joe Crisler, classical guitar; Spencer Hill, bass; Ed Canada, lead guitar and mandolin; Charlie Johnston, steel guitar and lead guitar; Larry Smith, lead vocals and rhythm. The Festus Pettus was the off-shoot of a folk rock group called Dorea that mostly played in the Huntsville Alabama area. I don't have or know of any existing pictures of Dorea. Anyhow, two members of Dorea were replaced and became the Festus Pettus Bionic Band. I don't remember exactly how we came up with the name but the Festus Pettus part was inspired by our manager and benfactor, Tommy Pettus. Festus Pettus played all around. The band eventually moved from the Decatur area to Midfield to play in the Birmingham area. After that, the band moved briefly to Pennsacola Florida to play in some clubs there and in Mississippi, mainly playing at a club in Gulf Breeze called The Barracks. The Barracks was owned by Don Hurd who was a FoosBall fanatic. The club was frequented mainly by locals which included members of the Outlaws motorcycle club. At one point, Don Hurd brought the band back to Muscle Shoals to cut a couple of songs that he had written sang by him. We booked ourselves into Ron Ballew's Widget Studio. One of the songs was a FoosBall song called Dynamo Don. After a few months, the band returned to Decatur, changed bass players and drummers and evolved into SixShooter.
Photographer believed to be Mike Jeffreys