Rest In Peace Mama Louise Hudson
Paying tribute to a really great person who played a role in rock and roll history born strictly out of her kindness and compassion. A One Way Out adaptation.
Louise Hudson, universally known as “Mama Louise,” passed away this week. She was an amazing woman and I’m so happy that I knew her, spent some time with her and helped spread word of her story at least a little bit with One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band.
The greatest thing about Louise is she became famous for 50 years just because she was kind; she gave the members of the Allman Brothers Band free food when they had no money. Think about that. They weren’t rock stars. They were dirty hippies spurned by almost everyone in Macon in 1969. People were scared of them. And they nervously walked into Louise’s restaurant, H&H, where few white people had ever tread - the city was totally segregated - and asked for some free plates of food. And she took mercy and she fed them. Think about the things she had seen in her life at that point and how she had been treated, and what she did.
It’s a beautiful story because she did that, and the six guys in the Allman Brothers Band fell in love with her and she became a part of the family, with their never-ending devotion. That turned her H&H Restaurant into a must-visit Macon spot for Allman Brothers Band pilgrims passing through. And, of course, the food was fantastic, and it remains so, under new ownership, who have polished the place up a bit while retaining its essential nature.
Enjoy the adaptation from One Way Out below. And remember, Low, Down and Dirty is always free for you. So please subscribe and share.
The following is adapted from One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. I pulled together all the material on Mama Louise. Our story begins in 1969, shortly after the band moved to Macon.
Living on very little money, the group quickly found a patron of sorts in Louise Hudson, the cook and proprietor of the H&H Soul Food Restaurant.
MAMA LOUISE HUDSON, cook and owner, H&H Soul Food Restaurant: Macon was just barely integrated. We didn’t really have any white customers. And nobody around here had seen guys who looked like them. I had not. A lot of the white folk around here did not approve of them long-haired boys, or of them always having a black guy with them.
COL. BRUCE HAMPTON, founder of the Hampton Grease Band, who played many early shows with the ABB: It was a different world. It was life or death. You’d stop at a gas station and you’d wonder if you were going to die. That’s no joke. If you had long hair, you were a target.
MAMA LOUISE: One day I looked out the window and saw these long-haired boys walking around, looking in. Finally, Dickey and Berry came in. Dickey told Berry, “Ask that lady for some food.”
He said, “I don’t know nothing about her. You ask the lady.” He said, “I don’t know her. You ask the lady.”
They got embarrassed and walked out. Then they came back in and started up again and I just said, “May I help you all darlings?”
And one of them said, “May we please have two plates of food? We don’t have any money, but we’re going out on the road and when we come back, we’ll pay you.” I often helped people who didn’t have no money, so I gave it to them, and they did come back and pay when they returned. Most people who said that never came back. Then they did that again, another time or two and then one day they asked for those two plates and I said, “Well, there’s five of y’all. Take five plates.”
And they said, “Oh, thank you, ma’am. When we come back, we’ll pay you.” And they did - and we just got to be friends. They always treated me real respectful.
Fueled by Hudson’s soul food and a steady diet of various drugs, the group began rehearsing for hours a day at Capricorn’s new studio and rehearsal space.
HAMPTON: The Allman Brothers transformed Macon from this sleepy little town into a very hip, wild and crazy place filled with bikers and rockers. Every time you went down there, it was like mental illness in the streets: fights, bikes…
MAMA LOUISE: I started seeing them boys around town on their motorcycles, and Red Dog and Kim [Payne] would pick me up and give me rides home after work. I always felt safe with them, especially Red Dog. He was a sweet man.
On the back of the band’s second album Idlewild South, amongst the credits, Hudson was thanked for her food with two simple words: “Vittles: Louise.” Several members of the band proudly brought a copy in to H&H to show Hudson as soon as it was released.
MAMA LOUISE: I was real happy. I guess I did something good. I gave lots of people free plates when they was hungry. It was nice to get a thank you like that.
I think it was around this time when Gregg and Red Dog came in and Red Dog said to Gregg, “Go ahead and ask her.” And Gregg said, “How do you feel if we call you Mama Louise?”
I said, “I’d feel good.” I knew that Gregg called his own mother “Mama A” and I always did feel like they was my sons.
Duane was so nice. Everyone came in here at 12 or 1 to eat and he’d come back at 3 or 4 almost every day just to talk about life. He was so serious, just very serious about life. You’d forget how young he was when you talked to that guy. It really hurted me when he passed. It left a big hole in me.
After Duane’s death on October 29, 1971, the band resumed touring in earnest as a five-piece. They performed about 90 shows in the next year, including a West Coast tour that featured a special guest in their entourage.
MAMA LOUISE: Red Dog came in one day in ‘72 and said, “How would you feel about going to California?” I had a niece that Red Dog always liked because she had big legs and when I said I didn’t know about that traveling, he said she could come, too. And she did. Course, he wanted her there!
They said it was for cooking – that I’d be working for them - but when we got there, Dickey said, “No cooking for you, Mama. Have a good time.” I looked over at Gregg with this beautiful woman and I said, “That’s why y’all came out here.”
On the way back from California, I was sitting on the plane with Red Dog and Joe Dan. A real proper white woman heard Red Dog call me “Mama Louise” and said, “Oh, is that your mama?” She didn’t like it one bit. He said, “Yep. I call her mama.” She says, “Oh, is that so?” and looks at ‘em with disgust. They were so mad they wanted to jump on her, but I told them to sit down and be quiet.
Alan Paul’s fourth book, Brothers and Sisters: the Allman Brothers Band and The Album That Defined The 70s, will be published July 25, 2023, by St. Martin’s Press. His last two books – Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan and One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band – debuted in the New York Times Non Fiction Hardcover Bestsellers List. His first book was Big in China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising a Family, Playing the Blues and Becoming a Star in Beijing, about his experiences raising a family in Beijing and touring China with a popular original blues band. It was optioned for a movie by Ivan Reitman’s Montecito Productions. He is also a guitarist and singer who fronts two bands, Big in China and Friends of the Brothers, the premier celebration of the Allman Brothers Band.
That one made reach for a hanky. Thanks Alan
Outstanding as usual.