The Animal Devin Botts was born with the gift of music in his soul. And an
uncanny desire to perform great blues music. But most people do not know how
or why the animal got his name.
It all started back in the 1970's when he was just a little boy. You see the
animal was borne to a kind genital and loving parent in the sleepy little
town of Jerseyville Illinois. Every thing in Devin’s life started out
very average and normal until he and his parents went on holiday to Africa.
The Dark Continent has many interesting and exotic things to see and many
American’s still like to go on safari there. But on the last day of
the trip the little 2-year-old Devin Botts was lured into the dark thick jungle
by the infectious sounds of a African drum beat. His nanny only turned her
head away for a second and he was gone. It would be almost 20 years before
his parents would see their son again.
In late 1989 Guitar Terry was playing music for the greatest garage band in
the world “Full Flight” in eastern central Africa. After another
great show at a gritty little bar called the Naughty Gorilla Guitar Terry
was still a little restless and went out on the town of Zimbabwe to see if
he could sample any of the local talent. That was when he heard of the jungle
boy who would come to town with a troop of black and white bug eyed monkeys
and play music. They would play for 3 or 4 hours then some of the monkeys
would pass the hat around for money then they would slip back into the dark
gritty jungle.
After many days of tracking the animal boy Guitar Terry finally caught up
with him in a pigmy village. It turns out the animal was stolen away from
his parents camp by a band of wild monkeys then he was raised by wolves until
this Pigmy tribe adopted him as their own. There was some debate amongst the
tribal elders as to what to do with the little tike. But finally after much
debate, and some regret, they maid him apart of there tribe. They would later
regret their decision because all the Animal wanted to do is play music all
night and sleep all day.
It was late in the Afternoon when Terry and Howling Steve found the little
Pigmy village and soon found what they were looking for. After meeting the
chief they soon came to a arrangement. They would trade an old Zippo lighter
for the animal.
At about 4:30 pm they sneaked into an old dark dirty hut and while the Animal
was still sleeping they hit him over the head through him in a bag and the
pigmy’s helped carry the unconscious animal back to town where he was
tossed into a boat bound for America.
When they got back home to Illinois the Animal was reintroduced to his natural
family. Even though they could never teach the Animal to speak English he
did learn to sing old blues songs.
Picture of the animal returning to his people