Duane offered Doucette a permanent spot in the group. Thom turned them down; he did not want the hassle of being in a band. “Duane was interested in having me in the band full-time, but I didn’t really want to. We were close and it was a lot of fun.”

In 1970, he made his first appearance on record with “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’” from Idlewild South. He appeared twice on At Fillmore East: “Done Somebody Wrong” and “You Don’t Love Me”—though his solo on “Stormy Monday” was cut for the album.

Ace was a magnificent fit with the Allman Brothers Band, which is obvious on At Fillmore East. Doucette and the band were well-rehearsed. “In February, we went to an island off the Georgia coast. We rented a crib and rehearsed for Fillmore and then went there and did the album.”

Ace was all over the sessions that weekend, including this smoking version of “DKMW” that first appeared on Duane Allman Anthology 1 (1972) and later on The Fillmore Concerts (1992).1

The People's Band

Thom “Ace” Doucette

Thom was more than just a player and part-time member of the group, he was a also a huge fan of the Allman Brothers Band. Their music was special to him, as was the time they played together.

The music was incredible. And you’d have a night where it was like, God, I cannot play. I’m just beat to shit. You drag yourself up there and see one or two other guys, they’re dragging, and you figure, “We’ll just try to get through this.”

Well, that fucking first chord would hit and forget it, man. It was like doing a fucking speed bomb.

And there would always be one guy in the band who would have a little extra pop that would push the next guy and he’d get some pop and it would start off a chain reaction.

I don’t know how many dates I did with those guys, I guess 100 or so. And I never heard them play even remotely bad ever. I’ve never played with anyone like that who did it every time. Not just musically correct, but energy and creativity every time.

You play with guys like that, you play stuff not only have you never played before, you never to play it before, and chances are you never heard it before, so you walk off that stage wondering, “Where in the fuck did that come from???”

You come off. Your feet are not touching the ground at all. You’re just completely floating, and everybody looks at each other and goes, “Yeah!” It was unbelievable.

Who is Elizabeth Reed?

Thom WAS NOT the seventh member Duane mentioned in an interview

In December 1970, Duane sat for an in-studio interview with WABC in New York City. He was more than a little drunk and dropped a bombshell.

We’ve just hired a seventh cat. I ain’t gonna talk about that now. That ain’t none of nobody’s business yet. Cause it might hurt the cat we hired you know. Because he’s got a little money coming from where he’s at and it might screw it all up, man. So I ain’t gonna do that out of respect to the cat. But he knows who he is….

I’m real enthusiastic about this new person we’ve hired, man. Obviously. Really, man. He is so hot, man. He is so good, man….

It’s getting to be a full orchestra. Full orchestra. That’s what I’m looking for, man. If I can find them right cats, man. I don’t care how many it is. It don’t matter how many you got doing it. It’s as long as they’re all doing it and all the pieces fit.2

That seventh member was not Doucette, but drummer/percussionist Bobby Caldwell, who was playing in Johnny Winter’s band.3 Duane didn’t let fly Caldwell’s name, and for years the conjecture was Duane was referring to Doucette. But Thom had already declined an invitation to join the Allman Brothers.

Subscribe now

Ultimately, the band rejected Duane. Caldwell didn’t end up joining the Allman Brothers and instead founded Captain Beyond with Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt, former guitarist for Dickey and Berry’s band the Second Coming.4 Captain Beyond recorded a self-titled album for Capricorn Records in 1972 and Caldwell still tours with a version of the band.

Doucette stopped recording and touring with the Allman Brothers in the aftermath of Duane’s death. Beginning in the 1990s, he made appearances onstage and record with the band: on An Evening with the Allman Brothers Band First Set (1992) and Play All Night (2014) from a 1992 run at the Beacon Theatre. He was also in the lineup for the Atlanta Pop Festival July 3 and 5, 1970 released in 2003.

Lagniappe: Ace Doucette playlist

Tried to give y’all a few things you might not have heard in a while (if ever): eight different songs, thirteen versions.

Youtube Playlist

YOUTUBE PLAYLIST

“Done Somebody Wrong” and “You Don’t Love Me” from At Fillmore East
Of course his two tracks on the ABB’s landmark album made the playlist.

“Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’” Atlanta Pop Festival 7/5/70 and Fillmore East 9/23/70
I chose these two specifically because it’s some of the very scant video we have of the original band.

“Trouble No More” Atlanta Pop Festival 7/3/70
Chose this one simply because it wasn’t DKMW, DSW, or YDLM 🍄. Atlanta Pop Festival was the largest audience Duane played in front of.

“Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’” Fillmore East 3/13/71 early show and Idlewild South
This live take is a longtime favorite. And the playlist is incomplete without Doucette’s only studio appearance with the Brothers.

“Stormy Monday” The Fillmore Concerts and The 1971 Fillmore East Sessions
Here’s the full version, with Thom’s harp solo restored in all its glory.

“Get on with Your Life” and “Southbound” from First Set
“Get on with Your Life” is a gorgeous (and overlooked) Gregg original slow blues in the “Stormy Monday” vein. And y’all know “Southbound” from Brothers and Sisters,5 this version is slightly different than that, and with Dickey on vocals.

“You Don’t Love Me” and “Statesboro Blues” Play All Night (1992) and “You Don’t Love Me” Beacon Theatre 3/22/03
These tracks give a sense of Doucette’s presence with the band in the latter half of its career.

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman & the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

---

Subscribe now

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Brent W. Hammond, Craig Stevens, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty, Steve Marshall

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Cwktwo, Danbookin, David Manes, Dennis Newton, Denny, DJ Brown, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jason Hecht, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Scott Green, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

This is a wide-ranging conversation that covers everything from the Internet hustle culture of the twenty-teens, to a history lesson of Washington, DC’s go-go music, music and the Civil Rights Movement, and revisionism in history.

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

Our Crossroads

Brian and I are historians who have spent our careers working with and for historic sites. Each of us has been deeply immersed in our professional lives as we’ve pursued our own interests on the side. We’re girl dads. We’re musicians and cultural historians. And we both care deeply about helping others navigate the world.

All podcast episodes

The Conversation

Be Better Guys. Brian founded Be Better Guys—a guy’s guide—in 2006. The idea was that certain male rights-of-passage like tying a tie or buying a suit used to be rituals passed down through institutions. He democratized the information—sharing it widely online at a time when the internet was really providing some great stuff.

Dress for the moment. Brian is a clothes horse. His philosophy? Dress with urgency for the moment you’re in. He credits his older brother and his attorney father for his sense of fashion, but he returns to his great-grandfather, a tobacco farmer who dressed exactly for what the day required.

Go-go. Brian walked me through Washington, D.C.’s sound, how Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers stretched out songs with extended loops to keep dancers on the floor, turning percussion into the engine of the music and horns into a call-and-response line. It was inclusive music to play and participatory for audiences.

Rethinking the Civil Rights Movement in Albany, Georgia. Brian spoke on a panel around the 50th anniversary of the Albany Movement. It changed my view of this important event. Albany had long read as a failure because the SCLC never got the confrontation they desired. But the coalition on the ground, SNCC organizers working alongside local leadership, secured full desegregation within a year.

Washington, D.C. Brian gave a great lesson on the history of our nation’s capital. Geographically it sits below the Mason-Dixon line, and demographically it filled with Southern migrants chasing federal jobs from World War II onward. Home rule didn’t arrive until 1973. He mapped the city’s segregation ward by ward, and the flight of Black families out to Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties.

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman & the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

Playlist

I asked Brian to pull together a go-go playlist. Here’s what he sent along.

Don’t expect anything even remotely similar to the Allman Brothers Band except a groove that is a mile wide and a mile deep—and a sound built for a live audience.

Rare Essence - Overnight Scenario
Trouble Funk - Drop the Bomb
Trouble Funk - Pump Me Up
Trouble Funk - Let’s Get Small
Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers - Chuck, Baby
Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers - Run Joe
Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers - Bustin’ Loose
Experience Unlimited - Da Butt
Grace Jones (backed by members of EU) - Slave to the Rhythm
Junkyard Band - Sardines (and Pork & Beans)
Solange, Backyard Band - Cranes in the Sky remix (Youtube only)

🍄🍑MERCH🍑🍄

Walt McNamee shot of Jimmy Carter in an Allman Brothers July 4 weekend 1976.

🍄🍑MERCH🍑🍄

Ad for ABB’s March 1971 recording run at Fillmore East with ABB at TOP of the bill.

---

Here’s the original ad

The entire “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” tale is straight from Southern Gothic central casting.

A widow of a Confederate veteran, Elizabeth Jones Reed Napier married into a family that became one of the largest donors to the rebel cause. She is buried at Rose Hill Cemetery, where the Allman Brothers found inspiration and where Dickey Betts and Carmella Scaggs (Boz’s wife) met for trysts.

It’s one of the finest songs in the Allman Brothers Band’s canon, and Dickey Betts’s signature instrumental, from a guy who’s penned a slew of them.

What makes “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” an Allman Brothers classic? It’s jazz influenced and carries elements of classical music. It’s a blues. It’s psychedelic. It’s different than anything anyone was doing at that point. “Elizabeth Reed” is also an evolution in songcraft. On Eat a Peach, they're writing completely original stuff: “Melissa,” “Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More,” “Les Brers in A Minor,” “Stand Back,” “Blue Sky,” “Little Martha.” It’s a pretty astounding leap on the songwriting front in two years.

Lagniappe

I’m a huge fan of “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” from At Fillmore East. It’s ABBsolutely perfect in every way: from Duane’s introduction, to Dickey’s intro —the soloing, the comping, the dynamics, the energy, the crowd, and the sound….the glorious sound Tom Dowd coaxed out of the room itself. It is by far my favorite version of the song, one I never tire of.

I have a few other favorites, including this one recorded six months after At Fillmore East: “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” 9/19/71 SUNY Stony Brook.2 (I also chose it because it’s got artwork from my dude Brett Underhill/Porkchop Bob Studio, whose work I really dig.)

Thanks for being here y’all.

2

Also the show with the greatest “Dreams” that I’ve ever heard.

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman & the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Brent W. Hammond, Craig Stevens, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty, Steve Marshall

Subscribe now

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Cwktwo, Danbookin, David Manes, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jason Hecht, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Scott Green, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

🍄🍑MERCH🍑🍄

Jimmy Carter in an Allman Brothers July 4 weekend 1976.

🍄🍑MERCH🍑🍄

Ad for Allman Brothers Band’s March 1971 run at Fillmore East. (Original ad below, w/Johnny Winter at the top of the bill.)

The October 1975 Circus magazine featured a 4,000 word cover story from Jim Pettigrew. This is a feel-good story for sure; the band was in ABBsolute turmoil in 1975.

Art Harris’s August 1975 Rolling Stone story “The Allmans: Waiting for Gregg” documents the simmering issues in much more detail.

Mixing in Macon with the Allman Brothers

by Jim Pettigrew, Circus October 1975

As we stumbled from the Chevy camper truck, the bell tower of St. Joseph’s Parish Catholic Church was tolling six a.m. It was February 1971 and the Macon, Georgia, weather was rivaling anything London can muster: foggy, wet, and colder than the proverbial witch’s tit in the brass cup.

We were returning from a now-forgotten gig in Montgomery, Alabama, and the band would dissolve the next day, the members going their separate ways to obscurity or success. The band was Sundown, a Macon act deeply into the r&b/gospel/rock thing of the day; when they were on, they could cook like a boiler room, but the too-often vagaries of rock had their way. The show the night before had stunk. The next day the sextet would break up, and their one Ampex LP would sink farther into oblivion. As lead-vocalist Court Pickett (who later hit with Sailcat) hauled his bone-weary frame from the cab, the bells sounded more like the peal of Doom than anything else. In the auto in front was the 18-year old keyboardist, Chuck Leavell; he had chosen to travel ahead, to avoid the cheap whiskey, rock ‘n roll tall tales, and even cheaper food.

Sundown flamed out while the band was in the studio with Duane and Gregg’s old bandmate Paul Hornsby producing. Some of the players on the band’s sole album include drummer Bill Stewart (Capricorn Rhythm Section), bassist Charlie Hayward (soon to join Charlie Daniels Band), and Chuck Leavell, who’d join the ABB in late 1972.

Late summer 1975, and a new father of two weeks, Chuck Leavell (he married Rose Lane, Capricorn veep Frank Fenter’s assistant, two years ago) hides away in an elegantly outfitted Macon catacomb to talk.

Clad in blue jeans, horizontal striped shirt and boots, the Allman Brothers Band pianist props his feet up on an adjoining couch and reflects on the sessions for ABB’s newest Capricorn release, Win, Lose, or Draw.

“Man, I just love to work in the studio. In there, you have such a wide range of freedom and versatility available. And to be in the studio with Johnny Sandlin producing and working with people like the Brothers Band—it is a total gas.

Pause for a second… Did he just call the Allman Brothers Band the Brothers Band? I had heard this and thought it was a typo until the very next sentence:

“As you know, it’s been quite awhile since the last Brothers Band album—even though we cut Gregg’s LP and Dickey’s album—so naturally there was some settling down to do. But you know, we went in and cut the Muddy Waters blues thing right off. We were in and—Bang!—there it was. The other songs, like Gregg’s title tune—it’s about being in jail—and Dickey’s instrumental, were more complicated. They took longer to work up. But, man, when they did, things fell into place and Pheew! . . .”

Chuck’s being very diplomatic. The Win, Lose, or Draw sessions were anything but a gas, and far from a “total gas.” Things were tense. And that comes through in the record.

Subscribe now

Read more

The Play All Night Playlist Project: Hour Glass Repertoire.

The others are here:

One thing that became VERY apparent as I researched this time in Duane’s life, was the huge gap between Hour Glass as a live band and how Dallas Smith of Liberty Records produced them in the studio. The band simply refused to play the songs on their studio albums, preferring a repertoire of blues and rhythm & blues covers.

I’ve pulled this playlist together from the text in Chapter 4, the various cuts mentioned as part of Hour Glass’s repertoire.

This is not a comprehensive list nor am I 100% certain these are the arrangements Hour Glass used, but it’s close enough to give you an idea of how wildly different the band was live versus how Liberty Records wanted them to sound. We know exactly what that sounds like, it’s on the two Hour Glass studio records.1

Rather than the pop psychedelia of their studio records albums, Hour Glass live sets featured music they knew best: southern blues and R&B. The repertoire remained mostly covers, “Leaving Trunk” (Sleepy John Estes by way of Taj Mahal), “I’m Hanging Up My Heart For You” (Solomon Burke), Little Milton’s “Feel So Bad,” and Bobby Bland’s “Stormy Monday” and “Turn on Your Love Light.”

They opened shows with an instrumental take on “Norwegian Wood” and closed with a current hit by country star Buck Owens. “They knew they were good,” John McEuen said. “Anyone who heard them understood how good they were. Duane had total command and authority of the guitar and Gregg was just a great singer who could make anything his own.”

The Yardbirds “Over Under Sideways Down” Duane’s bands were always lauded for their ability with the Yardbirds’ catalog. This features Jeff Beck in all his early guitar wizard glory.

Johnny Jenkins “Dimples” Sharing this because it is the same Eddie Hinton arrangement as the Allman Brothers Band, which Paul Hornsby taught Duane in this era. Though Duane played on much of Jenkins’s album Ton Ton Macoute, he isn’t on this track that I know of.2

He is, however, on this track. Yes, this is Duane on “Dimples” from Muscle Shoals in early 1969.

The Nashville Teens “Tobacco Road” Written by Duane and Gregg’s songwriting mentor J.D. Loudermilk, the Hour Glass take on it was apparently pretty psychedelic.

Taj Mahal “Statesboro Blues” and “Leaving Trunk” Taj Mahal’s arrangement of Blind Willie McTell’s acoustic “Statesboro Blues” featuring Jesse Ed Davis is what inspired Duane to pick up slide. “Statesboro” entered Duane’s repertoire in this era and became the first track on At Fillmore East. Sleepy John Estes’s “Leaving Trunk” is another acoustic blues Mahal adapted for his first album.3

🍄MERCH🍄

Bobby “Blue” Bland “Stormy Monday” and “Turn on Your Lovelight” The Allman Brothers Band included a brilliant take on T-Bone Walker’s “Stormy Monday” on At Fillmore East. Gregg’s 1974 The Gregg Allman Tour album included a rollicking take on “Lovelight,” a song that’s been in the jamband canon for years. It was one of Grateful Dead founder Pigpen’s signature tunes, and a particular favorite of Col. Bruce Hampton’s.

Solomon Burke “I’m Hanging Up My Heart for You” and Percy Sledge “I’m Hanging Up My Heart for You” Here’s Burke’s original and a cover by Percy Sledge, whose “When a Man Loves a Woman” put Muscle Shoals on the map. Incidentally, Jaimoe backed Sledge around the same time Duane and Gregg were in L.A. though I don’t believe he ever recorded with him.

Little Milton “I Feel So Bad” Little Milton was Gregg’s favorite singer and he covered this song throughout his career. A live version appeared on The Gregg Allman Tour. The Derek Trucks Band covered it regularly and released it on 2004’s Live at the Georgia Theatre.

Hour Glass “Norwegian Wood” This is a pretty psychedelic take from their second album. I can only imagine how killer it would’ve been live. This is an example of a truly original arrangement for Duane, who had trouble convincing Dallas Smith to listen to any of his ideas.

Buck Owens “Act Naturally” Buck Owens was one of the biggest country stars on the planet at this time. I know Hour Glass covered Owens, but I found no reference to any particular song. I chose this as it’s one the Beatles covered, with Ringo Starr on vocals.

Lefty Frizzell “Long Black Veil” The music of home comforted the southerners while they were in L.A. As Pete Carr of Hour Glass noted, “Duane and I shared an apartment and we would play guitars together a lot. I remember Gregg, Duane, and I playing and singing ‘Long Black Veil.’ I remember us harmonizing on it and it really was a moment separated from everything else we were doing. It was like a close family thing.”

Random notes

Carr expresses one of the biggest frustrations Duane and company had in Los Angeles: it was just too unlike the South.

And the proof is in Duane’s output upon returning South in just the first three weeks of September 1968. Duane joins, records, and performs live with Butch Trucks’s 31st of February; he links up with Berry Oakley to form a band; and plays a Clarence Carter session in Muscle Shoals.

Two months later, in November, he returns to the Shoals to play on a Wilson Pickett session. He suggests they cover “Hey Jude,” the song becomes a massive hit, and Duane becomes a star to such a degree that he gets to hand pick his next musical project.

We’re not quite there yet in the story musically, but we’re getting there.

As always, thanks for reading.

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Brent W. Hammond, Craig Stevens, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty, Steve Marshall

Subscribe now

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Cwktwo, Danbookin, David Manes, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Scott Green, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

In celebration of the anniversary, I excerpted Chapters 12 and 13 of Play All Night in four posts.

Part 1: “The Allman Brothers did it all. On stage they were giants.”

Part 2: “Some of the greatest live performances I’ve ever witnessed”

Part 3: “This is the People’s Band. Music is for the people.”

Part 4: “Best damn rock & roll band this country produced in the past 5 years.”

And here’s a livestream with my dude Jeff Kollath to talk about the record’s past, present, and its enduring influence.

All Podcast Episodes

The Conversation

The recording. We agreed one reason this record is so great is how alive it sounds. Tom Dowd mic’d the crowd, an unusual choice, and the room’s presence gives At Fillmore East warmth—the opposite of a flattened soundboard tape.

A band “in full possession of its considerable intelligence and stamina.” At Fillmore East was a full dose of two sides of the Allman Brothers Band, their exquisite taste and immense power. Jeff called them “solos of perfect logic” moving from restraint into full intensity and back, the record never losing its shape.

Where does it rank? Neither of us has any problem calling it rock’s greatest live album. We threw out a few others, the Stones’ Get Yer Yayas Out, MC5’s Kick Out the Jams, Kiss Alive!—all cleaned up in post, the latter two considerably. Humble Pie’s Rockin’ the Fillmore, recorded two months after the ABB, makes the contrast plain: a 23+ minute “Gilded Splinters” on side two of the double album is indulgent and overwrought. “Whipping Post” runs the same distance and never loses the thread—a complete idea, start to finish, from all six players, leaving the room, and generations of listeners, enraptured.

What the tapes reveal. Listen closely to the beginning of “Whipping Post.” Five fans call out for the song before it starts (it’s the third guy you hear clearly). Listen even more closely and you’ll hear at least two shout for “Dreams.”1 The crowd keeps screaming for more at the close of “Mountain Jam,” after a bomb-threat evacuation earlier that same night. Not released

Live/Dead as counterpoint. The Dead at their best in that era, especially the first four tracks—“Dark Star” “St. Stephen” “The Eleven” “Turn on Your Lovelight”—but Jeff believes the Dead’s legacy rests on the two studio records that follow, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. The Allman Brothers Band built its reputation from At Fillmore East. I argue Live/Dead is not even the definitive Dead live album (that’s Europe 72, which has lots of edits in post).

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

---

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

Subscribe now

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄

Brent W. Hammond, Craig Stevens, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty, Steve Marshall

---

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑

Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Cwktwo, Danbookin, David Manes, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jason Hecht, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Scott Green, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

1

My vote. My favorite song in the canon (along with “Mountain Jam”). Here’s my guess on why they didn’t play it.

Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

Conversation from the Crossroads of Southern music, history, & culture is an independent project of historian Dr. Bob Beatty, author of 'Play All Night! Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East.' No affiliation/endorsement with the Allman Brothers.

Lamar Williams Jr. is the son of Allman Brothers bassist Lamar Williams, and he’s spent two decades building his own place inside the Allman Brothers’ extended musical family. I talked with him about The Offering, the long-gestating album with Oteil Burbridge recorded in Iceland, and about the lineage that carried him from Macon’s church choirs to Butch’s Les Brers, the Big Band of Brothers, and touring/recording with New Mastersounds, North Mississippi Allstars, and the Allman Betts Revival.

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

Our Crossroads

We are Lamar lost his father young and our shared experience of grief and carrying someone’s memory forward came up directly in our talk. I’ve seen Lamar live multiple times in a variety of settings. He’s one of my favorite singers of the Allman Brothers canon, perhaps my favorite. When you listen to the conversation, you’ll hear why. Lamar is not only a fantastic vocalist, he’s a student of the craft. His voice is his instrument. Overlooked is his how much love he puts out into the world as a lyricist and singer. I certainly gravitate to that presence.

All Podcast Episodes

The Conversation

The Offering. Lamar’s latest project began a decade ago when Allman Brothers’ bassist Oteil Burbridge picked up a banjo at home while his wife spent a year in Africa working with gorillas—just exercises to keep himself busy and learn the instrument. Williams heard them in Burbridge’s basement studio, told him “I hear something all over it,” and took the instrumentals to his writing partner, the late Victor Clark. After the ABB closed up shop, Dead & Co. pulled Burbridge away for a decade. Lamar, Oteil, and friends finished it in Iceland, near Akureyri, the same coast where Williams had already recorded twice with the New Mastersounds.

Singing onstage with the Allman Brothers Band. This is a great story. Riding to the Beacon Theatre with Gregg Allman and godfather Chank Middleton, Allman quizzed Williams on songwriting and planted the idea that he needed a writing partner. Hours later, Chank pointed him out to Gregg before the ABB’s set that night; Allman’s only response was, “Come see me at halftime.” Lamar tells the full story.

Lamar Williams Sr. Jaimoe and Lamar’s pops grew up together on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. They essentially learned to play music together. Lamar was the obvious choice when Berry Oakley died in 1972, when Butch Trucks cut the audition short and announced something to the effect of “As far as I’m concerned, this decision is made. We’ve found our bass player.” Williams Sr. died in 1983 of lung cancer linked to exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. His son shares a very specific memory of him—walking on his back while he watched sci-fi on the floor after returning from tour. Lamar Jr.’s favorite moment from his pops? His father’s upright bass on “Ponyboy.”

Les Brers, Big Band of Brothers, Trouble No More, Allman Betts Revival. Butch Trucks built a band around Williams on impulse after a Roots Rock Revival gig: “We’re going to start a band now, and I want you to be in it.” That became Les Brers, with the ABB rhythm section of Butch, Jaimoe, and Marc plus Jack Pearson alongside Burbridge—Williams’ formal entry into the Allman Brothers family. He later toured with Big Band of Brothers, the jazz ensemble reworking the catalog with Jaimoe on drums, and says his approach to singing it comes from refusing to imitate—reverting to the church tradition he grew up in instead.

The New Mastersounds and North Mississippi Allstars. Williams joined the New Mastersounds after sitting in at a Peter Levin benefit show in Denver. He became their first vocalist in eighteen years. Years later, Luther Dickinson watched Williams cover an ailing Charlie Starr on “Come and Go Blues” at an Allman Betts Family Revival show, and the two went on to record North Mississippi Allstars’ Set Sail. It earned a Grammy nomination.

His father’s words. In a 1974 Downbeat interview, Williams Sr. called the Allman Brothers Band “a religion”—six musicians lifting each other into something that resists categorization. Williams points to The Offering’s closing track, his version of Earl King’s “Time for the Sun to Rise,” first played for him by Luther Dickinson, as the record’s clearest expression of that same patience. We talk specifically about this version of the song with Luther Dickinson.

And here’s Lamar Sr.’s full quote about the Allman Brothers, Macon, the South, and music:

Lamar Williams grew up with Jaimoe Johanny Johanson in Port Gulf, Louisiana (Gulfport, Mississippi). It was through Jaimoe’s recommendation and a subsequent audition that Williams entered the band.

I asked him if he was accepted into the band immediately. “It was a thing of adjusting to their particular style of music. I feel that musicians are able to . . . if you have to play country and western, then you’re going to play country and western; if you’re going to play jazz, you’ll adjust to that. Now, you take cats who are not real musicians, then they’re hung up in one particular bag, a lot of other things they’re not hip to.”

Do you have any idea what the term “southern blues” means? Well, I can relate to “down home,” you know. Musicians who come up in the South, musicians who come up on the West Coast, the East Coast, anywhere. That environment affects their heads. In most cities you have a whole bunch of other static going on. Down South, living in a small town, Macon, you have a lot of time to put into it. You have a lot of time to check out other stuff, to check out a lot of stuff in your head. The whole South is laid back, that’s where atmosphere comes from. I’ve met cats who come down from New Jersey and New York to try to get some of that southern thing to rub off on them.

What is the special quality that the Allman Brothers Band has that makes them so popular? To me it’s a religion. For instance, I can feel just blah, but when I get on that stage, there’ll be so much energy flowing from the other five cats that they just lift me in a real strong spiritual way, till I don’t know how tired I am. It becomes a real strong spiritual thing to get to the point where the six cats on that stage, their job is to produce a sound, the Allman sound. But I don’t think it can be put in any particular category. We play the first and second numbers, all that time we’re feelin’ each other out, where everybody’s head is. As it goes up, everybody gets into a thing with each other. I can feel incredible vibes on that stage.1

Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

Resources

Lamar Williams Jr.

• www.lamarwilliamsjr.com

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lamarwilliamsjr/

North Mississippi Allstars, Set Sail (2022)

Oteil Burbridge & Lamar Williams Jr., The Offering (2026)

The New Mastersounds, Shake It (2019); The Deplar Effect (2022)

Playlist

Here’s a sample of some of my favorite Lamar Williams Jr. cuts. The Youtube playlist is the most complete as two of these tracks are only available there. An additional two are missing from Spotify altogether.

Spotify

Tidal

Youtube

• “Trouble No More (live)” - Allman Betts Revival & Slash (Youtube only)

• “Love and War (Live from Mexico)” - Oteil Burbridge & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Country Road” - Oteil Burbridge & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Set Sail, Part I” - North Mississippi Allstars & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Cold as Ice” - Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’ (live)” - Big Band of Brothers w/ Jaimoe(!!!) & a sit-in from Oteil Burbridge (Youtube only)

• “Authentic” - North Mississippi Allstars & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Peace and Understanding” - Peter Levin, Lamar Williams Jr., Eric Krasno & Marc Quiñones

• “Love They Deserve” - The New Mastersounds & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “I Can Hear My Train Calling” - Joshua C.S. & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Everyone & Everything” - Eddie Roberts, George Porter Jr. & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Let Me in from the Cold” - The New Mastersounds, Eddie Roberts & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Meet You in the Sunshine” - The New Mastersounds, Eddie Roberts & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Days of Summer” - Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Gonna Get in My Way” - The New Mastersounds, Eddie Roberts & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Shake It” - The New Mastersounds & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Time for the Sun to Rise” - Oteil Burbridge & Lamar Williams Jr.

• “Time for the Sun to Rise” - Lamar Williams Jr. & Luther Dickinson

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Brent W. Hammond, Craig Stevens, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty, Steve Marshall

Subscribe now

🍑PEACH🍑PALS🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Cwktwo, Danbookin, David Manes, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Scott Green, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

---

LLtABB swag

MERCH

Everything was on the line for Duane and the Allman Brothers Band with At Fillmore East. Everything. The decision to release a live album was not as obvious as it might seem on the surface but it proved to be the right one.

At Fillmore East was an immediate smash, and secured the Allman Brothers Band’s reputation as the “best damn band in the land.”

This is part four of four, At Fillmore East Breaks Through (Summer and Fall 1971)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

With At Fillmore East, the excitement of the band’s live shows finally translated into record sales.

The success was long in coming and well earned. “It went along so slow for so long, none of us re­ally expected a whole lot to happen,” Trucks reflected. “When we got that gold record, we realized we were doing something.” The band had grown to believe their music was simply too original for the main­stream market. “We knew we were playing music nobody else had played before,” Trucks said, “but none of us had thought about it in commercial terms.” Success brought additional challenges. “Realizing we were commercially successful, that people were starting to listen to us, we had to keep that from influencing our music, keep the music still the six of us having fun,” Trucks said.

Listeners loved the album. M. Skryp of Quebec wrote to the band,

“Please view this letter of complaint. After spending a small for­tune in hard-earned money in amassing a very fine record collec­tion, I recently purchased your new live double LP album. After smoking up some excellent homegrown marijuana (one joint only), I then played your album.

My complaint is this. After listening to your beautiful music, the rest of my records seem irrelevant.

Thank you very much for a wonderful performance. Hope to see you live.

Your dedicated fan, M. Skryp.”1

At Fillmore East, writer Gary Wishik declared, “is the next best thing to actually seeing them,” lacking only “the possibility of an encore that quite possibly could last till dawn.” Rolling Stone’s George Kimball called the album “one of the nicest things that ever happened to any of us. If you’ve been so unfortunate as to never have caught the Allman Brothers Band live, this recording is certainly the next best thing. Turn the volume up all the way and sit through the concert; by the time it’s over you can almost imagine the Allman Band getting high and heading back to Macon.” Wrote Ernie Santosuosso of the Boston Globe, “The Allmans really stretch out but the ‘winging’ is done with a sure purpose.” Marshall Fine of the Minneapolis Star called the album “electric magic, driving and energetic—beautiful.”

The Grateful Dead remained the standard against which review­ers measured all improvisational rock bands of the era, and At Fill­more East was no exception.2 Rich Aregood found the al­bum “sustained the Dead’s kind of excitement.” Marshall Fine said the record “captures the sound, the energy, and the excitement of a live performance as none have since Live/Dead.”

ABB & the Dead at Watkins Glen

“Any comparison is fatuous,” Kimball argued in Rolling Stone. “Guitarists Duane Allman and Dickey Betts, organist-vocalist Gregg Allman, Berry Oakley on bass, and drummers J.J. Johanson and Butch Trucks comprise the best damn rock & roll band this country has produced in the past five years.”

Critics highlighted the instrumentals “Hot ’Lanta” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” Reviews loved the contrast between the record’s shorter blues numbers—“Statesboro Blues” and “Done Somebody Wrong”—and the extended blues romps on “You Don’t Love Me” and “Whip­ping Post.” Santosuosso called “Stormy Monday” “as good as anything else on the album, a sort of tonic in its decelerated, relaxed manner.” Wishik agreed the song showed “the soft and gentle side of the group. Duane is picking the most fragile notes he can find while Dickey Betts is softly sliding in and out, over and behind him and Gregg Allman is lifting the whole thing very gently with a beautiful rhythm pattern from the mighty Hammond B-3 organ.”3

Reviewers found At Fillmore East an authentic representa­tion of the Allman Brothers Band live in concert.

“Musicians’ musicians,” the Clemson University Tiger called the ABB, “one of the best instrumen­tal groups in the country.” Jim Conley assured readers, “You won’t be bored, even though there are only seven cuts on the four sides. From soft mellow blues to cooking rock, they just do it all right.” Aregood called the album “excellent from beginning to end. The ex­citement they generate in live performance manages to leak through on the recording.”

Glover found Duane Allman’s musical vision at the heart of At Fill­more East. “In these days of so many groups who are merely compe­tent, and ritualized sets which mostly bore your ass off. It’s a real joy to hear a group that loves to play and can communi­cate their enthusiasm. Not only have they got their chops together, they know how to use them to create thick, smoking tapestries of blues and rock, tempered with a lyrical aching beauty.” Duane stood out—“sliding out sinu­ous solos that coo with southern soul”—but he was “only part of the web. Brother Gregg sits high atop his organ, throbbing out long lines of swirling sounds, doing most of the vocal work with a mellow rasp while Dickey Betts plays alternate lead guitar, often in rippling coun­terpoint to Duane’s loping runs. The rhythm section of double drum­mers Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny Johanson, bottomed by cooking bassist Berry Oakley are always right there, driving it all along with power and a fine sense of dynamics.”

The ABB's Improvisational Approach

On Fillmore East, Duane’s music speaks for him and his band­mates. “His complete confidence—like the complete confidence of his band—is right out there,” Scoppa wrote. “No nonsense. He heads straight for whatever he’s after.”

“Where do they want to go from here?” Rolling Stone’s Dubro asked in January 1971. “Mostly they all seemed to want to do what they’re doing. It didn’t seem like they wanted to be stars, just musicians.” Duane had said as much backstage during the Fillmore East sessions in March 1971 when he told Glover, “We’re a band man, a band that works like a band. If we could just get people to come out and see us I know they’d like what they heard.”

The completed album sounds like a band that took immense joy in playing.

Duane quotes Robert Johnson’s “Come on in My Kitchen” (“It’s goin’ to be rainin’ outdoors”) and the Christmas carol “Joy to the World” during “You Don’t Love Me” and playfully teases the seventeenth-century folk song “Frère Jacques” as “Whipping Post” winds down.

Interludes tell the same story. Duane introduces “Elmore James’s ‘Must’ve Did Somebody Wrong’ [as] an old, true story” playfully adding off mic, “Wonder who?” “Stormy Monday” was “an old Bobby Bland song,” he said, quickly offering a correction. “Ac­tually, it’s a T-Bone Walker song.” Oakley shouts, “Brother Gregg Allman singing the blues! Duane, Dickey, and Ace [Thom Doucette] playing ’em!” as “Stormy Monday” fades out. And as always Duane, gave props to his guitar partner—“a song Dickey Betts wrote from our second album, uh, ‘In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.’”

Who is Elizabeth Reed?

And in one of the great deadpan introductions in all of live rock, Duane called “Whipping Post” “a little number from our first album,” announcing, “Berry starts ’er off.” In anticipation of the band’s closer, at least five folks yell “Whipping Post” before Oakley plays a note. (The third guy is the loudest.)4

These interludes on At Fillmore East also the Allman Brothers Band as the People’s Band. “Natural, no bullshit people,” Tony Glover said. Live record­ings from the era prove the band’s Fillmore East stage announce­ments weren’t a put-on. Duane and his mates enjoyed themselves on stage, and they let audiences know that.

🍄‍🟫 The People's Band 🍄‍🟫

At Fillmore East also provides a clear example of Butch Trucks’s classical influence on the Allman Brothers Band’s sound.

The influence might at first seem obscure because while the ABB’s music was complex like classical, it was improvised, less structured. Butch’s classical influences inspired the band’s tempo changes and dramatic movements. He translated the “feel” of classical to rock, using the tympani to bring “Hot ’Lanta” and “Whipping Post” to a thunderous conclusion. The latter closed the album, fading as the band segued into “Mountain Jam.”5

After two-plus years of relentless touring, the Allman Brothers Band had finally broken through. The success of At Fillmore East proved Duane’s theory about the importance of a live album for the Allman Brothers. Sadly, he missed out on the success and widespread acclaim the ABB achieved as a result of his artistic masterpiece. On October 29, 1971, just days after learning the album hit Gold, Duane died in a motorcycle crash in Macon. He was just shy of his twenty-fifth birthday. 6

His bandmates responded the only way they knew how: through music. They embarked on a nationwide tour as a quintet, the legendary 5-man band.

Excerpted from

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

---

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Brent W. Hammond, Craig Stevens, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty, Steve Marshall

Subscribe now

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Cwktwo, Danbookin, Davis Manes, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Scott Green, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

---

Join us here: https://open.substack.com/live-stream/267211

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

Everything was on the line for Duane and the Allman Brothers Band with At Fillmore East. Everything. The decision to release a live album was not as obvious as it might seem on the surface. Neither was the choice to make it a double album. Or sell it for a single album price.

This is part three of four, At Fillmore East Breaks Through (Summer and Fall 1971)

Part 1

Part 2

As 1971 dawned, the Allman Brothers Band found themselves at a crossroads.

The group had toured relentlessly for nearly two years. They had released two studio albums that had gained critical acclaim but scant commercial success. Duane remained undaunted. “I guess success depends on how many people dig you/ You play what you feel and hope you’re doing the right thing. You’ve got to do whatever you believe in. If you’re wrong, you change and keep making changes till you make it—or till you’re happy with the whole thing.”

The band’s manager/record label owner1 Phil Walden agreed with Duane’s idea that a live album was best. The deci­sion was not without risk. While live albums were common, they were a way established artists generated sales between studio al­bums. The Allman Brothers Band had no such credibility and would instead use the medium to grow its audience. A live record would present their music at its absolute best.

Fillmore East as an Artistic Statement

At Fillmore East became the quintessential Allman Brothers Band recording, the pinnacle of Duane Allman’s me­teoric career.2

Fillmore East also presented a decidedly American take on contem­porary music. It was, critic Bud Scoppa contended, “a reminder that rock & roll didn’t start out to be a mean but ambiguous kind of music played by fey and mannered young Britishers” like the British blues artists who had actually introduced electric blues to much of white America. “The real rock & roll was hard, blues-rich, powerful, and overtly virile stuff.”3

It is unclear exactly when the ABB decided to issue a double album of new and older songs. A single album would have made sense, but Phil Walden argued that the band’s perfor­mances warranted more. He fought with his partner in Capricorn Records, Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler, to release a double album. “I told Wexler that our Fillmore East live album would have to be two LPs and contain at least one sixteen-minute song,” Walden said. “Not every note is vital to our heritage,” Wexler replied. “The boys are pure artists and that’s what it’s got to be,” Walden argued.

Ultimately, the caliber of the March 1971 Fillmore East perfor­mances and recordings made the decision an easy one. “Jerry agreed, he understood.” Wexler said, “What I understood was that I had never heard a guitarist I found as satisfying as Duane.”

Walden then presented an additional demand. “Our image is that this is the People’s Band. Music is for the people and therefore we want to make this specially priced”—a double al­bum for the cost of a single record. Wexler was apoplectic, and relented only after Walden agreed to cut a deal on song publishing for the three original Allman Brothers Band songs on the record—“In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” “Hot ’Lanta,” and “Whipping Post.” (A decision that cost the band millions over the years.)4

Walden’s gamble paid off, and At Fillmore East became the break­through that the band, its manager, and Atlantic Records had long sought.

“I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted the extent of the album’s success but we were counting heavily on it,” Walden said. Trucks recounted, “Two years of playing every city in the country, we built a following. When that live album came out that’s what every­body was waiting for.”

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

The album was as near a representation of the band’s live perfor­mances as possible. Unlike many live albums of the period, includ­ing the Grateful Dead’s eponymous live album, At Fillmore East had “no overdubs whatsoever,” Betts said. “No vocal overdubs, no repair work.” Other than a splice of two versions of “You Don’t Love Me” and removing a harmonica solo in “Stormy Monday,” he said, “there was nothing done to that. It’s just a pure performance.”

Explained Walden, “At Fillmore East is absolutely live. We didn’t go back and re-record one guitar solo; we didn’t add anything to it. The live album gave them an opportunity to play on record as they played in person. That was really the turning point.”

“The band had not really found themselves in the studio,” Walden said, “but they had in front of live audiences where they had more freedom; they opened up. They weren’t a three-minute-cut band.” At Fillmore East gave the ABB the opportunity to stretch out.

“No record [is] as good as hearing the band live,” Tony Glover wrote, but Fillmore East “comes close to capturing the feelings they generate.”

The album features nearly eighty minutes of music spread across just seven tracks. Five of the seven songs were new, and only two, “Statesboro Blues” (4:17) and “Done Somebody Wrong” (4:33), were even remotely of the appropriate length to be released as singles, although neither was.

Two cuts, “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” and “Hot ’Lanta,” are in­strumentals, jazz/rock hybrids, but not the fusion of Miles Da­vis, Tony Williams Lifetime, and Mahavishnu Orchestra. Song lengths mirrored Coltrane’s Village Vanguard albums. Five songs top five minutes, three exceed twelve, and two, “You Don’t Love Me” and “Whipping Post,” are twenty minutes each.

At Fillmore East was music for serious music listeners; it found an audience on the FM radio format.

In the pre-streaming world, most people accessed music through radio. For much of the twentieth century, AM dominated the market; its more powerful, lower-fidelity signal reached a wider geographic audience than later FM’s less powerful, higher-quality signal. Because advertisers paid to reach listeners and pop music kept listeners listen­ing, that’s what AM stations programmed.

A 1965 Federal Communications Commission ruling prohibiting AM stations from retransmitting programming on FM sister stations changed everything. The decision forced hundreds of stations to develop new formats nearly overnight. Many turned to freeform, a format devoid of the influence of the singles chart. FM played tracks that AM programmers ignored altogether. Freeform playlists featured a wider spectrum of music and favored longer album tracks over singles.

Underground FM radio of the late 1960s and early 1970s was, scholar Michael C. Keith writes, “in step with that of the growing counterculture. It resented the mainstream gestalt of the day regard­ing social issues (war, drugs, race), but most of all it detested formula radio.” FM DJs and their listeners found At Fillmore East far from formulaic. As stations began focusing on album cuts, FM became where true music aficionados tuned in.

The ABB builds its reputation gig by gig

FM was the perfect medium for the music of the Allman Brothers Band. FM’s predilection for album cuts was critical to the break­through success of At Fillmore East. “The Allman Brothers were an FM radio band,” Atlantic’s Philip Rauls said. John Carter, also from Atlantic, said, “People couldn’t believe the number of records the All­man Brothers were selling on what appeared—to the old school—as no airplay. The small audience that was listening to those FM stations was religious about it.” The band knew this. Its instrumentals and “drawn-out pieces were not really commercial,” Betts reflected. “If it hadn’t been for FM radio that would play these extended pieces of music, we would never have been successful.”

Upon release July 6, 1971, At Fillmore East stormed the charts. The album jumped to number 82 within three weeks of release. By Sep­tember 4, it reached its highest chart position, number 13, and by October 25, the album had reached gold, at more than 500,000 cop­ies sold. It spent forty-eight weeks on the Billboard 200, a mammoth achievement for a band who’d barely sold 100,000 combined units to date.

Excerpted from

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

---

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Brent W. Hammond, Craig Stevens, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty, Steve Marshall,

Subscribe now

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Cwktwo, Danbookin, David Manes, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Scott Green, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

---

4

Backstory from the excellent 1976 Allman Brothers’ bio by Tom Nolan, which I’m serializing. www.longlivetheabb.com/p/nolan-fillmore

🍄🍑MERCH🍑🍄

Created this to honor the Allman Brothers Band’s March 1971 run at Fillmore East. You’ll see the original ad below, which had Johnny Winter at the top of the bill.

Get yers here

Here’s the original ad. I moved the Allman Brothers to the top of the bill, and replaced Winter’s photo with Long Live the ABB shroom #2 by Psychodelik Pete/Peter Nogas.

There’s a shit-ton going on all around us and it can distract from the significance of the anniversary. America’s 250th anniversary is also the sixth year of a new American civic season: Juneteenth through Independence Day. The two weeks between the holidays bookend a reflection on the meaning of freedom, and a reminder that freedom and democracy is ever-evolving. This year I’m again reminded that neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution that followed applied to enslaved people, women, immigrants, Native Americans, the list goes on. 

Just as we celebrate American independence on July 4, Juneteenth commemorates the beginning of a whole new freedom for Black Americans: emancipation.

Commemoration is important. But it’s important not to lose sight of why we’re commemorating freedom. And that’s the basis for an annotated playlist I compiled.

I’m a big fan of the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. I watch it every couple of years for decades. It’s a dramatization, yes. But it’s realistic in the sense that it makes me appreciate the cost of the freedoms I take for granted. I wonder what I’d do in a similar situation? Would I emerge as a leader? Would I run like hell? Would I be 4F like George Bailey on account of a deaf ear?

It also reminds me that while the United States defeated fascism abroad in World War II, many other Americans were fighting for their basic freedoms at home. And on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, too many still continue to struggle to achieve the promises of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

A decade before the start of the Civil War, Frederick Douglass’s magnificent 1852 speech “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” explained the stakes of the coming conflict clearly. “Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”1 

Juneteenth reminds us that Black Americans had to wait almost 90 years to enjoy the right not to be enslaved. And that’s still nearly a century before the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965) grants more specific rights. Rights that are threatened at this very moment.

Learning about the Civil Rights Movement in graduate school and working with veterans of the Movement in my professional career has been one of the most profound experiences of my life. It led me to study history and in that journey, I’ve often wondered what I would’ve done as a southerner in that era. Like when I watch Band of Brothers, I ask would I have confronted or stood silent in the face of racism? Would I have been the white moderate MLK wrote about in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” or would I have risked my life like the Freedom Riders? I genuinely do not know. 

What, indeed, is the meaning of freedom?

What is its cost?

Why does it matter that we reflect on these questions?

These are some of the thoughts I had as I put together the playlist. Here’s a bit more about why each tune made the cut.

The Beatles “Revolution” The Fabs released two versions of this track, one of John’s greatest. I chose this one for its killer guitar intro and also its sentimental value: we had the Blue album in our house growing up. “We all want to change the world.” Indeed.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers “American Girl” A kick-ass tune from Petty’s first album, recorded after he left Florida for L.A. Love the Gainesville reference (441/13th Street).

Creedence Clearwater Revival “Fortunate Son” A pretty scathing critique of privilege at the height of the Vietnam War. John Fogerty served in the Army from 1966-68, as the war escalated rapidly.

Derek Trucks Band “Already Free” Title track from dTb’s final album, released in 2009. Derek and Susan formed Tedeschi Trucks Band the following year. 

Watchouse “Wildfire” Early in the pandemic, I became obsessed with this song, which touches on stories of the American Revolution, slavery, and the Lost Cause. Killer chord progression, melody, picking, harmony singing. This one hits home for this southerner.2

Staple Singers “Freedom Highway” My first exposure to this was the North Mississippi Allstars, who ripped a great version way back in the day. There are a bunch of Staple Singers tracks that fit on a playlist like this. Dig Pops’s Staples introduction about the meaning of the song. A live cut.

Bill Withers “I Can’t Write Left-Handed” Another spoken word intro, Withers giving insight into the inspiration for this devastating track. Live, once again. An extension of John Fogerty’s sentiment in “Fortunate Son.”

Lucero “The War” The song that inspired the playlist. Every time I watch Band of Brothers, I think of this track. It’s Ben Nichols’s grandfather’s WWII story. The last line of the chorus hits pretty hard. “Preacher, c’mon. Eat your supper with us.”

Bob Marley & the Wailers “Get Up, Stand Up” The ultimate freedom anthem. Marley recorded this a number of times over the years but I always go to the source, on Burnin’, on the final album featuring the original Wailers. 

Jimi Hendrix (Band of Gypsys) “Machine Gun” Hendrix served in the 101st Airborne (at Fort Campbell) before being discharged due to an injury. This track is Jimi’s commentary on the war in Vietnam and the fight for equality in the streets of America. Band of Gypsys is my ABBsolutely favorite Hendrix album. Naked and raw.3

Johnny Cash “Big River” Dad had both the San Quentin and Folsom records in his collection so this one brings back all the feels. It’s a continent-spanning journey along the Mississippi River.

Allman Brothers Band “Ramblin’ Man” From 1973’s Brothers and Sisters. Their biggest hit (#2) Don’t overlook the live version from Wipe the Windows, Check the Windows, Dollar Gas, which I wrote about here. Dickey calls out Georgia here, but it’s as much a tale about his Florida roots as anything. A damn good road song.4

Son Volt “Live Free” Trace is a brilliant collection of songs, a true desert island disc for me. Here, Jay Farrar uses New Hampshire’s motto, “Live Free or Die,” to evoke a journey down the open road in the pursuit of freedom.

Kris Kristofferson “Me and Bobby McGee” Dad’s all-time favorite version of his all-time favorite song. He was also a retired USN Commander. So I always think of him on days like today.

Drive-By Truckers “The Sands of Iwo Jima” Patterson Hood’s ode to his great uncle George A., a veteran of the Pacific War. There are some deep truths contained herein. I relate to it in a multitude of ways. My grandfather was part of the Japan invasion force (called off on VJ Day) and was pretty no-nonsense about his experiences.

Jason Isbell “Something More than Free” I could’ve put a dozen Isbell songs here, but I couldn’t resist the meta lesson of the title. I worked construction in high school with the guys Isbell is singing about. There are lessons here about where history has landed us when we’ve made the lives of working people so precarious and economically untenable. 

Simon & Garfunkel “America” A quintessential track for an Independence season playlist. 

Big Head Todd and the Monsters “Monument in Green” The American West has always held an allure to this lifelong southerner. This song captures that spirit well. I’ve always been partial to it as it reminds me of living out West with my then girlfriend, now wife of 39 years.

Widespread Panic “Hatfield” This is in homage to the legends of local history, a story of a rainmaker that happens to be true.5 Bonus: album produced by longtime ABB associate Johnny Sandlin (Hour Glass drummer and producer of Brothers & Sisters, Laid Back, and Highway Call).

The Monkees “Last Train to Clarksville” The Monkees hit #1 with this antiwar song, their debut single. Clarksville is home to the Army’s Fort Campbell. The singer is being shipped to Vietnam and is unsure if he’s “ever coming home.”

David Bowie “Rebel Rebel” I just love this bop and the world can always use more Bowie. There are lessons for this moment for being different in the face of adversity. It’s a reminder that rebels fight for all kinds of rights.

Nina Simone “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” A Civil Rights Movement anthem that rings as true today as it did 50 years ago. Tedeschi Trucks Band does a scorching version of this track6, as did the Derek Trucks Band before them. 

Gabe Dixon “Bend the Curve” I first came to know Gabe as keyboardist for the Tedeschi Trucks Band. He was pretty prolific during the pandemic and I grew to really respect him as an artist and a human being based on songs like this. It reminds me that we’re all in this together.

The Impressions “This is My Country” It’s impossible to overstate the importance of Curtis Mayfield to the freedom struggle. I quote him often. “Keep on pushing”—a reminder that freedom is a long game.7

The Five Stairsteps “O-o-h Child” There’s just something about this track by former Mayfield protégées the Five Stairsteps. A brilliant song with a gorgeous arrangement. It’s a central part of two movies that are imprinted on my brain, 1979’s Over the Edge—a dismal look at suburbia’s impact on youth, and Spike Lee’s Crooklyn (1994). I feel better when I listen to it, so I offer it up to you. 

Ben Harper “One Road to Freedom” Thought I’d bring it home with this reminder from Ben Harper. If pressed to ask what that one road is, I s’pose I’d say it’s whatever results in the most good for the most people.

Thanks for reading y’all. And thank you, particularly, to my paid subscribers for your support.

Lagniappe

Derek Trucks on The Star-Spangled Banner, a somewhat traditional take in honor of his grandfather, a World War II veteran

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Brent W. Hammond, Craig Stevens, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty, Steve Marshall

Subscribe now

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Craig Stephens, Cwktwo, Danbookin, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Scott Green, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

---

7

Listen closely and you’ll hear some licks that certainly inspired Duane. 

🍄 MERCH 🍄

Show your colors! Walt McNamee shot of candidate Jimmy Carter in an Allman Brothers July 4 weekend 1976.

MERCH

Everything was on the line for Duane and the Allman Brothers Band with At Fillmore East. Everything. The decision to release a live album was not as obvious as it might seem on the surface.

This is part two of four, Recording At Fillmore East (March 11-13, 1971)

Part 1

The At Fillmore East sessions spanned five shows over three nights, March 11 through 13, 1971.

Tapes survive for the latter four shows. The Allman Brothers were not the scheduled headliner; they had the middle slot on a bill between headliner Johnny Winter and opener the Elvin Bishop Group.

“The ABB tore into the early show like it was a Friday night late show,” Alan Arkush recalled. The energy stunned Winter. “Johnny wanted to reverse the order,” Arkush said. “He just couldn’t top them.” Winter’s manager insisted the bands switch slots. “Johnny is gonna be opening for the Allman Brothers from now on because we can’t have that happen again,” Trucks overheard after Friday’s early show, which is exactly what happened. Johnny Winter demanded they switch places, and he played the middle slot for the rest of the run.1

The lineup change gave the ABB the liberty to do what it did best, improvise and expand songs as the muse struck. Graham’s bills afforded about sixty minutes to the middle act, not nearly enough time for a band that topped that number with only four songs on At Fillmore East: “You Don’t Love Me” (19:06), “Whipping Post” (22:40), “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” (12:46), and “Stormy Mon­day” (8:31). If the lineup order hadn’t switched, Butch recalled, “we absolutely wouldn’t have had all that time to do all the stretching out that led to At Fillmore East.”

The Fillmore East sessions caught a band “entering its prime as a performing unit,” wrote Bud Scoppa. They arrived in New York well-rehearsed and in top form. Arkush said, “The Saturday night shows, early and late, were probably the greatest I ever saw the All­man Brothers play, one of the greatest live performances I’ve ever witnessed.” The bulk of At Fillmore East came from these two shows.

At Fillmore East was a carefully planned and brilliantly executed documentation of the band’s development. Listeners can hear the closeness of the musicians in their musical conversations, each im­provising his part, whether soloing, comping, or both simultaneously. “What made that weekend special is that we had been out on the road, we’d been playing these songs, and you know how sometimes, ev­erything comes together at the right time? When you have the right people in the right place doing the right thing?” Butch reflected. “We were really comfortable with these songs that we were playing. On ‘Whipping Post’ and ‘Mountain Jam,’ we had really learned to talk to each other. By the time that weekend came along, we were really communicating.”

Butch Trucks as a musical visionary

“We knew those shows were special,” Jaimoe said, “but when you’re doing it and you’re in the middle of it, you’re not thinking like that. Great stuff was going on. I didn’t want to get hung up over knowing the shows were being recorded. That would not be good, you need to get your mind off of that so you don’t get hung up and forget what you’re supposed to be doing, which is playing music and connecting with an audience.”

The sessions feature six musicians in deep, constant musical con­versation in front of an appreciative audience.

Duane’s and Dickey’s guitars are the most prominent in conversation, but the third guitar, Berry’s bass, drives nearly all of it. His runs answer his bandmates’ with ideas of his own that spur the entire band in new directions. On Hammond B-3, Gregg is as active as he would ever be in his All­man Brothers Band career, laying down a steady base of sound. Firm­ing up the foundation is an unshakeable rhythmic foundation. The power of the drums is one of the most noticeable differences between Idlewild South and At Fillmore East. Jaimoe plays as much percussion on Idlewild as he does drums, which may be another reason it didn’t sell as well as hoped. Jaimoe is a drummer. And the Allman Broth­ers was a two-drummer band. The double drumming on At Fillmore East makes the rhythm more forceful, which seemed to give the band confidence.

The Fillmore East recordings captured a group at the peak of its powers. “We were a hell of a band,” Betts said, “and we just got a good recording that captured what we sounded like.” Trucks recalled, “We knew each other well enough, we knew the material well enough to where we didn’t have to think about it and could let it all flow so naturally. We knew what each other was going to do—yet we were constantly wide open to letting it go and taking a dive and seeing what would happen.” Jaimoe said, “You went by what the song was dictating as opposed to thinking it out.”

As in jazz, the songs were “structured to the point where we’d know who went first,” Betts recalled, “but what was going to happen in the middle of it, we never knew.” Duane, as bandleader, would count off songs, Gregg said. “We would end it when he raised his hand, but in between, the band just let itself go wherever the music would take us.” Tunes morphed accordingly, stretching to whatever limits the band and soloist felt in the moment, which Jai­moe cited as Coltrane’s influence. “With whatever amount of space you have to do something, that’s what you have and the ability to do that just shows the mastery of knowing what you’re doing, how to develop it and how to play a song.”

🍄Jaimoe "Music chose me.” 🍄

The Fillmore East audience was among the ABB’s most attentive. “They would kind of play along with us,” Gregg recalled. “We’d go from two decibels to a hundred. But when we shut down, they’d shut down. They’d go from screaming and yelling to absolute silence. They were right on top of every single vibration coming from the stage.” Dowd captured the vibe well on the recording. Twice on “You Don’t Love Me,” for example, the band dropped out altogether, leaving Duane soloing alone on stage. Both times, the crowd remained nearly still, as if stirring would disturb the magic. The second time it happened, one dude could hold back no longer. “Play all night!” he burst out, in one of the most famous, joyful fan moments captured live. Duane teased the eighteenth-century Christmas carol “Joy to the World” to signal the end of his solo. Dickey is first to pick up the cue. The band followed, as the guitarists steered the song’s thundering conclusion.

The Allman Brothers Band played five shows over the course of the Fillmore East sessions. Recordings remain of four: the early and late shows on March 12 and 13. For the March 11 shows, Duane had invited a three-person horn section including Jaimoe’s friend Juicy Carter to guest on a few songs. Following the March 11 early show, Dowd told Duane to cancel the experiment. “This isn’t the time to try this out,” he argued. Dowd was adamant, and correct, that the unrehearsed and out-of-tune horn section did not belong on the album. Carter demonstrated little feel for the Allman Brothers Band’s music, and though he joined the band at least twice more over the weekend, none of the horn section’s appearances made the final album.

Fillmore East as an Artistic Statement

Convincing Duane to excise the out-of-place jazz horn section from the At Fillmore East sessions was one of Dowd’s most impor­tant contributions to the album.

It gave the world a note-perfect, horn-free “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” that is a highlight of the record and among the greatest pieces of music the Allman Brothers ever recorded.2 The suggestion is even more remarkable considering Dowd wasn’t even supposed to be in New York for the sessions. He was in Ghana working on the film Soul to Soul and had planned a brief vaca­tion before he changed his mind and flew home to New York instead. He called Atlantic when he landed and learned the Allman Brothers were in town recording. He headed straight to Fillmore East.

Given the album’s high stakes, the serendipity is puzzling. The band chose not to record in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve 1970 because Dowd wasn’t available, so why then would they book the Fillmore East for recording without their producer? More than likely, the group decided recording at the Fillmore in March 1971 was more important than Dowd’s presence at the sessions. Dowd and the Allman Brothers had worked closely together for a year, and they knew the songs were ready. Once the band started playing live, the producer’s role is less essential. Engineers did the recording, And this was another bonus of having Dowd: his engineering. It is a brilliant recording that sounds expansive and intimate all at the same time.

About those 1971 setlists...

The Allman Brothers Band played tight set lists over the weekend. By 1971 sets had formalized to the extent that shows began with the songs Duane played on slide.3 At the Fillmore, this meant four short blues songs: “Statesboro Blues,” “Trouble No More,” “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’,” and “Done Somebody Wrong.” Two of the tracks, “States­boro Blues” and Elmore James’s “Done Somebody Wrong,” had yet to appear on an Allman Brothers release, though the band had at­tempted to record the former several times in the studio.

Betts’s “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” re­corded at the early show Saturday, March 13, is the definitive version of the band’s definitive instrumental.

The two guitarists are in command of their instruments, as Betts and Allman confidently channel jazz influence and blues roots in extended so­los, with Duane bringing his solo to two climaxes. The Fillmore East version is a masterwork, six band members in sync through multiple melodic and tempo changes. A second instrumental, the up-tempo, jazzy “Hot ’Lanta,” is the sole full-band co-write. It is the only Allman Brothers instrumental that never appeared on a studio album and that the band never stretched out on stage.

The band played “Stormy Monday” just once over the weekend, the Saturday late show, a performance that made the final album. The Allman Brothers made “You Don’t Love Me” (Willie Cobbs by way of Junior Wells) their own—a twenty minute take from a patch of two versions. “Whipping Post” closed the album, but not the sessions. As the album fades out, you hear the opening notes of one last song, “Mountain Jam.” The jam was a fitting end to a triumphal weekend. The thirty-plus-minute improvisation featured solos from all band members, including a three-minute drum jam.

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

“Sure has been a fine weekend,” Berry Oakley exclaimed at the jam’s conclusion.

“Fine weekend” was an understatement. The music the band re­corded at Fillmore East March 12 and 13, 1971, was a band in its el­ement, playing at an absolute peak. And the group knew it. “Last weekend we played in New York,” Oakley announced from the Warehouse stage the following week. “We recorded four different shows, and we got enough material that sounds a lot like the really spaced-out stuff that we do when we get down here and we’re gonna put it out on record in about six weeks.”

Capricorn released At Fillmore East less than four months after the sessions, on July 6. By Septem­ber 3, it reached number 13 on the Billboard charts. By October 25, At Fillmore East had sold 500,000 copies. The Allman Brothers Band had their commercial breakthrough.

Excerpted from

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

Lagniappe

A video short of some photos from Friday, March 12 early show. The photographer, Richard Edelman, remembers Johnny Winter watching the ABB’s set from the wings, which is apparently when Winter decided he didn’t want to follow the Allman Brothers that weekend.

And a playlist to accompany you on your journey

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Brent W. Hammond, Craig Stevens, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty, Steve Marshall

Subscribe now

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Craig Stephens, Cwktwo, Danbookin, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Scott Green, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

---

3

My take on the static 1971 setlists: the band was rehearsing for then playing the shit out of their new album.

🍄🍑MERCH🍑🍄

Created this to honor the Allman Brothers Band’s March 1971 run at Fillmore East. You’ll see the original ad below, which had Johnny Winter at the top of the bill.

Get yers here

Here’s the original ad. I moved the Allman Brothers to the top of the bill, and replaced Winter’s photo with Long Live the ABB shroom #2 by Psychodelik Pete/Peter Nogas.

Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

Conversation from the Crossroads of Southern music, history, & culture is an independent project of historian Dr. Bob Beatty, author of 'Play All Night! Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East.' No affiliation/endorsement with the Allman Brothers.

The book is the biography of a sound, the Allman Brothers Band at their artistic height. Everything was on the line for Duane and the Allman Brothers Band with At Fillmore East. Everything. The decision to release a live album was not as obvious as it might seem in at first glance.

This is part one of four, Recording At Fillmore East (March 11-13, 1971)

Phil Walden agreed that a live album was the best way to build on the au­dience Duane and the band had worked so hard to develop.

The deci­sion was not without risk. While live albums were common, they were typically a way established artists generated sales between studio al­bums. The Allman Brothers Band had no such credibility and instead used a live album to grow its commercial presence. At Fillmore East is the quintessential Allman Brothers Band recording and pinnacle of Duane Allman’s me­teoric career.

"Play music honest to yourself," Skydog

Fillmore East also presented a decidedly American take on contem­porary music, critic Bud Scoppa wrote. The ABB were “a reminder that rock & roll didn’t start out to be a mean but ambiguous kind of music played by fey and mannered young Britishers” like the British blues artists who had actually introduced electric blues to much of white America. “The real rock & roll was hard, blues-rich, powerful, and overtly virile stuff.”1

Atlantic promo men Philip Rauls and John Carter likewise lauded the band’s stage prowess. “The Allman Brothers did it all,” Rauls said. “On stage they were giants.” As Carter recalled, “Every night was dif­ferent. I’ve never seen a band that was so spontaneous and reacted so well to each other. It was absolutely real and spontaneous and driven by greatness.” Tony Glover wrote that the Allman Brothers have “their chops together—and know how to use them to create thick smoking tapestries of blues and rock, tempered with a lyrical aching beauty.”

He found it genuine. “No one is into aerobatics or sex shows, they just stand there and play their heads off.” They played “powerhouse rock & roll” that combined the electric blues of Muddy Waters and Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew–era jazz fusion. “The tightest instrumental group I’d ever heard.” Audiences loved it. “The force of the whole band playing with that incredible single-mindedness gets people on their feet after practically every number,” Scoppa observed. Their music “may get very free and loose and sophisticated at certain points, but it’s always got its chest out and its eyes open. Part of the masculine feel comes from the patterned thunder of Jai Johanny’s and Butch Trucks’s double drumming, part from the two guitars circling each other like a pair of killer falcons.”

At Fillmore East: An Artistic Statement

Rolling Stone’s Alex Dubro found the approach “incredibly versa­tile and highly musical.” While jazz left contemporaries in “hopeless befuddlement,” Dubro argued, the ABB “grab the latitude allowed by jazz changes and add power.”

Eric Clapton left an August 1970 Allman Brothers concert in Miami enthralled.2 “The music was unbelievable, because they were doing all that harmony playing. Everything seemed to be, even if they played solos, they were all in harmony. It was fantastically worked out. The impression that I got was how much hard work they’d put into their presentation, and the fact that it wasn’t really blasted all over the airwaves, you know? They had just quietly gone about doing a fantastic job of making really, really good music that was really well thought out.”

Thus, Duane returned to Clapton some of the inspiration he took from him.

“They influenced my music at the time,” Clapton said. “They made it okay for a band to be live all the time—their thing was really more about live than [studio].” Clapton cited the Allman Brothers’ ex­pansiveness in expressing his frustration with Cream. “We were really limited onstage,” he said. “We could go into the studio and make great records by overdubbing—I would play a rhythm part, and then a lead part with a harmony to it, so you’re really talking about three guitar [parts].” The Allman Brothers Band had no such limitations.

Though it was rare for underground artists like the Allman Broth­ers to release a live record, concert albums otherwise were common. Some artists used live albums to introduce new material or change musical direction. John Coltrane’s Coltrane “Live” at the Vil­lage Vanguard (1962) is an example of both. Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison (1968) and At San Quentin (1969) established Cash as the Man in Black, champion of the underdog. Many live records were attempts at a midstream career boost, such as James Brown’s self-funded Live at the Apollo (1963), which spent more than a year on the Billboard pop albums chart. But most live albums—B. B. King’s Live at the Regal. At Newport by Muddy Waters, failed to chart altogether.

It took until the mid-1960s for label executives to realize that there was a market for live rock & roll albums. The breakthrough was the Beach Boys’ Beach Boys Concert. Released in 1964, it spent sixty-two weeks on the charts, four of them at number 1. Two years later, the Rolling Stones released Got Live If You Want It!, which reached number 6.

Most live albums (including the Beach Boys and Stones) were heavily overdubbed in post-production. It was common, said Dickey. “There was kind of a running joke in the music business. No­body said it in public in an interview or anything, but people would say, ‘The only thing live on such-and-such record was the audience.’ A lot of times they would go back into the studio and redo things; redo vocals and stuff.”

Soon, band and labels began including live tracks on studio al­bums. After Clapton left the Yardbirds, their label slapped four of his live cuts on 1965’s Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds. By the end of the decade, half of the tracks on Cream’s final two albums, Wheels of Fire and Goodbye Cream, were live. Among them their most famous track, “Crossroads.”

The Allman Brothers Band used the live album in an altogether different way. A live album in place of another studio record. It was a low-cost gamble that they didn’t require expensive studio time.

Labels had sup­ported the live releases as low-cost investments that kept audiences buying records. The Allman Brothers had no such cachet. The group was an underground phenomenon with a lot of buzz but somewhat minimal presence in the marketplace.

A comparison to the Grateful Dead is useful. Although the Dead was America’s premier improvisational and experimental live rock act since its earliest days, they, too, struggled with studio recordings. The Dead’s second album, Anthem of the Sun, in 1968, in­cluded live and studio cuts. Sales flagged, as they did for its follow-up, Aoxomoxoa, released the following year. In debt to Warner Brothers for $250,000, the Dead doubled down. Rather than recording a studio album and touring behind the album, the Dead recorded their next album live. Live/Dead proved to be a breakthrough and one of the most revered live records of the era.

Whether the Allman Brothers Band considered Live/Dead when they decided to record their third album live is immaterial. The con­nection matters most because these two similarly influenced, influ­ential, innovative, improvisational bands understood their best showcase was a live album. The excitement of the live experience was how the groups best expressed themselves musically, and the resulting albums confirmed that instinct.

Live/Dead didn’t sell all that well, only reaching number 64 in fifteen weeks on the charts. But it sounded as close to the experience of a live Grateful Dead concert as possible, and it brought in new fans along the way. With At Fillmore East, the ABB would find the same results.

At Fillmore East also became part of a campaign to take advan­tage of the Allman Brothers’ reputation as the “People’s Band.”

The band’s relentless touring schedule garnered a significant following. As Jonny Podell, the band’s New York–based booking agent, recalled, “The word had got out. The tastemakers—Bill Graham and Rolling Stone—had come out forcefully in favor of the Allman Brothers. The network of underground clubs, from Boston Tea Party to the Fillmore West, clearly supported the Allman Brothers, and would play them five times a year if they could.”

Translating the live sound to vinyl was the right next step. The Allman Brothers would record the album at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East.3 The venue at 105 Second Avenue in New York City’s East Vil­lage, was nearly as important as the music itself. Graham’s productions dissolved the line between musician and audience. “Performers inter­acted with the audience to form a unit,” Fillmore West manager Paul Baratta said, “not just somebody performing at an audience.” The dynamic was tailor-made for the All­man Brothers Band, whose concerts were as much a chance for the band to perform for the audience as it was for the band and audience to celebrate life together.

Betts called Fillmore East “the Carnegie Hall of rock & roll. Gra­ham made a great presentation of rock & roll with light shows and curtains and presentations of the bands and the set changes.” Most importantly, he said, the room sounded fantastic. “The P.A. system was set up correctly. It wasn’t too loud, it wasn’t too soft, and every­one in the room could hear and see.” Jaimoe said, “That stage was smoking.”

Excerpted from

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

STAY TUNED FOR PARTS 2 THROUGH 4

---

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty

Subscribe now

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Craig Stephens, Cwktwo, Danbookin, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Scott Green, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

---

2

A meeting that resulted in Duane joining the Layla sessions.

LLtABB swag

MERCH

Adapted from original ad for the March 1971 Fillmore East sessions.

Marginalia

Here’s a post from my marginalia series, an annotated read of Tom Nolan’s The Allman Brothers Band: A Biography in Words & Pictures (1976). This post gives context to the machinations between the record company people. Jerry Wexler wanted one disc. Phil Walden and the Allman Brothers held the line. The record was four sides, seven songs, no overdubs, and only two edits.

The Allman Brothers were the People’s Band, Walden said, and they’d sell the double album for a single album price. The record turned a road band with two underperforming studio records into one of the defining acts in rock.

Here’s the entire series.

Dr. B's Marginalia

Previously on Long Live the ABB…

Layla

Allman’s work on Layla so revitalized the Dominos that they asked him to join them as a permanent member; when he demurred, saying “He had his own biscuit to fry” with the ABB. Someone suggested putting both groups together. “Wouldn’t that have been a band!” exclaims Bobby Whitlock.

Although Duane did appear onstage with the Dominos for at least two concerts, he never seriously considered these offers.

He was too committed to the group he had put so much effort into—a group which was, after three years of relative obscurity, about to turn the corner into the bigtime.

Duane definitely gave the offer serious consideration. I mean, who in their right mind would turn down Eric Clapton?!

“I really don’t know what to do,” he wrote his wife Donna. “It would mean about $5,000 a week to us, as well as a home in England and a lot of things we’d like to have. . . . I’m really up in the air right now.”

Jaimoe knew “Duane had more going playing with us than with Eric.”

Duane agreed. The following spring, March 12-13, 1971, he and his band recorded their landmark album: At Fillmore East (pages from the book are basically the second column on p32 and the first column on p34 available here).

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

Picking up Nolan’s story

The beginning of the great popular acceptance which would be enjoyed by the Allman Brothers Band came with the release of their two-record live album: At Fillmore East.

Phil Walden recalls there was opposition from key Atlantic Records personnel to putting that album out in its final form.

“The tunes are too long,” they said. “These jams aren’t that important.”

Pricing it at $6.98 was thought to be too expensive.

“You can’t have a double album with a band that hasn’t broken big yet. To have a live album before you’ve had a really successful studio album doesn’t make sense.”

Everything, according to certain people, was all wrong; but it turned out to be all right.

The band had not really found themselves in the studio at that time; but they had, in front of live audiences. They had more freedom there; they opened up. They weren’t a three-minute-cut band.

The live album gave them an opportunity to play on record as they played in person; and people reacted to that. That was really the turning point.

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

Here’s Phil Walden telling this same story from a CMT documentary released in the 00s. The whole thing is fantastic, but this snippet is gold.2 I’ve got it queued up to the point Walden recounts his conversation with Wexler, his Capricorn Records partner and Atlantic Records’ executive.

Remember, too, that Capricorn was also an Atlantic subsidiary, giving Wexler twice the right to tell Walden a double album sold for a single album price was not gonna fly economically.

These are obvious conflicts of interest, particularly as the band grew more successful. Wexler was an Atlantic executive and co-owner of Capricorn. Walden was the ABB’s manager, co-owned its record label, and controlled its publishing. Wexler might make decisions that were best for Atlantic but not for Capricorn; Walden could choose something that was best for Capricorn but not the ABB.3

Ultimately, the caliber of the March 1971 Fillmore East performances and recordings made the decision an easy one. A single album would have made sense, but Walden argued that the band’s performances warranted more, and he fought to release a double album.

🍄🍑🍄MERCH🍄🍑🍄

“I told Wexler that our Fillmore East live album would have to be two LPs and contain at least one sixteen-minute song,” Walden said.

“Not every note is vital to our heritage,” Wexler replied.

“The boys are pure artists and that’s what it’s got to be,” Walden argued, adding, “Jerry agreed, he understood.”

What Wexler understood was that he “had never heard a guitarist I found as satisfying as Duane.”

Walden presented Wexler with an additional demand: “Our image is that this is the People’s Band. Music is for the people and therefore we want to make this specially priced”—a double album for the cost of a single.

Wexler relented only after Walden agreed to cut a deal on song publishing for the three original Allman Brothers Band songs on the record—“In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” “Hot ‘Lanta” and “Whipping Post”—a decision that probably cost the band millions in royalties.

Fillmore East as an Artistic Statement

On this album, recorded March 12 and 13, 1971 at Bill Graham’s New York venue, we hear at last a great band in full possession of its considerable intelligence and stamina: in sound mind and body, as it were.

Whether because of the rapport generated by a live setting, or simply because some necessary time had elapsed, the Allman Brothers at last achieved their appropriate mixture of taste and power.

With grace they move repeatedly from subdued, engrossing, intricate levels, to brilliant and fiery cascades of notes, and back again to quieter yet equally exciting areas.

Guitar solos of the perfect logic blend seamlessly into arranged sections; the music rushes forward, pauses, maneuvers around a bend and continues onward with the force of a natural stream—liquid, pure, flowing, offering constant diversion to the attentive senses.

First, pause a moment to revel in Nolan’s prose. This is some of the best writing on the Allman Brothers Band I’ve ever encountered.

A band in full possession of its considerable intelligence and stamina

finding a mixture of taste and power

and playing with grace as they move from subdued, engrossing, intricate levels, to brilliant and fiery cascades of notes, and back.

The music rushes forward, pauses, maneuvers…liquid, pure, flowing.

The album was as near a representation of the band’s live performances as possible. A pure artistic statement.

At Fillmore East gave the ABB the opportunity to stretch out. “No record is as good as hearing the band live,” Tony Glover wrote, but At Fillmore East “comes close.”

Said Walden, “We didn’t go back and re-record one guitar solo; we didn’t add anything to it. The live album gave them an opportunity to play on record as they played in person. That was really the turning point.”

“Elizabeth Reed” has expanded from the interesting album track of Idlewild South4 to the 12-minute-plus concert piece its dramatic conception warrants.

It is a highlight of the record and among the best pieces of music the Allman Brothers ever recorded.

Just think, had Tom Dowd not convinced Duane to excise Juicy Carter’s out-of-place/out-of-tune sax from the At Fillmore East sessions the world would be minus a truly great work of art: the note-perfect, horn-free, one take “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” from the 3/13 early show.

Likewise, “Whipping Post” has become a twenty-three-minute tour de force, and “You Don’t Love Me” takes up another side. The length of these songs is an essential factor in the overwhelming mood the band creates.

It’s as difficult to single out notable passages as it is to separate elements of a striking landscape, but it is impossible not to notice certain moments, including those extraordinary ones which crown “You Don’t Love Me,” during which Duane’s unaccompanied blues lines build into a keening chorus which pulls the rest of the musicians along like postilions pacing to an exultant funeral dirge; coming as it does at the conclusion of an exhausting number, it takes one forcefully by surprise and affords an especially stirring release.

The success of the album and the fact that it endures all these years later as part of the canon5 validates Duane, the band’s, and Walden’s instincts to issue a double album featuring the band in their most natural element: playing live.

Where the songs on the first two albums seemed clearly compartmentalized into blues, ambitious rock, and ballad, here the music is an eclectic whole, an entity.

Blues and ambitious rock are here, but At Fillmore East is definitely missing the ballad side of the Allman Brothers Band.6

Everything else is here. It really is the perfect representation of the Allman Brothers Band at that time in their career.

It is a machine cranked by hand, fueled by steam and wind, octane and electricity, discharging memory and surprise.

More great prose from Nolan. 55 years later we are still reaping the dividends of this magnificent album. And after 30+ years of my own listening to it, I’m still finding new things to hear. That is the mark of a great piece of art.

The group had headlined in certain Southern cities, but as the Fillmore set swiftly climbed the record charts their national status as a top-of-the-bill act was securely established. Now began, as well, the widespread critical acceptance which verified the band’s position among the hierarchy of rock.

Here’s Duane in July 1971:

After 2+ LONG years as road dogs, the group was poised to seize the mantle as the country’s #1 band.

With At Fillmore East, they achieved the success that had theretofore eluded them.

Looking back, Jon Landau8 summarizes the strengths and appeal of this group.

“The Allman Brothers were one of the few legitimate improvisatory American bands, one of the few rock bands that made a basically soloing style work. Every guy in that band could really play. And they could play together. That band could swing.

Their Fillmore album, from the first note to the last—you can’t even subdivide it into songs…it’s all there”

They were a band. Duane did not so dominate that group that they ceased to be a band, or became a vehicle for Duane Allman. It was one of the things he had most in mind when he conceived of the group; he wanted a band that he could play with, not over or against, or through. He wanted a group of partners, and that’s exactly what he got.

This last paragraph was an important part of my thesis in Play All Night.

Duane Allman’s artistic vision was a band of equals wailing in front of an enraptured audience.

Duane damn sure fulfilled that vision.

At Fillmore East is proof.

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman & the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty

Subscribe now

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Craig Stephens, Cwktwo, Danbookin, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

---

Brought to you by the members of Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads (paywall removed for this one).

Clive Davis passed away June 22, 2026 at the age of 94. Though he was lauded for prowess as a record label executive at Columbia Records before founding Arista in 1973.

That’s the crossroads where Davis and the Allman Brothers Band meet—an ABBsolute travesty for the band, resulting in two pretty awful records and a second break-up.

Here’s my take on the Arista error.

You may recognize the title and cover page above. It’s Cameron Crowe’s 1973 Rolling Stone cover story.1 Years later, Crowe turned his experience into Almost Famous.

Crowe caught the band at their zenith. It’s a wonderful piece.

My article’s title page is a clever adaptation by editor . My essay covers the band’s nadir. The two worst records in the catalog. Reach for the Sky (1980) and Brothers of the Road (1981).

An Allman Brothers Story

In which a rock & roll band with a legendary run of albums signs with soft rock giant Arista and makes 2 crummy records while watching their band die a slow death

An Allman Artistic Apocalypse

Backstory

Founded in Jacksonville in March 1969, the Allman Brothers Band emerged from Macon, Georgia, as the South’s counterculture standard bearers. The group was the brainchild of hotshot Muscle Shoals session guitarist Duane Allman and bass player Berry Oakley, who conceived of a psychedelic rock band with a distinctly Southern flavor. From community jams in Jacksonville, they recruited a murderer’s row of pickers playing improvised live rock music at high decibels and even higher caliber: drummer Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson (formerly with Otis Redding, among others), guitarist Dickey Betts (Oakley’s bandmate), and drummer Butch Trucks (longtime pals of Duane and Gregg). Duane’s brother Gregg was the last to join the band.

After two relentless years touring and two relatively unsuccessful studio albums, a self-titled debut (1969) and Idlewild South (1970), the band released At Fillmore East (1971). It captured the group in its element: Onstage in front of a rapt New York City audience who adored them. Playing hard-driving blues rock with a jazz aesthetic, At Fillmore East is brilliant record and a breakthrough smash. Three months after release and several days after learning the record hit gold, Duane Allman, the band’s founder, leader, and spiritual force, died in a motorcycle crash. He was just twenty-four.

In tribute, his band played through their grief. They finished Eat a Peach (which hit #4) and embarked on a ninety-show tour as a quintet, a legendary one-year lineup called the Five-man band. In yet another entry in the Southern Gothic tale that is the Allman Brothers’, bassist Berry Oakley died in a motorcycle accident in November 1972. It was a little more than a year after, and within blocks of, Duane’s accident.

The band regrouped, adding Chuck Leavell on keyboards and Jaimoe’s lifelong friend Lamar Williams on bass. This lineup saw the band’s greatest commercial success. Their fifth album, Brothers and Sisters (1973), hit #1. Its follow-up, the desultory Win, Lose, or Draw (1975), began a slide into irrelevance that led to a break-up in 1976, a three-albums-of-declining-quality reunion beginning in 1979, and a second break-up in 1982.

The group’s artistic nadir encompasses two albums for Arista Records: Reach for the Sky (1980) and Brothers of the Road (1981). In an attempt to update their sound for modern audiences, the records feature synthesizers, keytars, background vocalists, and slick 1980s production. Both albums are pretty awful, but Brothers of the Road has the additional sin of missing Jaimoe, the first member of the Allman Brothers Band, who was fired in late 1980.

Even though I never listened to either Reach for the Sky or Brothers of the Road in their entirety, I know they suck. In fact, until this assignment for Record Time, I only owned Reach for the Sky on 8-track3 and didn’t even own any copy of Brothers of the Road, and I love the band.

I’m gonna take my first deep dive into these records after thirty-plus years of fandom, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to for the same reason nobody wanted to see Willie Mays falling down in the outfield with the Mets.

How did it get this bad?

That’s what I’m gonna try and sort out.

I figured I’d start at the beginning.

The first five albums — The Allman Brothers Band (1969), Idlewild South (1970), At Fillmore East (1971), Eat a Peach (1972), and Brothers and Sisters (1973) — give more than five hours of some of my favorite music of all-time. Even better, there is not a track I skip on any of them. Not a single one. I have my preferences and not every song is a classic, but nothing is skippable in my book.

Next: The first “worst” Allman Brothers Band record, Win, Lose, or Draw (1975). I own a crisp copy, several actually. This one was a perennial in the cutout bins and remains less than $10 at most record stores. There’s a reason for that. It’s simply not very good.

How did it get this bad?

It starts here.

In 1973, the band was one of the top groups in the nation. Brothers and Sisters went to #1 on the charts; the song “Ramblin’ Man” hit #2. They performed a string of shows with the Grateful Dead including the epic Summer Jam ’73 at Watkins Glen, New York, with 600,000 people in attendance. Then it all came crashing down.

Coming off a run of five albums in five years, in 1974, the ABB took a break. It proved a mistake. Whatever momentum the group had abruptly halted as Gregg Allman, then Dickey Betts released and toured solo albums (Laid Back from Gregg, Highway Call from Dickey) and fought off rumors of a break-up.

Share

Success begat a host of other problems: drugs, money, and artistic malaise. Gregg married Cher, a star of the highest magnitude with a dizzying level of fame far beyond anything he or the Allman Brothers Band could have ever imagined. ABB recording sessions were beset with problems. Producer Johnny Sandlin struggled to get the entire band together at one time. Gregg was mostly absent, decamped to L.A. with Cher. Ever temperamental, on Thursdays, Dickey wouldn’t arrive to the studio until after Kung Fu – the TV show starring David Carradine – aired.

Win, Lose, or Draw reflects this lack of inspiration. Only two songs from the album stayed in the band’s repertoire, “Can’t Lose What You Never Had” and “High Falls.” Gregg’s “Nevertheless” is much better than I remembered. “Win, Lose, or Draw” is not. A beautiful song, Gregg overdubbed his vocals from L.A. while he recovered from a cold or a bit of the cocaine drip.

All three of Dickey’s vocals lack the punch of early Allman Brothers. Billy Joe Shaver’s “Sweet Mama” seems more fitting on Highway Call or his Great Southern albums. “Just Another Love Song” is a groovy little tune that also belongs on Highway Call. Dickey’s third vocal, “Louisiana Lou and Three Card Monte John,” is my least favorite song from the 1969-76 era.

Though it sold well at release, Win, Lose, or Draw was ultimately a flop. Capricorn Records and its co-owner Phil Walden depended on the album’s success: The Allman Brothers were its bellwether. The album’s failure spelled doom for the heavily leveraged label, which would close its doors by the early 1980s.

And then, of course, were the drugs. The group was never shy about its intake. Drugs impacted members individually, but they didn’t affect the band’s creativity, until now. Gregg’s drug habit, in particular, wreaked havoc. Keeping him supplied, alive, and getting him to the gig was the job of Scooter Herring.

The band played its last show May 4, 1976. On May 30, Scooter Herring was arrested at Capricorn Records’ Macon offices for drug trafficking. The feds were after Herring’s supplier, pharmacist Joe Fuchs. Herring and Fuchs were associates of J.C. Hawkins, the Middle Georgia kingpin of the Dixie Mafia — a loose collective of Southern organized crime with deep ties to southern law enforcement agencies.

To account for the ounces of pharmaceutical cocaine Allman bought through Fuchs, Fuchs and Herring staged a robbery of the pharmacy. The investigation of the crime soon included the feds, who were already tailing Hawkins. In June, Gregg Allman — under heavy guard and with a $100,000 bounty on his head courtesy of Hawkins — testified in federal court against Herring. Herring pled the Fifth and earned a seventy-five-year sentence (later commuted).

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

Gregg’s unreliability, obsession with Cher, and absence in Los Angeles already had him on the outs with his bandmates. They were now ever-more furious at Gregg for testifying against a brother. “What Gregg did was bullshit,” Betts told a reporter.

The trial was the final straw. The band had been dodging rumors of a breakup for a year. By August 1975, Capricorn Records confirmed the breakup. Jaimoe said he would never play with Gregg again. Everyone went their separate way.

How did it get this bad?

A clue to the band’s musical decline lies in what the band members were up to after ABB’s breakup.

It’s an interesting detour. It’s also an excuse for my every-couple-of-years listen through Dickey’s two Great Southern albums — the self-titled debut (1977) and Atlanta’s Burning Down (1978), both on Arista.

Both albums are weak, though there are some songs that might even thrive with the Allman Brothers treatment. A fresh listen validates my belief that Dickey Betts needed the Allman Brothers Band as his chief collaborators. They brought out the best in him.

Gregg’s Playin’ Up a Storm (1977) is among my least favorite of his solo records. Its way-too-slick-L.A.-production results in saccharine takes of the Allmans’ “Come and Go Blues” and his gorgeous ballad “One More Try.” Fortunately, I have Sea Level’s 1977 debut as a palate cleanser. Sea Level is half of the recently imploded Allman Brothers Band, with lifelong friends Jaimoe and Lamar Williams holding down the rhythm section. What a wonderful album!

Every single one of these records can be found in the discount bin and they’re all much better than the ABB’s Arista records.

How do I know when I haven’t even listened to them?

I just do.

Time for Enlightened Rogues (1979).4 This one is like comfort food. I don’t play it much, but it is another “don’t skip” album for me (though I’m not nuts about either “Crazy Love” or “Blind Love”). The band’s first album in four years, Enlightened Rogues is a really fun record. The reunited group was feeling good. Super engineer Tom Dowd was back behind the boards. The album charted at #9, while “Crazy Love” hit #28. Gregg’s “Just Ain’t Easy” is one of his best. The band’s last album for Capricorn, Dickey sued the label for back royalties several years before Enlightened Rogues was even released.

How did it get this bad?

In search of a new label, the Allman Brothers signed with Clive Davis’s Arista Records, home to such rock titans as Foreigner, Air Supply, and Barry Manilow.

Dickey’s band Great Southern was also on Arista. Same with the Grateful Dead. It could have been a great pairing, two old friends, now labelmates, touring with updated, new material. But Dead’s camp thought Gregg a narc, and no collaborations materialized. Even worse were Clive Davis’s abysmal efforts to modernize the Allman Brothers Band sound.

The first Arista album, Reach for the Sky (1980) begins with a Dickey Betts tune, “Hell & High Water.” A gospel sounding intro a-la “Amazing Grace” is a promising beginning. It’s a Gregg and Dickey duet like “Try It One More Time.” That’s where comparisons stop. The song sucks. It’s a poor man’s “Louisiana Lou and Three Card Monte John” and a continuation of Enlightened Rogues, just appreciably speedier. (The album is brought to you by cocaine and nitrous oxide.)

It’s gonna get worse. I know.

“Mystery Woman” is a mediocre Gregg collaboration with “Dangerous” Dan Toler. A goddamn synthesizer undergirds the entire groove. Harmony guitar climb-ups mimic every other Dickey/Dangerous Dan collaboration. And then a weak outro solo. Terrible.

“From the Madness of the West” is one of the few tracks I’ve listened to more than once. It’s my least favorite Dickey instrumental, partially because it’s at a tempo that makes my heart race like I ate a bunch of ephedrine. Oh god, the keytar solo! It’s just terrible. I hate it. Make it stop. Note: “Madness” is also the only Allman Brothers Band song with a formally composed drum part. Would be much cooler if it wasn’t for the synthesizer/keytar playing. Sounds like Flock of Seagulls.

“I Got a Right to Be Wrong” begins with the Dickey “Crazy Love” slide riff. This is just not a very good song. A generic boogie. Nothing special at all. “Angeline” is not that bad a song until the background singers hit and I remember this isn’t a Gregg Allman solo album. It’s an Allman Brothers album and background singers just don’t belong.

“Famous Last Words” is a cowrite with Dickey and Bonnie Bramlett. Nice guitar solo from Betts. Song isn’t half bad. “Keep On Keepin’ On” is a Betts/Toler cowrite with Gregg on vocals. It’s a disco song and not a very good one either. What a shitty chorus.

“So Long”: The opening makes me wonder if I accidentally queued up Barry White. It’s an attempt to do something like “Just Ain’t Easy” from Enlightened Rogues. They failed. And not just because of its horrible chorus. No harmonica can salvage this terrible, dated production. The song is two different grooves that don’t match at all mixed together. There is, however some tasty picking on this outro.

Conclusion: Reach for the Sky has 2.5 songs I would consider not bad: “Famous Last Words” and “From the Madness of the West.” Perhaps with Tom Dowd in the producer’s chair, the two songs could have been salvaged for Enlightened Rogues. The half song is the outro on “So Long” — an otherwise forgettable number.

This is unequivocally the ABB’s second worst album. It’s well behind Win, Lose, or Draw, as none of the songs on Reach for the Sky are anywhere close to as good as “Can’t Lose What You Never Had” or “High Falls” (much less “Nevertheless” or “Sweet Mama.”)

Time for Brothers of the Road (1981).

I hate this album even though I have never listened to it.

The band’s second Arista release, Clive Davis exercised his right of first refusal on a producer and saddled the band with John Ryan, who’d made his name with Styx. Ryan pushed the ABB to modernize their sound. It is an unmitigated disaster.

An ominous, Molly Hatchet-like intro kicks off “Brothers of the Road.” That’s not good, it’s cliché. I don’t know what’s worse, the disco backing or the wretched chorus. Terrible track.

“Leavin’,” one of Gregg’s two songs on the album, ain’t half bad. It’s the cut they played on Saturday Night Live in January 1982. Fitting, as that performance was the beginning of the second break-up. “Straight from the Heart” has a synth intro. Gregg’s vocals drowning in reverb. Yacht rock. Bad yacht rock at that.

“The Heat Is On” begins with Dickey’s “Crazy Love” slide riff (again). Another generic song, but I could see it maturing into something that appeared on Seven Turns, like “Low Down Dirty Mean” or “Good Clean Fun,” that kind of shit. This is not bad. But not bad isn’t really the Allman Brothers standard.

“Maybe We Can Go Back to Yesterday” is more yacht rock. Sounds dated. Boring. This is a keyboard jam; the Allman Brothers are a guitar band. At least it’s not synth-heavy. (I can’t believe I just typed that sentence.) It’s the last song Dickey would write with “Dangerous” Dan Toler, his guitar partner going back to 1977 and Great Southern. When the Allman Brothers broke up in 1982, Toler joined Gregg’s band. He rejoined Dickey in 2002.

“The Judgment” sounds like “Pegasus,” the Betts instrumental from Enlightened Rogues with Dickey’s vocal channeling Ronnie James Dio. “Two Rights” yet another boring melody with a synth-heavy arrangement. Background vocals evoke a 1980s beer commercial. This song is fucking terrible.

“Never Knew How Much”: I know this from Gregg’s guitar/vocal demo from the outstanding, long-out-of-print One More Try: A Gregg Allman Anthology. This version has a yacht rock sax solo by Southern rock royalty, Jimmy Hall of Wet Willie. The solo ruins a really good song.

“Things You Used to Do” is too much disco, too little feel. Recycles the “Wasted Words” outro. Not bad, I guess. “I Beg of You”: A 1958 Elvis B-side. Proof that Gregg Allman can sing the phone book. Another not bad.

Verdict: Brothers of the Road earns its reputation as a shitty album.

It’s the Allman Brothers Band trying to be something they’re not. The material is lackluster and crappy. The execution is poor. Robert Palmer, who two years earlier wrote a glowing Rolling Stone cover story on the 1979 reunion, said the record was “lacking in personality,” the band “sounds like it’s marking time.” Creem called it “mellow ooze,” adding, “Gregg sounds tired here.”

How did it get this bad?

The material sucked.

The band uninspired.

They lacked creative control.

Said Dickey, “Clive Davis ran a producer in on us. And they mixed out all of the guitar harmonies and tried to really disco-pop it up.” Tried to? They succeeded. Brothers of the Road not only has disco, it’s terrible disco.

How did it get this bad? Shitty material, a shitty label, and a shitty attitude all contributed. But the Allman Brothers were the flagship Southern rock band, and the genre had become an unintentionally ironic parody. They titled Brothers of the Road “in honor of the musicians who have made Southern rock a traditional art form in American music.”5 It was unfortunate timing. Southern rock was rapidly falling out of favor. Remembered Betts, “People were telling us we should never use terms like ‘Southern rock’ or that we couldn’t wear hats or boots onstage, that it was embarrassing to a modern audience.”

In 1982, the band added old friend Chuck Leavell to the lineup and recorded tracks for a follow-up album. Among the songs Davis rejected were two that later reappeared on later albums —“Let Me Ride” (Seven Turns, 1990) and “Anything Goes” (Gregg’s I’m No Angel, 1987). Proving claims of Davis’s tin ear, “Anything Goes” reached as high as #3 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart in 1987.

Determined to wait out the disco craze, the Allman Brothers Band quietly disbanded in 1982. They played several one-off events in the ‘80s and Dickey and Gregg toured together as well. In 1989, the Allman Brothers reunited and toured behind the career-spanning Dreams box set. Two new additions, Warren Haynes on guitar and Allen Woody on bass, gave the band a dose of new blood that spawned three studio and two live albums. The reunion ultimately spanned twenty-five years with several lineup changes, including a bitter divorce with Betts in 2000.

How did it get this bad?

The Allman Brothers Band alone hold responsibility for the wretched artistic decisions they made in 1980 and 1981.

And despite being a shit-hot live band, their decision to fold in 1982 was wise, sitting out the 80s as the popularity of Southern rock/rock and blues-based music continued to wane. The hiatus gave them distance from the Arista debacle and the chaos of their mid-Seventies break-up.

The band reunited in 1989 with a determination never again to compromise artistically and reclaimed their reputation as one of America’s greatest bands. They succeeded. Unlike 1975 and 1982 when they faded away, the Allman Brothers went out on their own terms, October 28, 2014 at the Beacon Theatre in NYC. The mammoth, three-set show featured no songs from Enlightened Rogues, Reach for the Sky, or Brothers of the Road.

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty

Subscribe now

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Craig Stephens, Cwktwo, Danbookin, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

5

I don’t even own an 8-track player, I was just being ironic. Plus, it was cheap ABB swag.

LLtABB swag

MERCH

Sue Ferentinos and I have been friends for eighteen years. When I needed an editor for Play All Night!—someone I trusted, someone who came to the Allman Brothers completely fresh—she was the call I made. She gave me a sharp outside eye, a historian’s instincts, and the willingness to tell me when I’d hit it and how to make it better if I hadn’t. That collaboration shaped the book in ways I’m still thinking about. Our conversation picks up where that work left off.

Our Crossroads

Sue looks at the world the way I do—through history. We’re two historians rapping on the many ways the past carries meaning for, and belongs to, everyone. Our life’s work has been in the public sphere. Her particular expertise is in gender and sexuality, two topics very much underrepresented in history’s stories. We also each have extensive experience working with and for national professional organizations.

We are also each editors. I hired Sue to help me with the final pre-review Play All Night! manuscript in spring 2021. It was a bonus that she knew nothing about the Allman Brothers. Her comments validated my work as a historian and also my writing. She pushed me to clarity that the book benefited from—most notably in my comparison of the Dead and the Allman Brothers on pages 109-110, which are some of my favorite passages in the book, a place where I really felt I said something I theretofore was unable to articulate.1

All Podcast Episodes

The Conversation

You see the world more clearly when you finish a project like Play All Night. The book was the culmination of a thirty-year intellectual journey and my headspace changed for good and for the better.

I shared some insights I’d had since the book’s publication—particularly the gender implications of the band’s long hair as they toured the South in the 60s and early 70s.

I wrote a fair amount in the book about the challenges touring as an integrated band of hippies, but it was not a core part of my argument by any means. The music was always my focus. But Sue showed me, through my own writing, that it is impossible to ignore how far the ABB pushed the envelope on this issue, and how influential it was to those around them.

Southern men with long hair weren’t just flouting convention. They were triggering a specific kind of anxiety about gender roles, one that intersected at the crossroads of being integrated. The band were outsiders and outcasts as they toured because they posed a threat to the social order under which lay the ever-present threat of violence.

From there we went deeper into Sue’s expertise. She shared how the 1950s were a period of moral retrenchment and traced how that set up the 1960s counterculture explosion that Duane and his bandmates were a part of. (Another area she pushed me on in my manuscript.) Young men weren’t just growing their hair long. They were rejecting the entire architecture of traditional gender roles their parents had idealized

Our conversation moved to one of my favorite topics: public memory. Sue noted that historical markers don’t require people to opt in. They sit in the landscape, waiting. Sometimes someone reads one and learns something.

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

We came around to the present. Sue spoke plainly about what she sees happening at the federal level—the effort to narrow the history the country gets told. Her argument was careful and clear: it’s not about avoiding controversy. It’s about telling real history, which is complex, which is contested, and which belongs to everyone who’s ever lived it.

She closed with something worth sitting with. History taught her she wasn’t alone. Queer people existed in the past. Women existed in the past. So have immigrants. When she found their stories, it changed what she thought was possible. That’s the work—the accumulating evidence that people have always found ways through.

As I often say, history is liberating.

Resources

Bob Beatty, Play All Night: Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East (University Press of Florida, 2022). https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813069505.

Susan Ferentinos

• https://susanferentinos.com/

• Interpreting LGBT History at Museums and Historic Sites (2014)

Little Richard: I Am Everything (2023).

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community, who receive previews of new Conversation from the Crossroads episodes.

Subscribe now

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Allen Barnes, Art Dobie, Baileys Mike, Bob and Laura, Bob Johnson, Brent Pruner, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Cabinetsales, Caroline Doolittle, charlie2541, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Craig Stephens, Cwktwo, Danbookin, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Smith, Gary Williamson, George Holman, Hlnbkt, Irishbeatz, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, Jcsarphie, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Delaney, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Harper, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Mike Clark, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, sswoger, Stanleyglennie8, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Wiszowa

LLtABB swag

MERCH

1

Including these here as they are some of my favorite paragraphs in the book. I’m particularly proud of the “Dark Star” section. It came to me late at night in the middle of a writing frenzy.

Episode Overview

Chris O’Dell answered phones at Apple Corps in 1968, added handclaps on “Revolution 9,” sat mere feet from the Fabs on the Savile Row rooftop, and lived at Friar Park with George Harrison and Pattie Boyd. She toured with the Rolling Stones, ran the Rolling Thunder Revue for Bob Dylan, and got sober raising a son in the middle of all of it. Leon Russell wrote two songs for her and George Harrison wrote one. Throughout her stories, Chris is both thoughtful and humble about her role as a “collector of experiences” in rock’s halcyon days.

Our Crossroads

We meet at the Beatles, the most significant group of their era not only because of their music, but because of their influence. The Beatles were Mom’s favorite band. I discovered them through her record collection. They were my first favorite band and have remained in my listening repertoire nearly all of my 55 years. Chris fled Tucson for Los Angeles and joined the rock & roll circus. Chris was very much aware of Duane’s role on Layla, and unaware of Wilson Pickett’s “Hey Jude” with Duane.1 We also share more than music: my own family’s history with addiction and recovery mirrors the years Chris spent learning to understand the disease, getting sober, and becoming a therapist herself.

These crossroads run from Tulsa to Tucson, L.A. to London, Muscle Shoals to Macon, and everything in between. This was a truly delightful Conversation from the Crossroads.

All Podcast Episodes

The Conversation

The Beatles. Chris necessarily didn’t set out to work for the Beatles. She went to London at the invitation of Derek Taylor, a Beatles’ insider who served as their publicist. Soon after arriving in London, she added handclaps on “Revolution #9,” was there when John and Yoko made their first public appearance as a couple, and earned a job with Apple. She was one of only three non-Beatles/crew/film crew on the rooftop at Apple on January 30, 1969, the Beatles’ last-ever performance.2 She remembers the cold more than anything: January wind, no shelter, watching the street below as Londoners realized what they were hearing.

Songs. Chris calls songs “gifts,” and she would know, having had three written for her. The first two were by Leon Russell, “Pisces Apple Lady” and “Hummingbird,” a relationship she discusses here.3 The third, George Harrison’s “Miss O’Dell” was the flipside to his #1 hit “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth).”

Pattie Boyd and George Harrison. Pattie Boyd set the terms of their friendship early, “You can be my friend, or you can sleep with George, but not both.” They have remained friends ever since, including the period when Eric Clapton used Chris as cover to spend time with Pattie. Chris ended up finding the London flat where Eric and the Dominos stayed after returning from Miami recording Layla.

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

Jim Gordon. O’Dell had a brief affair with drummer Jim Gordon. She was unaware the drummer had attacked Rita Coolidge on the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour, only learning of it after Gordon chased her around a London flat with a knife. Had Robert Stigwood not happened to arrive unannounced, Chris feels certain he would have killed her. Gordon was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent decades in a psychiatric prison after brutally killing his mother. She feels empathy for Gordon, noting his genuine kindness, but not overlooking the underlying danger nobody had the language for yet.

Women in rock & roll. Chris built space for women in rock & roll beyond the traditional role of muse. By her own count, she worked with more bands than any of the male road managers of her era. Chris is blunt about her experience as a woman in the music business working on two continents. The British end of the business treated her well. The American side was rougher. She never once had a problem with a musician. The friction always came from production crews and/or management: a gauntlet of misogynistic executives, managers, and agents.

Miss O’Dell: Abbey Road to Tulsa Time. Chris has been telling her story for years. In 2009, she published Miss O’Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights with the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved. A documentary, Miss O’Dell: From Backstage to the Frontlines of Rock History, appeared in 2025. And in 2026 she launched a podcast in conjunction with the Church Studio in Tulsa4 called Miss O’Dell: Abbey Road to Tulsa Time. Her guests have included Pattie Boyd, Leon Russell biographer Bill Janovitz, photographer Henry Diltz, Beatles’ hairstylist Leslie Cavendish, among others.

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman & the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

Resources

Chris O’Dell

• BOOK: Miss O’Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights with the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved (2009).

• DOCUMENTARY: Miss O’Dell: From Backstage to the Frontlines of Rock History (2025)

• PODCAST: Miss O’Dell: Abbey Road to Tulsa Time

Playlist

Here’s a Youtube playlist of music Chris O’Dell is associated with.

“Hummingbird” - Leon Russell

“Pisces Apple Lady” - Leon Russell

“Miss O’Dell” - George Harrison

“Layla” - Derek & the Dominos

“Something” - The Beatles

“Hey Jude” - The Beatles

“Hey Jude” - Wilson Pickett

Rooftop Concert - The Beatles (live 1969)

“Hummingbird” - B.B. King

“One More Cup of Coffee” - Bob Dylan (live/Rolling Thunder 1975)

“Tangled Up in Blue” - Bob Dylan (live/Rolling Thunder 1975)

“Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You” - Bob Dylan (live/Rolling Thunder 1975)

“Tumbling Dice” - The Rolling Stones (live 1972)

“Sweet Virginia” - The Rolling Stones (live 1972)

“Dead Flowers” - The Rolling Stones (live 1972)

Brought to you by:

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Kevin Harper, John Delaney, Terri, Mike Clark, Brent Pruner, Irishbeatz, Allen Barnes, Baileys Mike, sswoger, Bob Johnson, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Caroline Doolittle, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Craig Stephens, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Williamson, George Holman, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Jcsarphie, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Bob and Laura, Gary Smith, Wiszowa, Cwktwo, Hlnbkt, Cabinetsales, Art Dobie, Stanleyglennie8, Danbookin, charlie2541

Subscribe now

4

Church Studio founder/resurrector Teresa Knox visited the Crossroads as well.

LLtABB swag

MERCH

Richard Josey and I have been in conversation for close to twenty years. He began his history career at Colonial Williamsburg as a pre-teen, portraying free and enslaved Africans well before we openly discussed the impact of interpretation of the enslaved experience on the interpreters themselves.

Richard built Collective Journeys as a practice for helping institutions move from transactional to relational. He coined my current favorite phrase Earth School and built his business around the question, What kind of ancestor will you be?1

Richard holds his ideals and values without preaching them—until a moment in the conversation when the full weight of what he has built lands without warning.

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

Our Crossroads

Richard and I have a lot of shared experience. We’re historians, southerners, history museum professionals, girldads, and Gen Xers who came up in the museum field at a moment when community truly came to the fore. We have had rough starts and gotten tighter because of them. History is our common language; intentionality our shared practice.

I wrote Play All Night during one of the hardest stretches of my life. Richard’s concept of the good ancestor was alive in me during that writing, even before I had the language for it. You cannot spend two years inside Duane Allman’s story without asking what kind of ancestor you intend to be.

The Conversation

We started with Outkast and the Dirty South—what that sound meant to a generation of Black Southerners who heard themselves in hip-hop for the first time. For Richard, it carried the sounds of the 70s—Bootsy, Parliament-Funkadelic, and the jams his mother played around the house. And of course, there are parallels to the Allman Brothers’ influence in the South in their own era.

We talked about Earth School—Richard’s concept that life is always in session, that the lessons do not stop, and that resistance only means you learn them harder later. He came to his ADHD diagnosis at fifty. He came to therapy late. Earth School is the framework he built for people ready to understand why they put the coat on.

The question underneath all of it came from Elder Dave Lewis of the Dakota Nation, “What kind of ancestor will you be?” Richard heard it at a conference and felt everything shift. He put it on a three-by-five card by his bed. It became T-shirts, mugs, canvas bags, a book chapter, a reorientation of his entire practice.

Intentionality is a big part of the Earth School toolkit, as is community, which Richard describes as something fluid, relational, internal. “You and I don’t talk every day,” he told me, “but you’re still core to my community.” Community doesn’t require constant presence. It requires showing up with intention when the moment comes.

We closed on belonging—why Richard moved away from DEI language not because he abandoned what it stands for but because he watched it get weaponized. Belonging is the end game. Inclusion is the mechanism. Representation matters and is also insufficient without intentionality.

History is liberation.

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

Resources

• Bob Beatty, Play All Night: Duane Allman and the Journey to Fillmore East—https://www.amazon.com/dp/0813069505.

• Richard Josey, Collective Journeys https://collectivejourneys.org

• Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution, https://anacostia.si.edu.

• Drive-By Truckers, Dirty South (2004).

• John H. Falk, Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience (2009).

• Randi Korn, Intentional Practice for Museums (2018).

• Outkast, “Jazzy Belle,” ATLiens (1996).

• Susie Wilkening and James Chung, Life Stages of the Museum Visitor (2009).

A Long Live the ABB playlist

I put a 34-song Gregg playlist together a few years back. I included songs from across his catalog, from the ABB’s 1969 debut album1 to 2017’s Southern Blood2

Gregg is a world-class, Hall of Fame, great singer, powerful singer. In the Allman Brothers, Gregg’s voice was but one instrument in a rock & roll orchestra. It was his vocals set them apart as their songs—even extended jams like “Whipping Post”—are built on strong chord progressions, good melodies, and movement.

Gregg’s solo records are a downshift. So much so that each one I encountered took time to grow on me. At Fillmore East and Eat a Peach are how I prefer my Allman Brothers, loud and jammy.

Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads

Laid Back and Southern Blood are the opposite tack. Gregg’s solo work is a fun way to hear his artistry. That’s where you can hear his preference for rhythm and blues. It’s a lighter, slower paced music.

And in full transparency, I was long frustrated with Gregg that he didn’t record more. He toured constantly in my entire time as an Allman Brothers fan, but I would have loved more records like Low Country Blues and Southern Blood. I’m aware that those are my expectations for him as an artist, which are completely unfair. Gregg gave us everything he had.

Share

“Statesboro Blues” - At Fillmore East. There’s nothing I don’t love about this song. From Fillmore East’s Michael Ahren’s deadpan intro to Gregg wailing and Duane’s fierce slide. The Allman Brothers at their finest.

“Don’t Want You No More>“It’s Not My Cross To Bear” - The Allman Brothers Band. The first two songs on the debut album. Note that it is Gregg, not Duane or Dickey, who takes the first solo on an Allman Brothers record. “Cross to Bear” was one of two songs he brought with him from L.A. when he joined the band.

“Dreams” - The Allman Brothers Band. “Dreams” was the other song of Gregg’s the band adopted immediately. This has been my theme song for decades now. Some of the most devastating lyrics Gregg ever wrote, he’d not yet turned 21. Next to “Mountain Jam,” it’s my favorite Allman Brothers song.3

“The High Cost of Low Living” - Hittin’ the Note. I’m struck how much this song from the band’s final album bookends “Dreams.” Here he is 35 years later (a cowrite with Warren Haynes and two others.)4 There’s a world-weariness here, a look back at the life he lived in the years between the existential crisis of “Dreams,” and this stage in his life. Of note, this is the only song from this album they played at the final Beacon show October 28, 2014.

“Multi-Colored Lady” - Laid Back. Gregg was at heart a ballad guy. Laid Back is full of them.

“Melissa” - Eat a Peach. The first song Gregg completed and didn’t throw away. Duane was a big fan of the song, which Gregg sang at his brother’s funeral.

“Come and Go Blues” - Brothers and Sisters. My favorite song on this album and in my top 3 favorite Gregg songs of all-time.

“Turn on Your Love Light” - The Gregg Allman Tour. In the repertoire since the days of the Allman Joys (and probably even the Escorts), this is a fun take from the Laid Back tour.

“Midnight Rider” - Idlewild South. Why Capricorn didn’t release this as a single in 1970 is beyond me. This is a certified BANGER, timeless, a song for the ages. Gregg’s lead vocals are from the first take.

“Nobody Knows” - Shades of Two Worlds. Dickey wrote this one for Gregg. It’s in the vein of “Whipping Post,” which is one reason it left the setlist for good when Dickey left the band in 2000. A quintessential Warren & Woody era jam.

“Trouble No More” - The Allman Brothers Band. The one that started it all. The song Duane challenged Gregg with when he walked into his first Allman Brothers rehearsal. Note: Duane’s playing slide in standard tuning here. He didn’t learn open-E until November 1969. (This record recorded August 69.)

“Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’” - Idlewild South. Another song from Idlewild that could’ve been a radio hit.

“End of the Line” - An Evening with the Allman Brothers Band: First Set. Gregg wrote this with Warren & Woody, a cautionary tale of lessons Gregg spent his first 50 years learning.

“Stormy Monday” - At Fillmore East and “Get on with Your Life” - An Evening with the Allman Brothers Band: First Set. We’ve entered the slow blues portion of the set. Another bookend look at Gregg’s ABB work (1971 to 1991).

“Southbound (Live at Winterland/1973)” - Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas. Another Dickey song for Gregg—one that Gregg simply OWNED.5

“Just Another Rider” - Low Country Blues. A cowrite with Warren Haynes, the only Gregg original on his penultimate album.

“These Days” - Laid Back. The Jackson Browne original that Gregg released before Browne even got a chance to. Browne credited Gregg with the arrangement. Gregg’s final line is an adaptation—“Please don’t confront me with my failures. I’m aware of them.” Browne’s line was “I have not forgotten them,” which isn’t as powerful.

“Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More” - Eat a Peach. The song that kicks off Eat a Peach, Duane’s final album, was Gregg’s paean to his late brother. This, “Dreams,” and “Come & Go Blues” are my triumvirate of Gregg songs.

“Soulshine” - Where It All Begins. A Warren Haynes song that was tailor-made for Gregg. It was a showpiece throughout the 90s and remained in the setlist until the very end.

“Will the Circle Be Unbroken” - Laid Back. The Carter Family standard that Duane quoted in “Mountain Jam” was the final track on Gregg’s first solo album.

“Desdemona” - Fox Theatre, Atlanta, September 2004. A gorgeous slow blues from Gregg & Warren, I included this particular version because of the vamp in the middle, which quotes John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things.”

“Just Ain’t Easy” - Enlightened Rogues. This one’s autobiographical. Gregg’s only original on the album. There’s a great live version from 1979 on the Dreams box set that segues into “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.”

“Gambler’s Roll” - Seven Turns. This is a Haynes/Johnny Neel cowrite and my favorite song on this record and it’s not even close. One reason I’m so fond of it: the ABB played the first time I saw them live.6

“Queen of Hearts” - Laid Back. Gregg’s entire solo career began with this song, which h’d worked on it for months. When he took it to the Allman Brothers, they rejected it with prejudice. In response, Gregg started making Laid Back.

“Going Going Gone” - Southern Blood. The only Dylan tune Gregg ever recorded. In the Gregg documentary, Don Was said he’s who brought the song to Gregg.

“All My Friends” - Laid Back. A song by Cowboy’s Scott Boyer. The song was the namesake for the Gregg tribute show in 2014 at the Fox Theatre. Another tune Gregg made his own.

“Done Somebody Wrong” - At Fillmore East and “One Way Out” - Eat a Peach. Can’t get enough of Gregg’s voice and Duane’s slide together on these blues.

“Wasted Words” - Brothers and Sisters. This one kicked off shows throughout the Brothers and Sisters era, with Gregg on guitar. A rollicking slide blues romp.

“Whippin’ Post” - Searching for Simplicity. Story goes that roadie Red Dog Campbell challenged Gregg to rework this classic just as Eric Clapton had done with “Layla” for his MTV Unplugged album/session. I imagine this is what the song sounded like when Gregg brought it to the ABB, before Berry changed the time signature to 11/8.

“Please Call Home” - Laid Back. One of two Allman Brothers’ songs Gregg recorded on Laid Back. I much prefer this take to the original.

“Oncoming Traffic” - The Gregg Allman Tour. This one only exists in the world as a live track. Just Gregg on piano and a string section. It’s simply gorgeous, one of his best songs.

“My Only True Friend” - Southern Blood. Gregg’s only writing credit on his final album follows the tradition of some of his greatest road songs, including “Midnight Rider” and “Just Another Rider.” In this case, Gregg’s saying goodbye for good. And he knows it.

“Whipping Post” - At Fillmore East. Enough said.

PLAYLIST

For paid members of Long Live the ABB, a link to the playlist is below.

PLAYLIST

YOUTUBE

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIw4BHYOa3WKnjYI1jh1n2ldjRu-e4NAf

SPOTIFY

TIDAL

https://tidal.com/playlist/c76a8dff-9489-4933-bb3b-804d4b2f696d

ALL OTHER SERVICES

https://www.tunemymusic.com/share/9rnrIUrvem

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

---

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty

Subscribe now

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Mike Clark, Brent Pruner, Irishbeatz, Allen Barnes, Baileys Mike, sswoger, Bob Johnson, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Caroline Doolittle, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Craig Stephens, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Nagle/Chairman Wonwayout, Gary Williamson, George Holman, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Long Live the ABB, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Bob and Laura, Gary Smith, Wiszowa, Cwktwo, Hlnbkt, Cabinetsales, Art Dobie, Stanleyglennie8, Danbookin

Episode overview

John Lynskey returned to the Crossroads to talk through Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul. The movie documents well by Gregg’s duality as a singer of a jam band who hated long guitar solos, his late-career rebirth in sobriety, his long career fronting the Allman Brothers Band, and Jimmy Carter’s friendship.

The conversation

Gregg’s catalog. John walked through the duality at the center of Gregg Allman’s career—lead singer of the greatest jam band of all time who hated guitar solos, a shy man hated to be alone who got married seven times. We traced his writing from “Dreams” and “Whipping Post” through “Just Ain’t Easy” and “Demons,” lauding Southern Blood as a career closer John compares to the Beatles ending on Abbey Road.

The Hammond, underrated. John makes the case that Gregg’s organ playing gets overlooked the way David Crosby’s vocal gets overlooked in CSN—everything rests on it, and nobody notices until it’s gone.

Jaimoe and the brotherhood. Duane heard something in Jaimoe nobody else heard. John’s point: Jaimoe could have been any color and it wouldn’t have mattered, because the only thing that mattered was the music. We talked about how that ideal gets flattened by cynicism over time, and how the documentary resists that flattening.

Michael Lehman’s late-career rescue. We each credit manager Michael Lehman with giving Gregg the stability—professional, financial, personal—that he never had earlier in his career. Lehman helped Greggg release several solo records, produced the amazing All My Friends tribute at the Fox, the Dan Rather interview, and the memoir that had been stalled for years.

“Queen of Hearts” becomes “Desdemona.” When he presented “Queen of Hearts” to the band for the Brothers & Sisters sessions, Butch Trucks told Gregg the song “just doesn’t sound like us.” It pissed Gregg off who made it a centerpiece of Laid Back instead. Without that rejection, John argues, “Desdemona” never lands on Hittin’ the Note.

The eighties solo years. John’s favorite Gregg period: small crowds, no money, the Toler brothers in the band, Gregg singing the blues against an unforgiving musical of Flock of Seagulls and Depeche Mode because he had to play, not because anyone was paying him to.

Berry Oakley’s death and the leadership vacuum. Oakley was the logical successor after Duane died. He couldn’t do it. Gregg wasn’t suited to it either. Dickey became the band’s leader by default, in John’s telling..

Jimmy Carter. The friendship between Carter and the band survived the Scooter Herring trial because, as John puts it, Carter never stopped being Gregg’s friend even when it cost him politically. We discussed whether the federal sting was aimed at Carter’s candidacy—a theory both Butch Trucks and Dickey Betts independently floated to John.

🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄

BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT

Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community.

Subscribe now

🍄MUSHROOM🍄MAGICIANS🍄 Steve Marshall, Brent W. Hammond, Ken Lupson, Laura McCarty

🍑 PEACH 🍑 PALS 🍑 Brent Pruner, Irishbeatz, Allen Barnes, Baileys Mike, sswoger, Bob Johnson, Bruce Miles, Buddy Lewis, Caroline Doolittle, Chuck Zumwalt, Clifford Morse, Craig Stephens, Dennis Newton, Denny, Ed Ashton, Ed Pokorny, F. D., Frank Young, Gary Wonwayout, Gary Williamson, George Holman, James Reynolds, James Yerrill, JD Guitar, Jeff Kushmerek, Jeff Schein, Jerry K, JoaquinDinero, Joe, Joe Sokohl, Joel Berger, Joel Tanzer, John Dolan, John Haughey, Jordan David, Joseph Lilly, Kenton Lee, Kevin Walker, Kurt Nielsen, Long Live the ABB, Mark Leitner, Martha Haynes, Peter Poulos, Phillip Page, Preston Root, Randy Woodall, Ray Tillman, Robert Porter, Rose Brandt, Surrender Cobra, Taylor Kropp, Tim Langan (Hot ‘Lanta Tim), Tina Christopher, Tom Pragliola, Tony Gioia, Wade McCurdy, Bob and Laura, Gary Smith, Wiszowa, Cwktwo, Hlnbkt, Cabinetsales, Art Dobie, Stanleyglennie8, Danbookin