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 at Arista
Bonus post for paid members of Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads
You may recognize the title and cover page above. It’s an adaptation of Cameron Crowe’s 1973 Rolling Stone cover story1 by Record Time’s editor Scott Soriano. (Years later, Crowe turned the experience into Almost Famous.)
Crowe caught the band at their zenith. My essay covers the nadir, the two worst records in the catalog: Reach for the Sky (1980) and Brothers of the Road (1981). This is the first article I’ve ever written for a music publication, and I’m proud of how it turned out. And I’m super pleased that we were able to use some snaps from my pal (and paid member) Art Dobie in the piece.
And for historical purposes, here’s my real-time reaction after listening to the records for this assignment.
Record Time
Scott and I bandied about several topics before we landed on the Arista era/error. He’s pretty strict on the print-only part of the RT equation, but we agreed I could send it out to y’all knowing some of you might want to add Record Time to your reading stash.
Get yers.
Record Time No. 4 is 112 pages long, perfect bound. It is $15 retail (plus shipping for mail order). Wholesale price for stores, mail orders, and distributors is $8.50.
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
Even though I’ve 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, I only owned Reach for the Sky on 8-track and didn’t even own any copy of Brothers of the Road.
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.
I don’t want to listen for the same reason nobody wanted to see Willie Mays falling down in the outfield with the Mets.
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-track2 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.
🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman the Journey to Fillmore East🍄
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