Here’s a video intro to the third playlist that accompanies Chapter 4 of Play All Night! Duane Allman & the Journey to Fillmore East.
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
PLAYLISTS
🍄 Spotify 🍄 Tidal 🍄Youtube 🍄
Liner Notes brought to you by paid subscribers of Long Live the ABB
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
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.
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🍄
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, 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
Phil Walden used some of Duane’s solo session material for Jenkins’s record. Twenty years later, Beck used the drum/slide part that begins “Walk on Gilded Splinters” to kick off “Loser.”
The Tedeschi Trucks Band plays it regularly to this day, as did the Derek Trucks Band before them. Here’s a wonderful rehearsal clip of Taj Mahal, TTB, and dobro master Jerry Douglas on “Leaving Trunk.”
