The Allmans: Waiting for Gregg
Brand-new to the archive/another bonus for paid subscribers
Source is Meriden (CT) Journal, August 23, 1975.
In the article that originally ran in Rolling Stone, Art Harris reports a band in disarray gearing up for the Win, Lose, or Draw tour. The group speaks glowingly about the new album, but members are clearly frustrated with Gregg (and Cher). Jaimoe’s injuries from a car accident didn’t help matters much either.
Liner Notes
See below for the transcript and my commentary on this fascinating primary source.
“While Gregg Allman has been dueling with Cupid’s occasionally poisoned arrows1 in his off-again, on-again marriage to Cher, the other members of the Allman Brothers Band have been tapping out a slower, more downhome beat here on the muddy banks of the Ocmulgee River.
Resting after the completion of Win, Lose, or Draw, the band’s first album in two years, they are waiting for Gregg to come home and begin rehearsing for the upcoming fall tour, a 25-city affair scheduled to begin at New Orleans’ 80,000-seat Superdome August 31.”2
Harris packed a lot into a relatively innocuous lede, citing Gregg and Cher’s “will she or won’t she?” divorce rumors and his absence in L.A. for the album’s delay. Resentment simmered just below the surface. That much is obvious.
“Thanks to a ‘miracle worker,’ a local chiropractor who regularly administers acupuncture and pressure-point massage, drummer Jaimoe Johanson is finally recovering from a whiplash injury which had contributed to a powerful mean streak during the Win, Lose, or Draw studio sessions.”
I knew Jaimoe had some serious injuries from a car accident, but this is the first I’ve ever seen that it affected Jaimoe’s personality. (Stay tuned, more on that below.)
