Tony's Guitarist Picks - Ritchie Blackmore

When I started to broaden my musical tastes in the early 1980s beyond the Beatles, I started with The Doors and Pink Floyd.  Once I absorbed them I moved on to lots more stuff, including [but not restricted to] Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.  I’ve already written at length about Tony Iommi, and a blog on Jimmy Page will come at another time.  Today I devote this space to Ritchie Blackmore.

The original Deep Purple [Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Rod Evans, and Nick Simper] formed in 1968.  They recorded a trio of albums that were more on the progressive side of things with the emphasis on Jon Lord’s keyboards.  Jon Lord had a keen interest in fusing pop and classical music.  Ritchie wasn’t too interested in that direction.  Ritchie wanted to make music with a harder edge.  After seeing Led Zeppelin, he saw the direction he wanted to take Deep Purple.  In Ritchie’s mind, the singer [Rod Evans] and the bassist [Nick Simper] weren’t the people to get Deep Purple where he wanted them to go.  After seeing an Episode Six show and liking what they saw and heard, Ritchie and Jon enticed their singer [Ian Gillan] and bassist [Roger Glover] to abandon Episode Six and go with them.  As a bonus, Gillan and Glover were already a songwriting team.  But strangely enough, the first project for the new lineup of Deep Purple [the “Mk II” lineup] was a Concerto for Group and Orchestra. The project got Deep Purple noticed, but the resulting album didn’t sell well.  Ritchie didn’t like the Concerto.  He said:

“I wasn't happy with that.  I wanted to play more rock.  And I said to Jon "um, look, let's give this heavy heavy riffy rock a chance and see how it goes, and if it doesn't work then I'll play with orchestras the rest of my life…”  It wasn't until Led Zeppelin came along that we really had a direction.  We thought 'well, that's the type of music that we want to play, the really heavy rock, the riffy kind of rock.’"

It was Ritchie’s way of saying “we did it your way, it didn’t work, let’s try it my way.”  The result of the “new direction” was Deep Purple In Rock.  The entire album, from the beginning of Speed King, through the epic Child In Time, the searing power chords of Flight of the Rat, to the raucous finale Hard Lovin’ Man, you knew Deep Purple meant business.  They could contend with the heavy guys like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.  After the initial trio of albums with the Mk I lineup and the Concerto for Group and Orchestra, Ritchie made seven more albums with Deep Purple.  Some of those albums were great [Deep Purple In Rock, Machine Head, Made in Japan, Burn], some that were good but not great [Fireball, Who Do We Think We Are], and one that was just plain awful [Stormbringer]. 

After Stormbringer, Ritchie bolted Deep Purple to form his own group, Rainbow. In Rainbow, Ritchie teamed up with vocalist Ronnie James Dio [from Elf] and a revolving cast of musicians to record some of his finest work – Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, Rising, On Stage, and Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll.  These albums saw more of Ritchie’s classical influence brought to hard rock paired with Dio’s knack for lyrical fantasy themes.  It was great music, but it didn’t sell well.  Ritchie wanted a more commercial direction [$$$], but Dio would have none of that.  Dio split, Ritchie first brought in Graham Bonnet, then Joe Lynn turner as vocalists.  IMHO, the music wasn’t as good, but it had its moments.  After four albums with these guys, Ritchie reformed Deep Purple with the rest of the MK II lineup and made a very good album, Perfect Strangers.  Then boredom set in for Ritchie again. After three more albums with Deep Purple and one more with Rainbow, Ritchie tired of making hard rock music and dedicated himself to quieter Renaissance music.  He’s been doing that with his wife Candice Night ever since.

What was it about Ritchie Blackmore that appealed to my ears?  Consider the following:

The riff – Though he is not as prolific a riff writer as Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore has produced his share of memorable riffs.  The most famous of these riffs is Smoke on the Water.  It is one of the most famous, most indestructible riffs in all of rock music.  It’s a very simple riff – but then so is the intro to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.  Pluck it with your fingers, don’t strum with a pick.  More memorable riffs include Lazy, Woman From Tokyo, Burn, Man on the Silver Mountain, Black Night [which he admits he pinched from Ricky Nelson’s Sunshine].  Those are just the famous riffs.  Another cool riff of Ritchie’s is Flight of the Rat [Deep Purple In Rock].  On that album I wasn’t sure how Deep Purple would follow the monumental Child In Time, but Flight of the Rat did the trick.  It’s a very intense piece of work.

Speed kills – while my favorite player David Gilmour is much slower and deliberate in his playing and his soloing, Ritchie Blackmore really is a “speed king.”  It’s one thing to be fast, but Ritchie is also very precise.  A sloppy player Ritchie is not.  Of Ritchie Blackmore writer Chris Welch once said "He had this combination of finesse, imagination and taste.  That's the important thing about Ritchie Blackmore." He's the original shredder who didn't lose any ability with age.

Solos – Ritchie admits to having a horrible technical memory and has committed one solo to memory – Highway Star.  But having an inability to remember solos does not equate to being a bad soloist.  In Ritchie’s case, I have never heard him play a bad solo.  If his solos sound like he’s “winging it,” it’s because he is.  Although he is winging it, it always sounds like he knows exactly how to end a solo.  His profound sense of melody gives him that ability to think ahead and know what will work and what will not work.  He seems to get it right every time.  Many guitarists don’t know how to finish a solo.  They’ll play faster until they get to the end.  Not so Ritchie – he knows how to end a solo.  A good example is Street of Dreams.  Forget that it’s a pop song – listen to the solo.  Conversely, there is one example where he doesn’t take a solo at all – Perfect Strangers.  He doesn't solo here because he doesn't need to.  He had the melodic sense to know the song was good enough without one.

The Improvisations – Certain compositions in the Deep Purple repertoire were good vehicles for improvisation and extended soling.  Look no further than Deep Purple In Concert 1970/72, and the listener is treated to three such showcases for both Ritchie Blackmore and keyboardist Jon Lord to stretch out:  Wring That Neck, Mandrake Root and Space Truckin’.  During the Mark II phase of the band (1969-73), the band was very loud, very aggressive, and quite unpredictable.

The Blues – As loud and brash and in your face that Ritchie Blackmore could get, sometimes he could just lay back and play the blues.  He only hinted at it during Purple’s MK II period with Lazy [Machine Head, 1972].  Ritchie once said he tried to emulate Eric Clapton’s Steppin’ Out from the Bluesbreakers period [see also Live Cream Volume II].  There is quite a similarity between the two.  After Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left the band in June 1973, Ritchie wanted to go more in a blues direction.  He slowed things way down with a long slow blues from Burn [1974] called Mistreated.  Ritchie liked the song so much he took it with him to form Rainbow in 1975.   Another long slow blues number in the Mistreated vain is Catch the Rainbow.   

Classical – Ritchie brought a classical influence to hard rock guitar [see Highway Star].  He injected rock guitar with the classical scales and chord progressions that inspired future legions of rock guitarists. He also brought medieval, baroque influences to his music. These influences particularly color Ritchie's terrific melodic sense.   Since Ritchie tired of playing rock in the mid-1990s, he’s gone all the way over to playing Renaissance music.  I hope someday he will come back, but I don't see it happening.  The guy is going to be 67 next month, so he probably prefers things to be a lot quieter now.

The Slide – Ritchie uses a metallic slide.  Most other players prefer to use glass because it produces a warmer sound.  Ritchie liked his slide sound a bit more harsh.  He doesn’t use it very much, and you have to dig deep into his catalog to find it, but it’s there to be found on No No No [Fireball – a good headphone song BTW], Mary Long [Who Do We Think We Are], Sail Away [Burn], Difficult to Cure [Finyl Vinyl], the aforementioned Catch the Rainbow [Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow], and his epic solo on Stargazer [Rising].

These are things I like about Ritchie Blackmore.  However, he has been described as moody, sullen, incredibly stubborn, and difficult to work with.  He does nothing to dissuade people otherwise.  Ozzy Osbourne claims to be the “Prince of F**king Darkness,” but he has nothing on Ritchie Blackmore.  Lemmy Kilmister once told a story about Ritchie that, if true, depicts a purely evil guy.  The story goes like this – one time while on tour Ritchie got extremely annoyed with a tour manager.  To show his displeasure with this guy he slipped him a mickey in his drink.  While the guy was unconscious Ritchie and company took this poor bastard, stripped him naked, loaded him in a car, put the car on a ferry to Iceland, and left the car without any keys.  That’s just pure, vindictive malice.  I believe the story to be true.  Ritchie is one of those guys that if he is bored or just not inspired, you know it right away.  About half of Who Do We Think We Are, most of The House of Blue Light, and all of Stormbringer contain evidence of Ritchie “mailing it in.”  He’s demolished as many guitars as Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix.  I saw him destroy a TV camera during the California Jam in 1974.  During that same show he also set his amps on fire. 

 

There have been eight different incarnations of Deep Purple.  In my view, the incarnation of the band that is the best included Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice [the so-called "Mark II" line-up].  Yes, that means when it comes to Deep Purple, I am a purist.  Ritchie left the band twice.  He was followed [notice I did not say "replaced"] by Tommy Bolin [1975] and Steve Morse [1994].  I saw the band with Ritchie in 1985, and I saw the band with Steve Morse in 1998.  The 1985 show was a great show.  The 1998 was a good show.  This is not a knock on Steve Morse as he is a fine guitar player.  Steve is a very versatile player who can play in many styles, and can probably play rings around most guitarists past and present.  But the intangible magic that was present in 1985 wasn't there in 1998.  Ritchie and Jon established the classic Deep Purple sound in the early 1970s, and it was a unique sound.  That sound remained intact with the change in vocalists from Ian Gillan to David Coverdale in 1973.  It remained intact with the changing of bass players [also in 1973] from Roger Glover to Glenn Hughes.  But when Ritchie left, the dynamic changed.  The albums that came after Ritchie say "Deep Purple" but they don't sound like Deep Purple.  In concert they sound like a cover band that plays Deep Purple songs.  On their own merits any Deep Purple albums without Ritchie have good music, they just aren't "Deep Purple."

There are many places to find the greatness that is Ritchie Blackmore.  Being the Deep Purple fanatic that I am, I have most of the albums.  I first discovered Rainbow on a British import collection, The Best of Rainbow.  It features all the guys who sang for Rainbow until the time of its release [Ronnie James Dio, Graham Bonnet, and Joe Lynn Turner].  I’m partial to the Dio years.  Below are his essential recordings [IMHO].  These are the albums that you can pick any song and you can't go wrong.  I chose my favorites, those that stand out above the rest.  Even on those Deep Purple or Rainbow albums where the entire album isn't up to scratch, there are nuggets to be found if you want to look for them.  Those nuggets are listed here as well.

Essential Stuff

Deep Purple In Rock [1970]

- Speed King, Child in Time, Flight of the Rat

Fireball [1971]

- No No No, Strange Kind of Woman, Demon's Eye, No One Came

Machine Head [1972]

- Highway Star, Pictures of Home, Smoke On The Water, Lazy

Made in Japan [1972]

- Highway Star [best version ever!], Smoke on the Water, Space Truckin'

Burn [1974]

- Burn, You Fool No One, Sail Away, Mistreated

Rising [1976]

- Stargazer, A Light in the Black, Tarot Woman

Long Live Rock 'n' Roll [1978]

- Gates of Babylon, Kill the King, The Shed [Subtle], Lady of the Lake

Good Stuff

Who Do We Think We Are [1973]

- Woman From Tokyo, Mary Long, Rat Bat Blue

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow [1975]

- Man on the Silver Mountain, Catch the Rainbow, Still I'm Sad

Deep Purple In Concert 1970/1972 [1980]

-Wring That Neck, Mandrake Root

Down to Earth [1979]

-Weiss Heim [instrumental, originally a B-side to All Night Long]

Bent Out of Shape [1983]

- Street of Dreams, Desperate Heart, Fire Dance, Snowman

Perfect Strangers [1984]

- Perfect Strangers, Knocking at Your Back Door, Not Responsible, A Gypsy's Kiss, Nobody's Home, Under the Gun

Finyl Vinyl [1986]

-Difficult to Cure [Beethoven’s Ninth] (Live)

The House of Blue Light [1987]

- Bad Attitude, The Unwritten Law, The Spanish Archer

The Battle Rages On [1993]

- The Battle Rages On, Anya, Time to Kill, Twist of the Tale

Chimes of Freedom - The Songs of Bob Dylan

It’s been 50 years since Bob Dylan released his first album.  It’s also the 50^th anniversary of Amnesty International.  This isn’t necessarily a coincidence, but it is an act of serendipity.  Many of Bob Dylan’s early songs addressed the injustices of groups of people [or in some cases, specific individuals] suffered at the hands of others.  Other songs addressed, to steal a phrase, hope and changes that were coming.  Amnesty International is all about fighting injustice wherever they see it.  To commemorate the anniversary, Bob Dylan gave the ok to donate proceeds from any songs on this collection to be donated to Amnesty.  Out of the 73 songs on this collection, there are lots of good renderings of Dylan’s work.  Some are just ‘ok,’ others are cures for insomnia.  There are some versions that are interesting because they just seem to come out of left field,  while a few should never have seen the light of day.  All ratings are subjective of course…

The REALLY Good Stuff

Drifter’s Escape – Patti Smith

Ballad of Hollis Brown – Rise Against

Love Sick – Mariachi El Bronx

Blowin’ in the Wind – Ziggy Marley

Outlaw Blues – Queens of the Stone Age

One More Cup of Coffee (To the Valley Below) – Lucia Micarelli/Steve Earle

No Time to Think – The Belle Brigade

The Times They Are A-Changin’ – Flogging Molly

Abandoned Love – Paul Rodgers/Nils Lofgren

Señor (Tales of Yankee Power) – Dierks Bentley

Chimes of Freedom – Bob Dylan [Duh!]

The Good Stuff

Blind Willie McTell – Tom Morello

This Wheel’s On Fire – Charlie Winston

You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go – Miley Cyrus [Surprise!]

Lay Down Your Weary Tune – Billy Bragg

Love Minus Zero/No Limit – Jackson Browne

Seven Curses – Joan Baez

Make You Feel My Love – Adele

She Belongs to Me – Neil Finn/Pajama Club

Buckets of Rain – Fistful of Mercy

Property of Jesus – Sinéad O’Connor

Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right [Instrumental] – Kronos Quartet

Political World – Carolina Chocolate Drops

Bob Dylan’s 115^th Dream – Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band

One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later) – Mick Hucknall

Tryin’ to Get to Heaven – Lucinda Williams

Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) – Kris Kristofferson

Gotta Serve Somebody – Eric Burdon

John Brown – State Radio

Heart of Mine – Blake Mills

4th Time Around – Oren Lavie

I Shall Be Released – Maroon 5

Somewhat Interesting

Subterranean Homesick Blues – Michael Franti

Mr. Tambourine Man – Jack’s Mannequin

All I Really Want To Do – Sussan Deyhim

It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue – Bad Religion

Desolation Row – My Chemical Romance

Shelter From the Storm – Ed Roland/The Sweet Tea Project

Forever Young – Pete Seeger [Just because a 90-year old dude is singing it…]

Zzzzz….. [Not terrible, just incredibly dull…]

Corrina, Corrina – Pete Townshend

Most of the Time – Bettye LaVette

Simple Twist of Fate – Diana Krall

Girl From the North Country – Sting

Restless Farewell – Mark Knopfler

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 – Lenny Kravitz

License to Kill – Elvis Costello

Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You – Sugarland

Just Like a Woman – Carly Simon

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door – RedOne

It Aint Me, Babe – Band of Skulls

Like a Rolling Stone – Jeff Beck/Seal

Bob Dylan’s Dream – Bryan Ferry

I’ll Remember You – Thea Gilmore

Mama, You Been On My Mind – We Are Augustines

Meh…[I could have gone my entire life without hearing these versions…]

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat – Raphael Saadiq

You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere – Brett Dennen

Changing of the Guards – The Gaslight Anthem

Not Dark Yet – Silversun Pickups

You’re a Big Girl Now – My Morning Jacket

Boots of Spanish Leather – The Airborne Toxic Event

Lay Lady Lay – Angelique Kidjo

Ring Them Bells – Natasha Bedingfield

With God on Our Side – K’NAAN

I Want You – Ximema Sariñana

Tomorrow Is a Long Time - Zee Avi

New Morning – Darren Criss

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll - Cage the Elephant

Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right – Ke$ha

All Along the Watchtower – Dave Matthews Band

Man of Peace – Joe Perry

What Were They Thinking?

One Too Many Mornings – Johnny Cash & the Avett Brothers

I’d Have You Anytime – Evan Rachel Wood

Baby Let Me Follow You Down – Marianne Faithfull

Tony's Guitarist Picks - David Gilmour

In retrospect, the last blog I wrote about Duane Allman was [in my view] extremely long-winded.  Today I will keep it much shorter.  The object of today’s exercise is David Gilmour, the man with the humungous Fender who is responsible for all the guitar noise from Pink Floyd.

It was the week between the last day of high school and graduation.  I decided to expand my musical horizons beyond the Beatles, so I bought four albums – two by the Doors [Morrison Hotel, LA Woman] and two by Pink Floyd [The Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall]. What struck me about Pink Floyd besides all the cool sound effects was the guitar playing of David Gilmour.  I noticed that he didn’t get very many songwriting credits while Roger Waters was in the band, but I did notice that fact didn’t stop David Gilmour from shining brightly.  Gilmour sang well [much better than Roger Waters], he played lots of different guitars, and he played them with an economy unheard of in most bands, especially the metal bands.  I thought he played a lot like George Harrison in that he always seemed to choose his notes wisely, the notes that he chose always seemed perfect for any song he played, and he was never in any hurry to say what he wanted to say musically.  In short, Pink Floyd was a very cool-sounding band.  After the Floyd reportedly went their separate ways after The Final Cut [1982], both Roger Waters and David Gilmour put out solo albums [The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking and About Face, respectively].  What caught my ear was how much Gilmour’s album sounded like Pink Floyd, and how much Roger Waters’ album did not sound like Pink Floyd. That little tidbit didn’t escape Kurt Loder either when he reviewed The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking for Rolling Stone.  I believe his comments were along the lines that Gilmour had the patent on Pink Floyd’s sound, and that About Face had taken on a new luster in comparison with Roger’s work.  But I’m not here to trash Roger Waters.  Roger may have had all the songs, but without Gilmour to give them shape and form I didn’t think they were as good as what he produced when he was the guiding hand of Pink Floyd.  David Gilmour really was [and still is] “the guitar and voice of Pink Floyd.”  And as such, he also became my favorite guitar player.  What makes David Gilmour such a standout?  Let me count the ways…

The acoustic – Given all of their electronic wizardry, Pink Floyd doesn’t come to mind as a group that would play what David Crosby calls “wooden music.”  Given the opportunity, Gilmour can unplug with the best of them.  Wish You Were Here is the obvious example of Pink Floyd going “unplugged.”  Fat Old Sun from Atom Heart Mother is another good example.  He uses the acoustic as a soloing instrument on songs like Lost For Words [from The Division Bell] and Near the End [from About Face].  He’s used it as a rhythm instrument – the rhythm track for Dogs [Animals, 1977] is acoustic.  He’ll play half a song on an acoustic before abruptly switching to an electric for solo work like On the Turning Away [A Momentary Lapse of Reason, 1987].  He did a live DVD where he unplugged for Shine On You Crazy Diamond.  I wasn’t sure how he’d pull that off, but he did so effortlessly.  Another good usage of the acoustic is found on Murder [About Face].  His use of a capo [on the second fret, I think…] makes the song sound like Norwegian Wood [both songs are in the same key].  That’s appropriate since the subject of Murder is John Lennon.

The “Nashville” tuning - This tuning on an acoustic guitar substitutes the wound E, A, and D strings with lighter gauge strings of the pairs of a twelve-string guitar.  The guitar sounds like it’s an octave higher.  Gilmour replaced the lower E string with a second six-string high E.  I first heard this tuning utilized by Keith Richards on the Stones Wild Horses [Sticky Fingers, 1971].  Keith’s usage made Wild Horses sound more like a country song [hence the name of the tuning], but Gilmour’s use lends a shimmering, ethereal quality to whatever song he thinks needs such a quality.  Gilmour first used it on I Can’t Breathe Anymore [David Gilmour, 1978].  He also used it for Hey You, Mother and Comfortably Numb.

The lap steel – Sometimes Gilmour used the lap steel for coloring [Breathe, Hey You, The Great Gig in the Sky, Comfortably Numb], other times he used it for soloing [Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part VI, High Hopes], and one time [the only one I can think of] he used it for taking over a song [One of These Days].  Until I heard One of These Days [Meddle, 1971] I had no idea you could play very loud power chords on a lap steel.

Speed kills – David Gilmour can wring more emotion out of four notes than Yngve Malmsteen or any other shredder [ahem…Steve Vai or Joe Satriani] can with one hundred.  Why four notes?  Shine On You Crazy Diamond.  Those four notes that start Part II [3:56] of this song were all that Roger Waters needed for inspiration to write about Syd Barrett.  How else can one make those long string bends that he gets on Part I of the same song?  You can’t get there by playing lightning fast.  Since Gilmour plays slowly compared to many guitarists, he can inject a lot of melody into his playing.  You can practically sing his solos [I’m listening to Mother as I write this…].

The solos – David Gilmour’s soloing prowess is legendary.  His solos are not terribly complex.  It’s the age-old argument of “speed vs. feeling.”  David Gilmour has feeling in abundance.  For him, soling is a fun thing to do.  He told a BBC interviewer once that he can’t imagine what it’s like being in the audience and listening to it.  He went on to say that soloing “is the best way that some of us express ourselves.”  He has a bunch of great ones [in no particular order]:  Young Lust, Mother, Hey You, Wish You Were Here, SOYCD, Dogs, Time, Money, High Hopes, Have a Cigar, The Final Cut, On the Turning Away, Another Brick in the Wall Pt 2, Echoes, Comfortably Numb.  Those are just the ones off the top of my head.

I remember one particular moment when I thought Gilmour’s playing coerced a “wow!” out of me.  It was at a midnight movie showing of Pink Floyd: The Wall.  Movies shown in a theater are fairly loud, but on this night it seemed especially loud [maybe because I wasn’t sober? who knows?].  The moment happened on the second song, The Thin Ice.  The song itself is quiet, the piano sounding almost like someone is playing “Chopsticks” until suddenly there’s a drum break and there’s Gilmour’s guitar.  The sound was ominous, sinister, and HUGE.  It was a definite “whoa!” moment.  It definitely set the tone for what came later.  There’s a certain quality to Gilmour’s soloing that makes one drop what he’s doing and pay attention to the music.  Comfortably Numb does that for me.  I’ve heard that song hundreds of times, but whenever I hear the solos [especially the second one] I have to stop what I’m doing [unless I’m driving], crank up the volume and enjoy.

The rhythm – Overlooked in Gilmour’s playing is his rhythm prowess.  One needs to look no further than Have a Cigar [Wish You Were Here, 1975] where Gilmour injects a shot of rhythm and blues after the bleak Welcome to the Machine.  Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 [The Wall, 1979] is another example of rhythm playing at its most un-Floydian.  His rhythm guitar sounds almost like Chic.  Then there’s the aforementioned Dogs.  His acoustic rhythm playing sounds like a scythe cutting through the fog.

Know when to support, know when to lead – Gilmour knows when to play, and more importantly [I think, anyway…] when not to play.  When Dick Parry plays his sax solo in SOYCD Part V, Gilmour plays a nice arpeggio figure in the back.  He also does the arpeggio thing on Dark Side of the Moon’s Us and Them.  No guitar solo is required for this song, but his playing on top of Rick Wright’s song sets the appropriate mood.  As good a support player that he is, he also knows when to step to the forefront.  Hey You [The Wall, 1979] is Roger Waters’ song, but it has Gilmour’s stamp all over it.  He throws in practically everything in his guitar arsenal into the song.  The intro is played on an acoustic guitar in the “Nashville tuning.”  He sang the verses before the guitar solo, he played the fretless bass as well as all the guitar solos and acoustic overdubs.  Plus, he’s got the lap steel on there that you can hear right after he finishes the guitar solo.  Everything you want to know about David Gilmour’s talent as a guitar player and arranger can be found in Hey You.

Have guitar, will travel – In addition to his work with the Floyd and his own solo work, Gilmour lends his talents to other people as a session player.  He’s worked with the likes of Bryan Ferry, Paul McCartney, Supertramp and Kate Bush.  His latest contribution outside his own work came with The Orb.  Such was the nature and extent of his contribution to their work, their latest album [Metallic Spheres] was credited “The Orb featuring David Gilmour.”  My favorite bit that he did for someone else was to provide the lead guitar for Pete Townshend’s song Give Blood [White City: A Novel, 1985]. 

Careful With That Axe, Eugene – Gilmour’s axe of choice on the electric side is a Fender Stratocaster.  I have seen him use other guitars though.  For his solo on Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 he used a Les Paul.  He uses a Fender Esquire with the heavy E string tuned down to D for playing Run Like Hell.  I saw him use a white Fender Telecaster for Astronomy Domine.  For Sorrow [A Momentary Lapse of Reason, 1987] he broke out a headless Steinberger to get a tone from Hell.  For some of his solo work he has taken to playing a Gretsch Duo-Jet.  He uses it to great effect on Where We Start [On an Island, 2006].  It’s a very nice sounding guitar – I want one!  For acoustic work he’ll use a Taylor 712 CE acoustic steel string, a Martin D-28 acoustic steel string, a Jose Vilaplana acoustic nylon string, and an Ovation Custom Legend 1619-4 acoustic steel string with high strung unwound strings.  They all sound very good in his hands.

I won’t go into what amps or other gear he uses.  There is a website called Gilmourish [http://www.gilmourish.com/] that provides an exhaustive look at how David Gilmour gets the sounds that he does.  It claims to be the largest David Gilmour gear source on the net.  And having looked through the site, I believe them.  If you’re a gearhead, and especially a David Gilmour gearhead, this site is your one-stop shopping to get your gear fix.  It’s a very good site.

Not much else needs to be said about David Gilmour the guitar player.  Carol and I had the pleasure of seeing him in person twice, both times on Pink Floyd’s last tour in 1994.  The sound was crystal clear, the laser lights were very cool, the films shown on the round screen behind the stage complemented the music well.  Throw in a giant mirror ball and a couple of inflatable pigs for good measure and you’ve got yourself a very good show.  With Rick Wright’s death a few years ago, Pink Floyd is now history.  David Gilmour has seen it all and done it all.  He doesn’t have to work if he doesn’t want to.  I understand that he’s working on another record these days.  If so, it will be mine!

Tony's 2011 Picks - Eleven from '11

I didn’t buy a lot of “new” music in 2011.  There wasn’t a lot of new music that jumped out and screamed “buy me.”  Some of those that I did buy I’ve already written about at length.  I pretty much stuck to stuff that’s come out in years past that I didn’t get when they were new.  So my list of favorite releases from 2011 is a short one.  Ten of them contain new music, and one of them is a monster of a box set.  As one would expect from me, the list is filled with the usual suspects, but as long as the usual suspects continue to make new music, I’ll continue to buy it and write about it.

Tom Waits – Bad As Me The only surprise about this Tom Waits release is the brevity of the songs.  All thirteen songs (16 if you got the “deluxe” version) run under five minutes.  Sound-wise, there are no surprises.  The “human beatbox” that was prevalent on 2004’s Real Gone is gone, and keyboards that were absent from that release make their return on Bad As Me.  As usual, Tom Waits barks, hollers, croons, and rasps.  Keith Richards makes an appearance on four of the songs, the funniest of which is Satisfied.  Here Tom Waits mocks Mick and Keith by name and tells him that, unlike the singer who “can’t get no satisfaction” he will be satisfied by the time it’s his turn to depart planet Earth.  There’s an anti-war rant called Hell Broke Luce, which features machine-gun fire and snarling guitars.  He’s got poetic ballads like Back in the Crowd and Kiss Me.  Bad As Me has the mix of the old-timey and the surreal one expects of any Tom Waits release.  The songs sound like they were recorded after all the bars closed.  There’s dark humor and sorrow, anger, disgust and heartbreak.  The disgust comes in Talking At The Same Time: “We bailed out all the millionaires/They got the fruit, we got the rind…”  The sadness comes in Pay Me where the singer tells of his family who pays him not to come home.  The only way down from the gallows is to swing… To borrow a phrase, Bad As Me is chock full of brawlers, bawlers and bastards.  It is essential for any Tom Waits fan.  Same as it ever was…

Ry Cooder – Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down  Ry Cooder’s most recent works have looked back in the past.  There’s his “California trilogy” – Chávez Ravine [2005], My Name Is Buddy [2007], and I, Flathead [2008].  These albums serve as an alternative history of California one won’t find in the text book.  Chávez Ravine dealt with the Los Angeles Hispanic neighborhood that “disappeared” [it was bulldozed in the name of “progress”] to make way for the construction of Dodger Stadium.  My Name Is Buddy chronicles the travels of a red cat named Buddy and some of his animal friends as they encounter dust bowl refugees, union organizers, union busters, anti-Communists, and a country music singer named Kash Buk.  Kash Buk reappears in I, Flathead, with its tales of drag-racing aliens, hot rods, honky tonks, hot blondes, his dog [his “homeland security”] Spayed Cooley, and 5000 country songs nobody wants to sing.  Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down doesn’t have an underlying them like the aforementioned trilogy.  Here, Ry Cooder channels his inner Woody Guthrie, and boy is he pissed.

Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down finds Ry Cooder commenting on current events.  He has a well-earned reputation of being a renowned Americana musicologist, and he puts that expertise to work on this CD.  Here he mixes blues, folk, ragtime, norteño, rock, and country.  Some of Ry Cooder’s usual suspects appear here – son Joachim [drums], Flaco Jimenez [accordion], Terry Evans, Willie Green and Juliette Commagere [vocals], Rene Camacho [bass].  Ry has the rest of the instruments covered – guitars, banjo, mandola, bajo sexton, bass, marimba.  Like Tom Waits he skewers those bankers who received financial bailouts from the government in 2008 in No Banker Left Behind.  In El Corrido Jesse James the outlaw asks God for his guns back so he can dispense some frontier-style justice on Wall Street.  In Quicksand a Mexican man describes a border crossing during which the guide for his group leaves in the middle of the night, and the man who takes over dies the next day in the sun.  He shows his disgust for Republicans in I Want My Crown [Republicans changed the lock on the heavenly door / keys to the kingdom don’t fit no more…]. Christmas Time This Year is Ry Cooder’s scathing indictment of America’s involvement in wars overseas set to a Mexican polka.  But there’s humor here as well.  John Lee Hooker for President imagines a world where all the Supreme Court justices are “fine looking women,” and if you’re nice you’ll have one bourbon, one scotch and one beer three times a day.  The children get milk, cream and alcohol if they stay in school.  If only…

Emmylou Harris – Hard Bargain  For most of her career, Emmylou Harris has contented herself with being an interpreter of songs written by other people.  She’s always been insecure about her songwriting.  I think she sells herself short in that regard – she wrote From Boulder to Birmingham!  What I didn’t realize [and I probably should have – I have many or her albums] was that she was the primary songwriter for only three of her albums before Hard Bargain.  Emmylou wrote all the songs on Red Dirt Girl [2000] and Stumble Into Grace [2003], but returned to recording other peoples’ songs for All I Intended to Be [2008].  On Hard Bargain, Emmylou returned to songwriting and produced a wonderful collection of songs.  There are three elegies on Hard Bargain.   The Road is for Gram Parsons.  In this song she can still remember every song he played.  My Name is Emmitt Till is told in the first person, telling how a black boy from Chicago was murdered in 1950s Mississippi for talking to a white woman, how he was kidnapped from his uncle’s house, beaten, stabbed, shot, and thrown in the river “like trash when they were done.”  And she tells of how Emmitt Till’s mother kept the casket open to show her son’s mutilated body “for the whole wide world to see.”  Darlin’ Kate is for her late friend Kate McGarrigle, a frequent collaborator who lost her battle with cancer.

The album includes Six White Cadillacs.  Here, death is a welcome respite from the road that “we won’t have to wander anymore.”  The Ship on His Arm is about a wartime marriage that was inspired by her own parents, who married during World War II.  There’s New Orleans, where “the whole world stood to watch us drown,” but “to cut and run ain’t in our blood.”  It’s interesting how Emmylou chose to make “hurricane” and “Pontchartrain” rhyme in a song.  There are songs of lonely women – Lonely Girl and Nobody.  Given her long-time advocacy for animal rights, she even wrote a song about a Big Black Dog.  There’s a lot of melancholy on Hard Bargain, but it’s a good album nonetheless.  Her voice is still as angelic as ever.  I read in Billboard not too long ago that her next project will be a duets album with Rodney Crowell.  It’ll be good, that much is certain.

U2 – Achtung Baby Box Set Carol got me this for my birthday.  When author Bill Flanagan wrote his book U2 At the End of the World, he wrote about U2 in their Achtung Baby/Zooropa period.  Manager Paul McGuinness described this time as a three-year campaign.  This box set is the product of that period.  Included in this set are six CDs and four DVDs.  The six CDs include the original Achtung Baby remastered, the original Zooropa remastered, B-sides and Rarities, 2 CDs of remixes [the Über and Ünter remixes], and the “alternate” Achtung Baby.  The hardest core U2 fans have heard all of these before, but not me.  The remastered Achtung Baby and Zooropa sound as good as one would expect.  The B-sides and Rarities are interesting.  I could do without the remixes.  The “alternate” album [‘Kindergaten’] is for U2 what Let It Be…Naked is for the Beatles.  Take away the studio tricks and underneath you still get a pretty good album.  The DVDs include the documentary U2: From the Sky Down.  U2 returned to Hansa Studios in Berlin to discuss the making of Achtung Baby with director Davis Guggenheim [he also made It Might Get Loud].  Half the film is devoted to the history of the band until 1990, the second half is devoted to the making of the album.  The best part of this film is when Bono and the Edge listen to some of the original session tapes.  You can almost see a light bulb go one over both of them when they hear how One came out of a working session for a different song.  One DVD contains each of the videos made from the Achtung Baby/Zooropa period.  A third DVD is the Zoo TV – Live From Sydney concert.  This show was quite a bit of sensory overload, but it was good to see Bono not take himself so seriously for once.  The fourth and last DVD has lots of goodies – a Zoo TV special,  an MTV documentary, MTV’s show Most Wanted where a fan got to see a U2 show via satellite from his house, a video short about Trabants [‘Trabantland’], U2 on Naked City, U2 on TV-AM.  There’s CD-ROM content as well, complete with links to websites.  This is how to do a box set the right way.

Glen Campbell – Ghost On The Canvas  The country icon makes his final album and says goodbye to his fans.  http://tonysmusicroom.blogspot.com/search/label/Glen%20Campbell

 

Gregg Allman – Low Country Blues  Gregg’s first solo studio album in fourteen years has been nominated for a Grammy in the Best Blues Album category.  In fact, of the five albums nominated, three were made by members of the Allman Brothers Band.  Perhaps for this year they should rename the category “Best Blues Album by a member of the Allman Brothers Band.”  http://tonysmusicroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/gregg-allman-low-country-blues.html

Warren Haynes – Man in Motion  Also nominated for Best Blues Album [the third being the Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Revelator].  The hardest working man in the music business, Warren took a year off from Gov’t Mule to release and tour behind this soulful gem.  To these ears, Man in Motion is more of a soul album than blues, but I tend to nitpick.  http://tonysmusicroom.blogspot.com/2011/05/warren-haynes-tale-of-two-albums.html

Neil Young – A Treasure  Neil Young changed musical directions with every album he made for Geffen during the 1980s.  This CD captures Neil and some legendary Nashville studio pros in his “country phase.” http://tonysmusicroom.blogspot.com/2011/06/neil-young-treasure.html

Levon Helm – Ramble at the Ryman  Recorded at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in 2008, Levon Helm and friends keep the spirit of The Band alive.  Levon doesn’t do all the singing, but with Larry Campbell, Theresa Williams and daughter Amy Helm along for the ride, he doesn’t have to.  http://tonysmusicroom.blogspot.com/2011/06/levon-helm-ramble-at-ryman.html

        

Joe Bonamassa – Dust Blow  This is the first of three releases Joe Bonamassa put out in 2011 [the others being Black Country Communion 2 and Don’t Explain (with singer Beth Hart)].  With three releases in 2011 Joe is trying to take Warren Haynes’ title as the hardest working man in the music business.  Unwilling to be put in a blues-rock straight jacket, Joe goes in a more eclectic direction as he did with his previous two releases, Black Rock [2010] and The Ballad of John Henry [2009].  I love to hear this guy play.

http://tonysmusicroom.blogspot.com/search/label/Black%20Country%20Communion

Black Country Communion – 2  After a not-so-stellar first album,  Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa and company fulfill their potential on their sophomore release.  At times Black Country Communion sounds like the second coming of Deep Purple.  Everything is better – Kevin Shirley’s production is better, Glenn is singing better, Joe is playing like a hard-rock guitarist, and Derek Sherinian can finally be heard in the mix.  Jason Bonham didn’t need to improve his drumming it’s still rock-solid as it was on the first album.  Father John would be proud.  http://tonysmusicroom.blogspot.com/search/label/Black%20Country%20Communion

 

Tony's Guitarist Picks - Duane Allman

Duane Allman was a musical genius who couldn’t read or write music.  For those who are not devoted fans of the Allman Brothers Band like I am, Duane Allman is not a household name.  His recording career was but a short five years.  His genius came in “the vision thing.”  His genius was in his ability to bring people of disparate musical backgrounds together [jazz, country, blues, R&B, soul, psychedelic rock], mix and match those disparate influences and come up with something new.  Many would label this “something new” thing as “Southern rock.”  I argue that the music that came from the original Allman Brothers Band was what Gram Parsons called “Cosmic American Music.”  The kind of music they played wasn’t your standard “three chords and the truth.”  The band was unique – it had two lead guitar players [Duane Allman and Dickey Betts], two drummers [Jaimoe and Butch Trucks], a bassist who played like a third lead guitarist [Berry Oakley], and the greatest white blues singer on the planet [Gregg Allman].  Rock and Roll as a genre originated from the American South, so the term “Southern rock” is a bit redundant.  Duane didn’t sing, didn’t write songs, but he was the undisputed leader, the alpha dog in the Allman Brothers Band.  Drummer Butch Trucks credited Duane as giving the band “the religion,” and the rest of the band were his disciples.  Brother Gregg Allman said of his brother when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame “he was always the first to face the fire.”  That Duane Allman was able to create a band that survived his death is a testament to his vision.

Duane Allman became interested in playing music after he and his brother saw a BB King show in Nashville.  Shortly after that show Gregg bought his first guitar with money he earned delivering newspapers.  Duane often fought his little brother for the guitar until Mama A bought a Les Paul Junior for Duane.  Gregg taught Duane how to play the chords, but then Duane quickly surpassed his little brother.  When both brothers were attending school at the Castle Heights Military Academy in Tennessee, Duane would play along to the blues records he owned until he learned them perfectly.  When Gregg finished school [Duane dropped out], both went back to Daytona Beach and started a band.  Without going through the history of each line-up, I’ll fast-forward to when their band became known as The Hour Glass.   They were able to get a record deal with Liberty Records, and they re-located to Los Angeles.

While they were in the Hour Glass, they recorded material they didn’t like, chosen by an unsympathetic producer.  The record company wanted them to be psychedelic pop and didn’t want them playing live so as not to “ruin the image.”  They recorded two albums for Liberty Records, what Gregg referred to as a “shit sandwich.”  The band spent money earned from the few gigs they did play and went to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.  They cut a BB King medley of the songs Sweet Little Angel, It’s My Own Fault, and How Blue Can You Get.  The Hour Glass’ producer didn’t like what he heard, the band broke up.  But this song gave a strong hint the direction Duane and Gregg wanted to take.  This wasn’t psychedelic pop – it was the blues.  It can be found on Duane Allman: An Anthology.  After the end of The Hour Glass, Duane and Gregg recorded an album of demos in September 1968 with Butch Trucks’ band The 31^st of February.   They cut an exceptional version of Tim Rose’s Morning Dew.  The Grateful Dead and the Jeff Beck Group had also cut the song.  Duane and Gregg’s version is more like what Jeff Beck cut. They also cut an early version of Melissa.  This version is the only one you’ll hear featuring Duane Allman.  The album stayed in the can until after Duane’s death.  It came out in May 1972 under the title Duane & Gregg Allman.  The album is long out of print, but some of the cuts from it can be found elsewhere.  Morning Dew can be found on the Allman Brothers’ box set, Dreams.  The early version of Melissa with Duane can be found on Gregg’s anthology One More Try: An Anthology.   This music was another clue as to where Duane wanted to go musically.

BB King Medley – The Hour Glass

Morning Dew – The 31^st of February

His most notable work came as a session player at FAME Studios [Muscle Shoals, Alabama] and with the band he founded, the Allman Brothers Band.  His big break as a session player came when he recorded Hey Jude with Wilson Pickett.  His guitar solo at the end of the song got the attention of Atlantic producer Jerry Wexler.  After the Wilson Pickett session, Duane got more and more session work to include the likes of Aretha Franklin, saxophone legend King Curtis, flautist Herbie Mann, Delaney & Bonnie, Clarence Carter, John Hammond, Boz Scaggs, and Johnny Jenkins.  His five-minute solo at the end of Boz Scaggs’ Loan Me a Dime is mesmerizing.  His work with Johnny Jenkins started out as a solo album for himself, but he didn’t finish the album because he formed the Allman Brothers Band instead.  This album [Ton-Ton Macoute!] features Dr. John’s Walk on Gilded Splinters, a song the Allman Brothers play in the live sets today as one of many tributes to Duane.

Hey Jude – Wilson Pickett

Loan Me a Dime – Boz Scaggs

Walk on Gilded Splinters – Johnny Jenkins

Accounts vary about how Duane Allman became such a devotee to playing the electric slide guitar.  Whether it was because of seeing a show of Taj Mahal and his band, or brother Gregg giving him a copy of Taj Mahal’s first album, this much is clear – Statesboro Blues [as played by Taj Mahal with Jessie Ed Davis on slide] was Duane’s revelation.  Such was the reverence for the song and the way it was played, the Allman Brothers Band still plays Statesboro Blues the same way Taj Mahal did in the mid-1960s.  Duane’s axe of choice for playing slide was a 1961 Gibson SG that was given to him by Dickey Betts (sometimes he played slide on a Les Paul).  Rather than play the same guitar throughout a live show, Duane had his SG tuned to open E [EBEG#BE] so when he didn’t have to play slide, he could play his Les Paul in standard tuning [EADGBE].  His slide of choice was a glass Coricidin bottle that he wore on the ring finger of his fretting hand.  Such was his mastery of the slide that once he had the likes of Elmore James down, he began to emulate the blues harp of such guys as Little Walter and Junior Wells.  A great example of this is his playing on Clarence Carter’s The Road of Love, which can be found on Duane Allman: An Anthology.

The Road of Love – Clarence Carter

Duane had jammed with an acquaintance from the band The Second Coming.  His name: Berry Oakley.  Duane intended to form a trio with him, Berry and drummer Jai Johanny Johanson.  Berry didn’t want to abandon his guitar player, Dickey Betts.  Duane was open-minded.  He’d jammed with Second Coming before and liked Dickey’s playing.  When it was time for a jam, there were those four guys, then Butch Trucks showed up.  Berry and Dickey brought their keyboard player from Second Coming, Reese Wynans.  Then there were six.  The band needed a singer.  Duane knew just the guy – little brother Gregg.  Duane made the call to California, Gregg showed up, and Reese Wynans was out.  The line-up of the Allman Brothers Band was set.  After they finished a four-hour jam, Duane is reputed to have said that if anyone wanted out of his band, they’d have to fight their way out.  Nobody threw any punches that day.

The Allman Brothers Band, the band’s debut album, was released in November 1969.  It has the blueprint of what the Allman Brothers “sound” would be [but not always used] - the twin lead guitars, two drummers who complement each other, a thunderous bass player who plays like a third lead guitarist, excellent songwriting, and Gregg Allman proving he is one of the finest blues singers alive, if not of all time.  The opening track is an instrumental (?!?) take of the Spencer Davis song Don’t Want You No More.  It was something Dickey Betts brought from his previous band The Second Coming.  Who starts their debut album with an instrumental?  This announced to the world right out of the box that the Brothers would be a different kind of band playing a different kind of music.    It grabs your attention immediately, then after two and a half minutes segues into the Gregg Allman original, It’s Not My Cross to Bear.  The segue from a 4/4-time instrumental into a ¾-time blues is effortless.  It’s a five-minute slow blues executed perfectly.  Both guitarists know when to play and when to leave space.  They don’t try to break the world land speed record in notes per second in their playing.  Black Hearted Woman is another Gregg original that shows off the harmony attack of Duane and Dickey on the songs main riff.  Duane plays some snarling licks while Dickey plays the funky rhythm in the back while Gregg sings.  Duane introduces the slide on the album’s first cover, Muddy Waters’ Trouble No More.  The album ends with duo Dreams and Whipping Post.  Dreams is a seven-minute slow blues played in ¾ time.  It’s one of those songs that doesn’t feel like it’s as long as it really is.  Words to describe Dreams:  slow, ethereal, hypnotic, hazy.  Its length is due to Duane’s extended soloing.  He starts off playing it straight, but then you can hear the exact moment when Duane starts to play the slide.  It’s at the 3:12 mark.  This is one of the few times Duane plays slide in standard tuning [the other time would be Mountain Jam].  Where Dreams is a fairly easy-going piece of music, Whipping Post is furious.  Thanks to Berry Oakley, the song has an 11/4 time signature, what some would call a modified ¾-time.  Duane and Dickey dual with their guitars, and then they harmonize the shrieking guitar climax.  In the studio the Brothers kept it to 5:20, but live it morphed into a monster that left plenty of room for exploration [see At Fillmore East].

Dreams – Allman Brothers Band

Idlewild South saw the light of day in September 1970.  Like its predecessor it contained only seven songs.  It’s not as gloomy or dark as the debut.  With one exception [the instrumental In Memory of Elizabeth Reed] the songs are shorter, more radio-friendly.  Revival is a spirited, gospel-like number written by Dickey Betts that shows the interplay of Duane’s and Dickey’s guitars.  This is what Keith Richards often describes an “an ancient form of weaving.”  They each get to play their own thing without getting in each others’ way.  One thing that is on Idlewild South that isn’t on the debut album [except for Trouble No More] is the acoustic guitar.  The first notes from Revival come from Duane strumming an acoustic.  Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’ is one of Gregg’s better blues songs.  Duane’s slide trades licks with Thom Doucette’s harp.  Duane’s playing on this song can best be described as “blistering.”  It’s even more intense on the version found on the deluxe edition of At Fillmore East.  Midnight Rider is another acoustic-driven song, but there are electrics mixed in.  They produce an effect that sounds like a pedal steel guitar.  Gregg Allman wasn’t much of a country music fan, but he referred to this song as a country song, and it sounds like one.  In Memory of Elizabeth Reed is the first of many Dickey Betts-written instrumentals that takes its name from the tombstone of Elizabeth Reed Napier, who is buried at Macon’s Rose Hill Cemetery.  She’s buried near the train tracks that run along the Ocmulgee River.  Dickey named it after her because he had written the song for a lady whom he was seeing but didn’t want to reveal her identity.  The Brothers often sought musical and chemical [and sometimes carnal] inspiration from the cemetery, which wasn’t far from their original “Hippie Crash Pad.”  Elizabeth Reed had been in the works for a long time.  Dickey once said he had Miles Davis in mind when he wrote the song.  One can hear it played by the band at the Fillmore East in February 1970.  It’s a dynamic track that has lots of different movements.  Rock bands aren’t supposed to play music this complex, but the band pulls it off with ease.  Clocking in at just less than seven minutes, Elizabeth Reed is the longest song on Idlewild South.  There’s a lot of room to stretch out and jam, as demonstrated on At Fillmore East.  Berry Oakley [whom Duane once referred to as “our bad sex symbol”] contributes his one and only lead vocal to the Allman Brothers catalog with Hoochie Coochie Man.  This sounds nothing like the Muddy Waters original.  It’s ominous, brooding, and almost scary.  Duane and Dickey push each other to incredible heights, propelled by Berry’s booming bass and Jaimoe and Butch’s drumming.  Please Call Home is the slow blues of Idlewild South.  Here Duane is at his most sympathetic.  He provides an acoustic guitar that he strums along with Gregg’s piano.  Dickey provides all the electric work.  The album closes with Leave My Blues at Home.  This is the Allman Brothers at their most funky.  In that regard it’s similar to Black Hearted Woman from the first album.  I don’t know what it is about this song, but it’s one of my Top 10 ABB cuts.  It’s a great example of the twin harmonies of Duane and Dickey.  It’s very loose, with the guitarists doing a wonderful call-and-response at the very end as the song fades.

His most famous contribution as a “session” player came during the making of Derek and the Dominos’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.  More than just a session player, Duane was a featured special guest on the album that is Eric Clapton’s greatest musical achievement.   The musical marriage made in heaven came about by accident.  When Clapton and company began work with producer Tom Dowd on what became the Layla album, Tom Dowd received a call from Duane to let him know the Brothers were going to be in town to play a concert. When he told Clapton of the phone call, Clapton said “you mean that guy who plays on the back of Hey Jude?  I want to see him play!”  Clapton and the band showed up and watched the Brothers play.  During a solo, Duane looked down and saw Clapton at his feet and froze, probably for the only time in his career.  When Dickey Betts heard Duane stopped playing he picked up the solo where Duane left off.  When Dickey saw Clapton he turned his back so he wouldn’t freeze up as well.  After the show, Duane asked Clapton if he could watch him and his band record their album.  Clapton told him to bring his guitar – they had to play!  When asked how one can tell the difference between his and Clapton’s playing, Whenever you hear the introduction to the song Layla, think of Duane Allman.  Those first seven notes was something Duane came up with off the top of his head.  Think about that – the defining riff of Eric Clapton’s career is a Duane Allman throwaway.  That screeching slide?  Yup, that’s Duane too.  Clapton invited Duane to join Derek and the Dominos, but Duane politely declined because he couldn’t leave the Brothers.  The Layla album isn’t a Duane Allman album or an Allman Brothers album, but it is quite important in Duane Allman’s story.  He lit a fire under Eric Clapton, and each guitarist drove the other to soaring musical heights.  Duane didn’t come into the picture until the 4^th song, Nobody Loves You When You’re Down and Out, and you can tell the band dials up the intensity with Duane’s presence from that point on [the album is sequenced in the order the songs were recorded, or so it’s been said].  When asked how one could tell his playing apart from Clapton’s he said the Stratocaster played by Clapton has a “sparklier sound” while his own Gibsons produced a “full-tilt screech.”  That’s playing it just a little coy, but when Layla was first remastered you could really tell the difference.  For those who don’t know the difference, Clapton is mixed to the right; Duane is mixed to the left.  In his autobiography Clapton referred to Duane as “the musical brother I’d never had but wished I did.”

Layla – Derek & the Dominos

At Fillmore East is Duane Allman’s [and the Allman Brothers Band’s] masterpiece.  Recorded over two days and four shows at New York’s Fillmore East, At Fillmore Eat [there is no “Live” in the title] captures the Allman Brothers at their best, mixing jazz, rock and blues effortlessly.  The album is a master’s class on playing the electric slide guitar.  The original album was seven songs over four sides.  The first four songs are blues [Statesboro Blues, Done Somebody Wrong, Stormy Monday, and You Don’t Love Me].  The first two are short blues number, and then they stretch out on T-Bone Walker’s Stormy Monday.  Stormy Monday is more of a showcase for Gregg Allman’s vocals, but there is soling aplenty between Dickey, Gregg and Duane.  You Don’t Love Me takes up all of side two.  The Brothers take the Buddy Guy/Junior Wells version from 1965’s Hoodoo Man Blues and stretches it out for 19 minutes.  Duane would incorporate other songs into it, either King Curtis’ Soul Serenade or Joy to the World.  This version has Joy to the World.  After the Brothers dispense with the blues they take on the instrumentals, Hot ‘Lanta and In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.  Hot ‘Lanta evolved from a jam, hence the songwriting credit to everyone in the band.  Compared to most of the album, it’s a short five minutes.  There is no studio version of this song – this is it.  Elizabeth Reed is a Dickey Betts jazz-influenced tour de force original that debuted on the Brothers’ second studio album Idlewild South.  It clocks in just less than seven minutes.  But on At Fillmore East the band stretches out to thirteen minutes, and not a single note is wasted.  It opens with Dickey paying volume swells on his guitar, soon to be joined by Duane to play a double-lead melody.  Dickey takes the first solo, Gregg plays an organ solo, and then Duane plays his solo that launches the band into the stratosphere.  He starts out quietly, builds to one climax, cools off a bit, and then launches again into a furious peak.  This is Duane Allman channeling John Coltrane and Miles Davis from Kind of Blue.  If I was to pick one Allman Brothers song that captures their essence, this cut from At Fillmore East would be it.  Where other bands would play songs to extraordinary lengths [like Cream or the Grateful Dead], the Allman Brothers’ excursions into otherworldly improvisation were not exercises in self-indulgent solos for the sake of soloing.  These guys would play with the skill of jazz musicians with the aggression of rockers.  These guys wouldn’t repeat anything.  Just when you thought they’ve said everything they’ve got to say on Elizabeth Reed, they follow that with a 23-minute version of Whipping Post.  Like on Elizabeth Reed, nothing is wasted on Whipping Post.  After the song reaches its apocalyptic conclusion you can hear the faints strains of what comes next during the fade out, the monolithic Mountain Jam [to be released on the next album, Eat a Peach].  At Fillmore East is one of my “desert island discs.”

In Memory of Elizabeth Reed – Allman Brothers Band

Eat a Peach was the album the Brothers were working on when Duane died.  Three sides contain music recorded with Duane, including some material left off At Fillmore East.  Mountain Jam, the beginnings of which you can hear at the end of Whipping Post on At Fillmore East, takes up two whole sides of Eat a Peach.  The fourth side is three songs by the remaining Brothers after Duane’s death.  The Elmore James/Sonny Boy Williamson blues One Way Out is the song that got me hooked on the Allman Brothers in the first place. Dickey starts the song with the main riff, and then Duane joins on slide playing an octave above Dickey.  When it comes to the solos, Dickey takes the first solo and is absolutely smokin’!  After the drum break Dickey and Duane do a call-and-response, followed by Duane launching himself into the stratosphere once more.  Trouble No More, the first song the Allman Brothers Band ever played together, follows One Way Out.  On Stand Back Duane shows his ability to make his slide guitar sound like a horn section.   Blue Sky is Dickey Betts’ first lead vocal on an Allman Brothers album.   This song is almost straight-up country, a departure from the hard blues, rock and jazz sounds favored on earlier albums.  But this direction is no problem for Duane.  At the 2:38 mark Dickey takes the lead from Duane.  It never ceases to amaze me the ease with which Duane and Dickey could switch roles from lead to rhythm.  Their transitions from one role to the other were always flawlessly executed.  Little Martha closes out Eat a Peach.  It shows the rarely-seen soft acoustic side of Duane Allman.  An ode to his girlfriend Dixie, it is the only song credited to Duane Allman as the only songwriter.  It came to him in a dream.  In the dream Jimi Hendrix showed him how to play it on a bathroom faucet.  It’s just Duane and Dickey playing acoustic guitars as if they were sitting on your front porch.  For those who play guitar, Duane’s guitar is tuned to E.  If you try to play it in standard tuning it will drive you crazy.  It is a short but beautiful song.  Every Allman Brothers performance ends with Little Martha playing on the PA.  When you hear that song, you know the show is over. 

For the record, a peach truck did not kill Duane Allman.  On the evening of October 29, 1971, he was riding his motorcycle down Hillcrest Dr in Macon when a flatbed truck that was hauling lumber [coming from the opposite direction] turned in front of him and stopped.  He swerved to go around the truck, but he struck the back of the truck.  He came off the bike, the bike flipped in the air and landed on him.  This caused massive internal injuries.  He lived for three hours but died on the operating table as doctors worked to save him.   The name for the Eat a Peach album came from a quip Duane made in a magazine shortly before his death.  When the interviewer asked him what he does for “the revolution,” he responded "There ain't no revolution, it's evolution, but every time I'm in Georgia I eat a peach for peace."  In a cruel twist, the success Duane had worked hard to achieve was just within his grasp.  The week he died At Fillmore East was certified Gold.

Duane penned his own epitaph.  Inscribed on his grave, it says:  I love being alive and I will be the best man I possibly can.  I will take love wherever I find it and offer it to everyone who will take it…Seek knowledge from those wiser…and teach those who wish to learn from me….  In my travels I have often been to Duane’s gravesite.  It’s at Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia.  Bassist Berry Oakley is buried beside him.  One used to be able to leave things…a guitar pick, a rose, whatever one wanted to leave there.  Unfortunately the graves were open to vandals as well.  There were times when I saw someone had drawn graffiti on the graves, so Berry Oakley’s sister Candace had an iron fence built around them.  You can still look but you can no longer touch.

It is a testament to Duane Allman’s stature as the leader of the band and as an iconic guitarist that the Brothers chose not to replace him.  In the aftermath of his death, the remaining Allman Brothers Band members recorded and toured as a five-piece.  Dickey Betts carried all the guitar weight himself.  Gregg and bassist Berry Oakley stepped up to fill the sonic hole left by Duane’s absence.  The five-man band continued for a year until they decided to go an entirely different instrumental direction.  They added pianist Chuck Leavell, who had been working on Gregg’s album Laid Back.  The Allman Brothers would not add another guitarist to the band until 1978, when they made the album Enlightened Rogues.

In 2009 was the 40^th anniversary of the founding of the Allman Brothers Band, and they dedicated their annual Beacon Theatre run [and the entire 2009 tour] to the life and music of Duane Allman.  The band invited everybody who played with Duane or wanted to pay tribute to Duane, and almost everybody [except Dickey Betts] showed up and played.  The guests are a who’s who of rock and blues:  Taj Mahal and Levon Helm [3/9/09]; Johnny Winter [3/10/09]; Buddy Guy [3/12/09]; Boz Scaggs [3/13/09]; John Hammond [3/16/09]; Tommy Talton & Scott Boyer (Cowboy) [3/17/09];  Eric Clapton [3/19/09 & 3/20/09]; Bruce Hornsby [3/21/09]; King Curtis’ Kingpins [Jerry Jemmott - bass, Bernard Purdie - drums and Jimmy Smith – keys – 3/23/09]; Billy Gibbons & Thom Doucette [3/24/09]; Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, & Chuck Leavell [3/28/09].  Several of the shows began with Duane’s Little Martha, whether it’s a Warren Haynes/Derek Trucks duet, or an Oteil Burbridge bass solo.

At the funeral, Jerry Wexler eulogized Duane by saying, “Those of us who were privileged to know Duane will remember him from all the studios, backstage dressing rooms, the Downtowners, the Holiday Inns, the Sheratons, the late nights, relaxing after the sessions, the whisky and the music talk, playing back cassettes until night gave way to dawn, the meals and the pool games, and fishing in Miami and Long Island, this young beautiful man, who we love so dearly but who is not lost to us, because we have his music, and the music is imperishable."

Indeed.  Wherever I am, Duane Allman’s music travels with me.

Selected discography:

The Allman Brothers Band

Idlewild South

At Fillmore East [Deluxe Version]

Eat a Peach

Live at the Atlanta International Pop Festival

Live at Ludlow Garage

Fillmore East Feb 70

American University, Washington DC 12/13/70

S.U.N.Y. at Stonybrook 9/19/71

Duane Allman: An Anthology

Duane Allman: An Anthology Vol. 2

Derek & the Dominos - Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs

John Hammond – Southern Fried

Boz Scaggs – Boz Scaggs

Johnny Jenkins – Ton-Ton Macoute!

Delaney & Bonnie – To Bonnie From Delaney

Delaney & Bonnie – Motel Shot

Wilson Pickett – Hey Jude

King Curtis – Instant Groove