The Allman Brothers Band - The Duane Years

After the Beatles, my favorite band on this planet is the Allman Brothers Band. I first got into the band during the summer before my freshman year in college in 1981. I heard the song One Way Out from Eat a Peach and I was hooked. Then I heard Please Call Home from Idlewild South and that sealed the deal. I have seen the band six times, I’ve seen Gregg Allman and his solo band three times [including once opening for Stevie Ray Vaughan the day after Carol and I got married], and Dickey Betts with his band once at the old Rainbow Music Hall in Denver in 1986. What follows is an album-by-album tale of my favorite band. I hope you find some things in it you didn't know before. Enjoy!

The Allman Brothers Band
This is where it all began in November 1969. The band had two lead guitarists [Duane Allman and Dickey Betts], two drummers [Butch Trucks and Jaimoe], a bass player who played like a third lead guitarist [Berry Oakley], and a lead singer who played Hammond organ [Gregg Allman]. Not only did Gregg sing and play the organ, he wrote 5 of the album’s 7 songs. Two Gregg Allman originals are all electric blues with a hard rock edge. Black Hearted Woman is fairly self explanatory. Every Hungry Woman [you’ve got 15 hungry children, no proud papa knockin’ at your door…] is pretty much an “it sucks to be you” kind of song. It’s Not My Cross To Bear [which opens the album paired with the instrumental Don’t Want You No More as an intro] is a slow blues where the singer [Gregg] tells his lady that she isn’t his problem anymore, and that he’ll live on and be strong without her. Trouble No More is one of Muddy Waters’ more famous songs. There is a story to this one. While Gregg was coming back to Jacksonville from Southern California to join the band, the rest of the band had spent a lot of time rehearsing. Duane had bragged to the rest of the band that he had the perfect singer for his new band – his baby brother Gregg. Duane talked up Gregg’s singing quite a bit. So when Gregg showed up in the middle of a rehearsal, he took Duane aside and told him he didn’t think he could cut it with musicians of the caliber of Duane’s new bandmates. Duane’s response? He basically said “you little punk! I talked you up to these guys, don’t you dare make me look like an idiot!” With that challenge to Gregg’s manhood, he asked Duane to hand him the words to the song they were rehearsing [Trouble No More], counted it off, and went for it. Gregg was in the band and Reese Wynans [he of Stevie Ray Vaughan fame] was out. The band could get along with two guitarists and two drummers, but they didn’t need two keyboard players.

The last two songs on the debut album are really the essence of the Allman Brothers Band. Gregg had written Dreams while he was living in Southern California before Duane called him home to join the band in March 1969. A slow blues in 3/4 time [yup, a waltz], the song betrays a world-weariness of someone way beyond his 21 years. With Gregg playing simple chord changes on the organ and Dickey playing rhythm guitar, Duane cuts loose. Clocking in at over 7 minutes, Dreams is the quintessential Allman Brothers Band tune.

Just one more morning I had to wake up with the blues
Pull myself out of bed, put on my walking shoes
Went up on the mountain to see what I can see
The whole world is fallin’ right down in front of me
‘Cause I’m hung up on dreams I’ll never see
Ah help me babe
This will surely be the end of me…

After he joined the band, Gregg wrote Whipping Post on an ironing board by burning the lyrics into it with matches. The band all lived in the same house, a baby was sleeping there. Gregg got the inspiration to write Whipping Post but didn’t have any paper or anything to write with, didn’t want to make any noise to wake up the baby, but he did have some matches and there was an ironing board close by. Usual blues themes are present – in this case an evil, mean woman whom he loves so much that he puts up with her making a fool out of him. Gregg’s singing as if Robert Johnson’s proverbial hellhounds are on his trail.

I’ve been run down, I’ve been lied to, I don’t know why I let that mean woman make me out a fool.
She took all my money, wrecked my new car,
Now she’s with one of my good time buddies, she’s drinkin’ in some cross-town bar…
Sometimes I feel…Sometimes I FEEL like I’ve been tied to the Whippin’ Post
Tied to the Whippin’ Post
Tied to the Whippin’ Post
Good Lord I feel like I’m dyin’…

The song has an ominous, almost scary bass intro from Berry Oakley that launches the song into 11/4 time. Gregg plays a steady organ in the back, the three-man rhythm section keeps things on-track. Duane solos after the first verse, Dickey solos after the second, and when Dickey’s solo is done both lead guitars make the climb up the mountain to a head-spinning crescendo where they do a call-and response with the Hammond. When that’s done, Gregg shouts out the last bit of the chorus then gives way to Duane and Dickey to end the song, with volume swells, wah-wahs and furious riffing. A great way to finish an album...

Idlewild South
The Brothers’ second album was even better than their first. Produced by Tom Dowd, the album’s named is taken from the Allman Brothers’ place in Georgia, which they named Idlewild South because all of the comings and goings at the place reminded them of Idlewild Airport in New York [now named JFK Airport]. There’s more electric blues like the first album but with acoustics thrown in, starting with Dickey Betts’ debut as a songwriter Revival. You can almost see the hippies twirling in the aisles when Gregg sings “love is everywhere” and songs everywhere. Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’ sees Gregg wondering what the hell his lady is up to and what she’s trying to hide. This one is another showcase for Duane Allman’s slide playing. Then there’s Midnight Rider, Gregg’s signature tune, a vision of a man on the run, determined not to be caught. There are hints of blues, country and soul all in the same song. This song had “hit single” written all over it, but the Brothers weren’t a singles band so Midnight Rider was never released as such. To close out Side 1 is Dickey Betts’ first instrumental, In Memory of Elizabeth Reed. The tune draws its name from a tombstone in Macon’s Rose Hill Cemetery. I’ve been there, seen it down by where the railroad tracks run along the Ocmulgee River. It’s just down the hill from where Duane Allman and Berry Oakley are buried side-by-side. But I digress… Elizabeth Reed takes the Allman Brothers into jazz fusion territory. On Idlewild South it’s just a hair under 7 minutes, but on-stage it becomes an adventure in improvisation that can sometimes last over 30 minutes. It never gets boring.

Hoochie Coochie Man, another Muddy Waters tune courtesy of Willie Dixon, kicks off Side 2. Berry Oakley sings the lead [Warren Haynes does the honors these days]. Fans of the Muddy Waters original will not recognize this radical arrangement. Please Call Home is a slow piano blues. The title is self explanatory – Gregg just wants his lady to reconsider leaving him, but he’s not going to talk her out of it. All he asks is that when she’s gone that she “please call home” if she changes her mind and he’ll come running to get her wherever she is. This song is one of those that attracted me to the Allman Brothers in the first place. The album ends with Leave My Blues at Home. This one is a prime example of the twin-guitar harmony parts from Duane and Dickey. When they aren’t harmonizing, they go toe-to-toe in a ferocious guitar duel. It doesn’t hurt that this is one of Gregg’s finest vocals on any Allman Brothers album.

As a footnote to Idlewild South, at the time of its recording an album from Johnny Jenkins called Ton-Ton Macoute! came out. It was originally intended as a Duane Allman solo album, but when the Allman Brothers Band came together that was put on hold and it turned into a Johnny Jenkins album. The album features the talents of Duane Allman, Berry Oakley, Jaimoe and Butch Trucks. Duane plays dobro on Dr. John’s I Walk on Gilded Splinters. This is significant in that given the Duane Allman connection, the Allman Brothers play this song in concert to this day.

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs [Derek & the Dominos]
Technically speaking, this is not an Allman Brothers record, but it looms large in their story. Eric Clapton and several sidemen from Delaney & Bonnie formed Derek & the Dominos, and retreated to Miami to record their first album. According to Clapton, they were messing around with practically anything that came out of Clapton’s head. Most of what came out of his head was songs about his unrequited love for his best friend’s wife. That tale has been told countless times so I won’t re-tell it here. Suffice to say there were lots of bluesy songs about Clapton’s pain and anguish about loving another man’s wife. While recording Idlewild South with Tom Dowd producing, he took a phone call from Eric Clapton to ask him to work with Derek & the Dominos on the new album. When Tom Dowd got off the phone he told Duane who it was. Duane’s eyes lit up, he starting playing a whole bunch of Cream guitar licks and asked Tom Dowd if it was ok for him to stop by the studio and watch Clapton record.

A couple of weeks later while Layla sessions were underway, Tom Dowd got a phone call from Duane to tell him they were in town [Miami]. When he got off the phone with Duane, Tom Dowd told Eric who it was he was talking to. Clapton responded “isn’t that the guy who played on Wilson Pickett’s version of Hey Jude” and then started playing Duane’s licks. Tom Dowd also told Clapton the Brothers were playing in town at the Convention Center, and would they like to come to the show? Clapton cancelled that evening’s session and told the band they were all going to see the Allman Brothers. The band got to sit right down in front of the stage. Duane was playing a solo, and when he saw Clapton he froze, probably for the first and only time in his life. Dickey Betts heard that Duane froze, so he started to cover for Duane. When he saw Clapton he nearly froze too, but quickly turned his back to Clapton to keep playing. After the show Clapton invited the band to the studio for a jam [these jams were captured on tape and released on the 20th Anniversary set of Layla]. Duane then asked Clapton if he could come to the studio to watch them record, and Clapton told him “no – bring your guitar. We’ve got to play!”

After Duane joined Derek & the Dominos in the studio, the Layla sessions took off. Passion oozes out of the record. They took blues standards like Have You Ever Loved a Woman and Nobody Knows You (When You're Down and Out) and made them sound original, and collaborations with organist Bobby Whitlock like Anyday and Why Does Love Have to Be So Sad are simply fantastic. As a bonus, the band recorded Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing. It is unrecognizable as a Hendrix tune. It’s a ferocious guitar duel between Clapton and Duane. And here’s a revelation that not many people know. One day while trying to think of an intro to Layla the song, Duane sat for a minute, and then said “I’ve got something.” He put on his guitar, went into the studio, and off the top of his head fired off the seven-note intro for Layla that we recognize today. So it boils down to this – the signature riff from Clapton’s career started off as one of Duane Allman’s throwaways. Incredible…

When the sessions were over, Clapton tried to talk Duane into joining Derek & the Dominos on a permanent basis. Duane told him “thanks but no thanks, I’ve got my own band.” Duane did play live with them two or three times on the Dominos’ last tour of America. When asked how one could tell who played what, Duane responded that Clapton played a Fender Stratocaster, which has a sparklier sound, while he played a Gibson that has more of a “full tilt screech.” That might sound a bit flippant, but when you listen to the 20th anniversary mixes on headphones, you can tell the difference.

At Fillmore East
This is my favorite Allman Brothers album, bar none. Producer Tom Dowd describes At Fillmore East as a big-band jazz record, and he’s not very far off the mark. This whole record is an exercise in improvisation that never fails to astound. After the first two studio discs, Duane wanted to cut the third album live. The stage was the Allman Brothers’ natural environment. According to Tom Dowd:

Most rock bands are formula bands. The Allman Brothers would play an eight-, a twelve-, a twenty- or thirty-bar formula and then it’s like jazz, complete free form and everybody goes for himself. And they have enough empathy and enough musicianship among them that Jaimoe could be playing in 5/4, Butch could be playing in 6/8, and Dickey could be playing 4/4, and they all go in different directions and it would swing. And when they get through this solo and that solo and this section, they’d nod and BOOM they’re back to square one. They’d all go back to their parts right away in line again. It’s magnificent!

They didn’t like recording studios – these guys were all hardened road cases. They all lived for the stage. Almost all live albums are recordings of songs that have already been released in studio form. Never ones to do things the conventional way, the Allman Brothers cut five songs their audience had never heard before. The set starts out with that most iconic song of the Allman Brothers canon, Statesboro Blues. For Allman Brothers fans everywhere, every note, every nuance of Duane’s slide playing is seared into their memory [and mine]. Dickey’s solo is no slouch either. Next was another “new” song, an old Elmore James song called Done Somebody Wrong. More slide virtuosity from Duane, then the old T-Bone Walker song Stormy Monday. Instead of giving the instrumentalists a chance to show off their chops, this song is Gregg’s to show off why he’s the finest white blues singer in America [perhaps anywhere, but then again I’m biased].

With the blues out of the way on Side 1, then the fun begins. Side 2 has one song – the 19-minute You Don’t Love Me. Everybody gets their licks in here. Side 3 begins with a short, 5-minute instrumental to which all band members contributed – Hot ‘Lanta. Then comes the my favorite version of In Memory of Elizabeth Reed. When Rolling Stone reviewed Idlewild South, they said Elizabeth Reed was "the blueprint of a concert warhorse, capturing the Allmans at their most adventurous." Wouldn't you know, they got it right! On At Fillmore East, Elizabeth Reed becomes otherworldly at just over 13 minutes. Noted critic Robert Palmer wrote of the Allman Brothers “that if the musicians hadn't quite scaled Coltrane-like heights, they had come as close as any rock band was likely to get.” Duane was listening to a lot of John Coltrane and Miles Davis at the time. His solo in the second half of the song is incendiary. It is proof that not only was Duane a fine slide guitar player, he was also pretty damn good at playing without a slide as well.

Side 4 is also one song – Whipping Post. The original studio version is about 5 1/2 minutes long. This version is 23! Duane introduced the song – “Berry starts her off” – then a fan yells out “Whipping Post.” Duane responds “you guessed it,” and off they go…The verses, choruses, and solos go into 6/4 time, then the interludes after the vocal part go back to 11/4. Dickey Betts in particular gets to shine. Whereas Duane got the more memorable solos on Dreams and Elizabeth Reed, Dickey steps out on this version of Whipping Post. You can even hear the beginnings of Dickey’s instrumental Les Brers in A Minor. After Dickey gets through shredding, the band goes almost dead silent except for Duane’s guitar. After the apocalyptic climax you can hear Butch Trucks play the tympani to introduce the next monolithic jam, Mountain Jam. But that’s all you hear. Then the record fades…

The Allman Brothers recorded more than 7 songs during their four shows at the Fillmore East. They also recorded One Way Out, Trouble No More [both of which were included on Eat a Peach], Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’ [included on the 1972 Duane Allman Anthology], Mountain Jam [also on Eat a Peach], and Drunken Hearted Boy with Elvin Bishop [which finally surfaced on the 1989 Dreams box set]. A few years ago Polygram released a “deluxe” version of At Fillmore East that includes both the original set and the songs I just listed here. If you are going to own one Allman Brothers Band album, the deluxe version of At Fillmore East is the one to have.

Eat a Peach
Produced by Tom Dowd. Dedicated to a brother, Duane Allman. Contrary to belief, Eat a Peach did not get its name because Duane Allman was supposedly killed by a peach truck [he wasn’t – he collided with a flatbed lumber truck]. The name came from an interview Duane did with a magazine. When asked what he was doing to help the revolution, Duane replied, "There ain't no revolution, it’s evolution, but every time I'm in Georgia I eat a peach for peace." So there you have it. The first side is three new songs recorded after Duane’s death [October 29, 1971]. Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More is a statement of purpose after Duane’s death. Of note, it also features Dickey Betts playing slide for the first time on an Allman Brothers album. Les Brers in A Minor is another long Dickey Betts instrumental that shows off Berry Oakley’s lead bass attack that he developed to fill the sonic hole left by Duane’s absence. Melissa was Duane’s favorite song that Gregg sung at Duane’s funeral. Gregg and Duane originally cut Melissa with the short-lived band 31st of February. That particular version can be found on Gregg Allman’s One More Try anthology set, but good luck finding it - it's out of print. It’s the only version to feature Duane Allman’s slide talents. As for the Eat a Peach version, it’s Gregg’s tribute to his fallen brother. It’s one of the few Allman Brothers songs on which Gregg plays guitar. The aforementioned Mountain Jam takes up a full two sides of Eat a Peach. It features a lot of great playing [especially from Duane] that acts as a send-off for Duane.

Side 4 has five songs. All these songs include Duane Allman. The first two, One Way Out and Trouble No More were recorded at the Fillmore East. Trouble No More was recorded during the same shows as At Fillmore East, but One Way Out was taken from the Allman Brothers performance in June 1971 that closed the Fillmore East. Dickey Betts steps out and plays the lead parts, including the amazing first solo. You can tell the difference between Dickey and Duane – Duane plays the slide. There is a fuck-up on it as well, courtesy of Berry Oakley. He came out of the drum break one beat too early, but Butch Trucks played an extra beat to make up for it and quickly got everyone back on the same page. I love it when mistakes are left in…it makes the musicians seem more human. The first studio track was a Gregg Allman/Berry Oakley composition called Stand Back. It is about, of course, some demonic woman who needs to be sent away and avoided at all costs. Duane’s slide playing actually sounds a lot like a horn section. Next is Blue Sky, a country song Dickey Betts wrote about his wife at the time. It’s the first song Dickey sang on an Allman Brothers record, and was a foreshadowing of what was to come on later Allman Brothers albums, particularly Ramblin’ Man and Jessica. Duane plays the first solo, Dickey plays the second solo, and both play that circular figure that wraps up before the final verse. It’s one of Dickey’s best songs. Finally, there is Little Martha. A short, two-minute acoustic number, it is the only song Duane Allman ever wrote. It came to him in a dream. Jimi Hendrix showed him how to play it on a water faucet. That must have been one strange dream. Only Duane and Dickey appear on it. Duane plays in an open E tuning. I've just learned it myself. If I didn't know it was in open E, I probably would have become an alcoholic while trying to figure it out.

And so ends my first chapter of the Allman Brothers Band and its legacy. I will pick up the next chapter with Gregg Allman’s first solo album, Laid Back.