Here’s a very good interview/profile of Gregg from 2011. Enjoy….
As a bonus, here’s a great acoustic performance of Melissa featuring Gregg with an incarnation of the Allman Brothers that featured Dicky Betts and Warren Haynes on guitar. This type of performance is one of a kind and really special so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Gregg looks so much healthier today than he did back in the 80s when I think this performance was recorded and that makes me almost as happy as the music!
Give me 30 minutes and I will give you one of the greatest live tracks of all time.
This jam was recorded at the Fillmore East as part of the same concert that gave us the greatest live album of all time, At Fillmore East. Mountain Jam was included on an album called Eat A Peach that was released after Duane’s death. Enjoy….
As promised last Friday, I have another “Monday” song for you as this week’s Long Song Tuesday offering. It’s an amazing performance of Stormy Monday (the T-Bone Walker song) by the Allman Brothers Band at Filmore East in 1971.
The Wikipedia article on the song Stormy Monday provides the following comments on the Allman Brothers version of Stormy Monday. I highly recommend that you read the comments before listening to the song since it let’s you know who is playing the three main solos in the performance..
The Allman Brothers Band instrumentation of the song is typical of the group, consisting of vocals, two guitars, bass guitar, organ, and drums. It demonstrates a different style of music, however, from most Allman Brothers pieces, with a very slow tempo and softer feel, running at only 60 beats per minute. Duane Allman’s virtuosic guitar playing can be heard at this slower tempo, in the first of three solos, with Gregg Allman’s organ solo shifting to a jazz-waltz feel and Dickey Betts’ guitar solo ending it.
This recording is from The Allman Brothers at Fillmore East, the best live album that was ever recorded (in my opinion). Because I love this album so much we will feature it as the album of the week in the next day or so.
As promised, this week’s album of the week is the best live rock album ever recorded – At Fillmore East by the Allman Brothers band. The band formed in 1969 after the breakup of Hour Glass which had featured Duane and Greg Allman (use the search feature to find my earlier post that featured some Hour Glass songs). They released The Allman Brothers Band in 1969 and Idlewild South in 1970, both of which were great but it was their live shows with extended blues and jazz jams that really started to expand their fan base. In 1971 they recorded the live album featured in today’s post and it successfully captured the magic of their live performances. The Allman Brothers place in rock history was firmly established by this album.
Rolling Stone magazine named At Fillmore East the 49th greatest album of all time stating the following about the album:
“Rock’s greatest live double LP is an unbeatable testimony to the Allman Brothers’ improvisational skills, as well as evidence of how they connected with audiences to make jamming feel communal. “The audience would kind of play along with us,” singerorganist Gregg Allman said of the March 1971 shows documented here. “They were right on top of every single vibration coming from the stage.” The dazzling guitar team of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts was at its peak, seamlessly fusing blues and jazz in “Whipping Post” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.”
Our long song Tuesday post this week featured Stormy Monday from this album but you really can’t appreciate its true greatness without listening to it end to end. So let’s listen to the whole album…..
This is a band that was at the peak of its power and we are incredibly lucky to have this live album masterpiece to remember how great they were were. Unfortunately this version of the band would never record again. Two members of the band were lost in motorcycle accidents in the eighteen months that followed the recording of At Fillmore East. We will save that sad story for another day.
On a personal note I am forever sad that I did not get to see the Allman Brothers in their original lineup. Having said that, in a strange way I was reminded of the band at every concert that I attended to in the 70s. No matter what show I was at, someone from the audience would call out a request for Whipping Post. Maybe it was just a southern thing but it made me smile each and every time it happened. If you haven’t listened to the album yet be sure to listen for the iconic original shouted request that triggered all of the copycat requests that I heard throughout the 70s.
This is probably the word that all of us heard most often often as kids. I recently looked at my iTunes library and I have almost 200 songs that start with Don’t…can’t be a coincidence!
Enjoy the music…let me know if you have a favorite “Don’t” song.
Don’t Be Denied – Neil Young
Don’t Fear The Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult
Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right – Bob Dylan
Don’t Keep Me Wondeing – Allman Brothers Band
Don’t Let It Bring You Down – Neil Young
Any suggestions for Word of the Day for next Friday?
As promised a couple of days ago, today’s Long Song Tuesday post is from The Marshall Tucker Band. It is actually a three for one deal. This 20 minute live video from 1973 features live performances of Take The Highway, Can’t You See, and Ramblin filmed in Macon, Georgia which was where Capricorn Records was based. All of the elements I discussed in my earlier post are evident in this video. I think the performance of Can’t You See is particularly great featuring vocals and guitar from Toy Caldwell. I hope you enjoy it….
RIP – Toy Caldwell (lead guitar/vocals), Tommy Caldwell (bass), and George McCorkle (rhythm guitar)
thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard 