The Allman Brothers Band

The history of the Allman Brothers Band may be one of the best illustrations of the blues life: a humble yet ambitious start, ignored at first but working hard until recognition comes, a tragic death of a crucial founder member right when success comes, a  brief period at the crest of success followed with a slow but sure downward spiral, a breakup followed by several attempts to revive the band and, eventually, a real, substantial reinvention and retooling that launch a second act where the band again becomes a hugely successful live act but is forced to fire a crucial founder member to be able to carry on, until its final dissolution with the status of legendary, venerable American band that established a genre, Southern rock, and an ethos, “jam band.”  Some legacy.

 

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“Free Wheelin” is an instrumental tune on the Bachman-Turmer Overdrive album Not Fragile (1974) that’s marked as being dedicated to Duane and at the time I got the record, I had no idea who this Duane might be, seeing as how my knowledge of the history of rock was still quite sparsely populated.  Once I got to know who Duane was, and what his own guitar playing sounded like, I was intrigued why this tune was dedicate to him when the song that did feature slide guitar, “Blue Moanin’ “ wasn’t. Maybe because the slide playing on the latter tune wasn’t at all reminiscent of Duane Allman’s style. The melodic style of “Free Wheelin” would’ve been more apt dedicated to Dickey Betts.

 

By 1976 I knew who Duane Allman was, who the Allman Brothers Band were and of the tragic deaths of Duane and Berry Oakley and eyed the Duane Allman: An Anthology album (1972) at Sygma Records in Stellenbosch on my weekly visits to browse record covers, intrigued by the very non rock ‘n roll image of a bare chested Allman fishing from the shore of a bayou, or so I imagined. I never got up die courage to ask the guy behind the desk to play me any tracks from the record and never had the money to buy the album, not then, anyway.

 

“Ramblin’ Man” was the only Allman Brothers Band song I knew because it got decent airtime on South African rock radio.

 

Over time I built up a good collection of books on the general history of rock from the earliest days to its late ‘70s peak as well as biographies of individual acts and bought weekly and monthly rock publications and in this way learnt the basic history of the Allman Brothers Band up to the breakup in 1976, following the Scooter Herring scandal of Gregg Allman being ostracised as a stool pigeon who ratted out a buddy to save his own skin.

 

The NME was quite scathing in its reviews of the live album Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas(1976) and the studio set Enlightened Rogues (1979) and thereafter either never bothered with them again or I simply have no recollection of any reviews. 

 

After that I lost sight of the Allman Brothers Band.

 

The NME certainly didn’t cover the band, steeped in punk, power pop, New Wave, New Romantic and post punk as it was and the UK magazines I started buying in the late ‘80s (The Face, Select, Q) also had no interested in covering a band that was an anachronistic reminder of the Southern Rock that might’ve loomed large in the ‘70s but had become a redundant genre  by 1990, well, until the Black Crowes revived it.

 

I started buying CDs around 1990 and, due to budget constraints, avoided buying new releases from record stores like Musica, if I could and preferred trawling through the displays at Outlaw Records in Hout Street, Cape Town, and a flea market table just outside the main concourse building of Cape Town Railway Station. There my hauls included the first four Creedence Clearwater Revival albums, three of the albums from Tom Petty’s break out years, some other intriguing oddities and the 2 CD  Live at Ludlow Garage, a 1970 concert recording by the Allman Brothers Band that predates the far more famous At Fillmore East (1971) and concentrates more on blues and shares only a few tunes with the later live album and features a complete version of “Mountain Jam” on one disc. 

 

This album was an eye opener to the fluidity, ferocity and melodic strengths of the musicians. They didn’t reinvent the blues but had a fresh, innovative approach and the virtuosity never feels like technique for it’s own sake (so evident with the metal “shredders” of the ‘80s); the solos can stretch out but the instrumentalists are always “saying something” and they always  serve the tune.

 

It was many years before I finally acquired At Fillmore East that’s quite exciting too but feels too polished and almost studied compared to the looser, funkier early recording.

 

Not long after Ludlow Garage, I finally bought Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970), long on my bucket list of blues rock records because it featured Eric Clapton whose early period, from The Yardbirds to Derek & The Dominos, is my favourite part of his musical career and, obviously, because it’s mythical due to Duane’s contributions.

 

Duane’s interplay with Clapton is heady stuff, contrasting styles melding together to from a whole that might not be greater than the sum of the parts but produced a record that is now unthinkable without Duane’s parts. Clapton is no slouch but compared to Allman’s subtle yet sharp lead parts, Clapton comes across as trying too hard, whereas Duane simply channels the muses.

 

By this mid-90s I was aware that the Allman Brothers Band had been reconstituted and reanimated, was touring again and was even releasing new studio albums but I still wasn’t encouraged to investigate any of that because they seemed like “classic rock” act relying on the glories of the name and the original recordings to maintain a career on the road with the support of longtime fans, pretty much like the Grateful Dead, and its offshoots after Garcia’s death, and it wasn’t an attractive prospect for investing  time and money.

 

I preferred investigating the earlier albums but, due to circumstances, came to Eat a Peach (1972) before I bought the first two albums. The single CD combined wat had been two parts of “Mountain Jam” on two sides of a LP, following the other tracks. The live tracks were leftovers from the Fillmore East shows and were tacked onto the album, I believe, to profit from the At Fillmore East success.  Duane Allman didn’t feature on all tracks.

 

I was ambivalent about this record, after the fierce onslaught or Live at Ludlow Garage, as the new, studio tunes seemed to be too jazzy and/or polished for my taste though the band is still quite committed to blues. “Les Brers in A Minor,” in particular, came from left field for me, who hadn’t yet heard the first two records, and appeared to be a progressive direction I didn’t care for.  I also preferred “Mountain  Jam” off Live at Ludlow Garage  and when I played the CD, I usually skipped that track.

 

It took a couple of years before I had the opportunity to investigate The Allman Brothers Band (1969) and Idlewild South (1970), by way of a single CD reissue combo of the two albums, called Beginnings.

 

Things were different in 1969, but I was surprised that such a strong debut album didn’t do better than it did. Led Zeppelin may possibly be the best debut released in 1969 but The Allman Brother Band is up there too, with equally strong, innovative playing, solid arrangements and a vocalist whose voice, if not the freak of nature of Robet Plant, that was the real blues and soul deal. The Band’s debut album impressed Eric Clapton mightily and influenced his ‘70s musical direction but I can well imagine that he must’ve been blown away equally by the Allman’s debut.

 

In contrast, Idlewild South, seemed a tad underwhelming to me, with the jazz and country influences that, to me, undermined, the strength of the blues playing. Of course, the band wanted to improve and progress and not simply to repeat the debut’s approach and, many years later, I fully grasp the bravado, intelligence and all-round exemplary musicianship of tracks like “Revival” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” but, still, if push comes to shove, I’d rather listen to the debut album, which. I love, rather than to Idlewild South, which I appreciate intellectually more so than viscerally.

 

The Allman Brothers Band broke up in 1976, reconvened a few years later, broke up again and reformed again, and had a rough ‘80s, like so many big rock acts of the late ‘60s and the ‘70s who were forced, usually by their record companies or management, to deviate from their roots to adapt to the new musical tastes of the ‘80s, a decade which wasn’t kind to the older guys who should’ve stuck to their roots and original strengths rather than try to compete in a market for which they weren’t suited.

 

However, by the late ‘80s and in the early ‘90s, the band had returned to their strengths and added Warren Haynes, the first guitarist since Duane’s death who could truly update and elevate the band’s sound yet also keep it firmly rooted in the principles that’d made the band great in the heady early days.

 

From this period of revival comes An Evening with the Allman Brothers Band: First Set (1992), showcasing Haynes and bassist Allen Woody on stage on record for the first time. The songs are selected highlights of the band’s musical output over the previous 23 years and  emphasise how strong and compelling the band still was on stage. The album doesn’t have the youthful insouciance and brio of Live at Ludlow Garage or At Filmore East and often sounds more like a group of highly proficient, technically excellent studio guys backing up Gregg Allman but the performances are still rousing and a powerful statement of the longevity and timelessness of emotionally invested blues-based music played by musicians at the top of their form.

 

Finally, roughly 40 years after its first release, I acquired At Fillmore East (1971) and it was somehow less impressive than I’d anticipated, in the wake of Live at Ludlow Garage, which I still prefer as record of the early live shows of the band. The band is on top form on the At Fillmore East recordings and the song selection is stellar but I guess it would’ve been a more significant impression if I’d bought the record much earlier in my exploration of the Allman Brothers’ back catalogue. 

 

The Allman Brothers Band, eventually featuring Derek Trucks, son of drummer Butch Trucks, and a slide guitar genius in his own right, kept on releasing albums until the final dissolution and kept on touring successfully, playing a mix of the mandatory classics  and newer material but ceased being a vital, creative group. The band was one more member of the “classic rock” sub-genre of rock, no more. The albums by the first iteration are still the only Allman Brothers records one needs.

 

The Allman Brothers Band are credited in rock histories as one of the originators, if not the sole originator, of the “Southern rock” sound, a mixture of blues, country and rock, that probably peaked with Lynyrd Skynyrd in terms of mainstream acceptance though there were many other bands playing this style. For my money, though, the Allman Brothers Band were bigger and better than this narrow definition and, if the general Southern rock band had blues influences, the Allman Brothers, especially with Duane was a blues band rather than any type of rock band even if this was how they were categorized.  

 

The later albums delved into a variety of styles and influences but the blues remained the heart of the matter, as Gregg Allman’s vocals always proved. There are a slew of videos of concert recordings of the band from the ‘90s into the new Millennium and they showcase the blues fundamentals of a rock band with virtuoso soloists, a mesmeric experience for the adoring audiences. There’s nothing like accomplished, melodic yet fierce blues rock to take the mind on an emotional journey.  The Allman Brothers Band are exemplary at this.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts on the documentary Johnny Winter: Down & Dirty

This is a 2014 documentary, released a few months before Winter’s death at 70 while he was touring Switzerland. The period covered shows him on tour over roughly the last year of his life, interspersed with interviews with him, cinema verité bits, comments from various people in the music business, and biographical material. 

 

By this time, despite being off methadone, the long term addiction that replaced his relatively brief period of heroin addiction, Winter is physically frail, moves like someone 20 years older and sits down when playing. It’s a sad commentary, I suppose, on how a lifetime of addictions, and a wild life in general, can ruin a person’s physical health. In contrast, Keith Richards, who once represented the poster boy ideal for the dangers of the rock ‘ roll lifestyle is still very much alive and kicking, and recording, at 82.

 

Winter’s first recording was released in 1959, when he was 15, and the last one in 2014, presumably when he was still 69, and he has a significant discography from before he became famous in 1968 as well as subsequently, including a plethora of live recordings, in which he went from blues to hard rock back to blues. Today, he’s still primarily thought of as a Texas bluesman. The early ‘70s hard rock years stemmed from management and record label believing  that this was the route to commercial success though the most creatively successful part of that decade was his association as producer and backing musician with the resurgence of Muddy Waters with 1977’s Hard Again album, and the  three that followed, where Winter reigned in his overbearing, excessive trademark  of egoistic, endless, fluid soloing for an tasteful, concise and incisive  integrated contribution to a Chicago blues band style.  Winters was a masterful, technically proficient guitarist encouraged by the “guitar hero” fixation of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s to abandon discretion in favour of excess.

 

I’m ambiguous about Johnny Winter’s music. The records I like best are the solo albums Nothin’ but the Bluesand White, Hot & Blue as well as the three Muddy Waters albums to which he contributed because he plays to serve the songs rather than showing off his extraordinary ability showcased for its own sake. Even the first albums on Columbia Records, as well as The Progressive Blues Experiment, seem to verge too much on hard rock than on the straightforward blues of that late ‘70s’ period. When Winter formed Johnny Winter And for the foray into hard rock, he lost me. I can admire how good he is on the guitar but it’s an intellectual appreciation rather than a visceral enjoyment; lengthy versions of “Highway 62 Revisited,” no matter how energetic, simply become tedious after a few minutes.

 

At 69, Winter still plays pretty much as fiercely and fluidly as he ever could, and nis voice, never his strongest suit anyway,  just about holds up. The shocking part of the documentary is simply how frail he is and the sense, in hindsight of course, that one is watching a slow fade into death. If Winter had looked after himself, or had someone who minded him better, this last period of touring might not have been his last and absolutely wouldn’t have felt so forlorn and almost desperate, even if the audience clearly still adore him. The people who pay for the tickets are just happy to experience a living legend who mostly still sounds like he always did, while he’s still able to tour and to play.

 

Paul Nelson deserves much credit for weaning Winter off methadone and getting him back as close as possible to prime Johnny Winter and managing his career successfully at least for the last few years of Winter’s life so that he didn’t die in forgotten ignominy. I suppose it could be a badge of honour to have been in one of the audiences during that last period of shows, especially the final one, which wouldn’t have happened without Nelson’s dedication to rescuing Winter.

 

The bits of biographical detail are insightful and the comments from the likes of Joe Perry (Aerosmith) are full of admiration for a living icon of rock and blues.  From a distance, just noting the regular record releases, it seemed that Winter’s career was chugging along satisfactorily and that returning to being a bluesman was comforting, of course, this public image never reflects what actually happens in the musician’s personal life, that will not only  have the same kinds of challenges most people have  but sometimes extraordinary ones specific to the musician’s life choices.  Winter kept working, while dependant on methadone, but on a reduced level of efficiency, due to the machinations of his manager, until Nelson took over,  though it  couldn’t have been a happy life. Presumably, the final, methadone-free years, were good and Winter died during a positive period of his life.

 

Johnny Winter: Down & Dirty is your typical slice-of-life view of a specific time in a person’s life and that the period is close to his death makes the viewing quite poignant knowing that one is experiencing the final months of someone who isn’t anticipating his imminent, unforeseen demise. He was still articulate, verbally and as musician, and seemed optimistic that life would continue favourably for a while longer. To me, it seemed that this period would end with a slow decline due to the physical frailties, and that Winter would conclude his life in a frail care home of sorts, rather than a sudden exit at age 70.  

 

I suppose I should investigate Winter’s music in more detail. I have the late ‘70s albums already mentioned, as well as collections of his pre-fame recordings and ‘90s blues period, but other than hearing some songs from the hard rock period, I’ve not gone on a deep dive into the back catalogue, mostly  because, as mentioned, I’m not that much of a fan of Winter’s style but seeing as how Apple Music provides the resources, one should do the research and pay proper homage.