Not even taking into account the current version of the Allman Brothers Band with Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks on guitars, and the fine reviews their latest record has recieved, the vintage Allmans band has been, like its own doppelganger, making all kinds of waves lately: Duane Allman was voted the second greatest guitarist of all time in the latest Rolling Stone magazine poll, the band's astonishing live album The Allman Brothers Band At the Fillmore East - perhaps the greatest live rock album of all time - has just been given the Deluxe Edition treatment, and the band is featured prominently in the PBS series The Blues, debuting this weekend. There is also a blues-oriented Allmans collection just out in conjunction with the series.
Brothers Duane and Gregg Allman were born in Nashville and raised in Florida, where they listened to blues, soul, and British Invasion rock 'n' roll. They led a British Invasion-style band called the Allman Joys in the mid-'60s, then became the more soul-oriented Hour Glass. After recording two unsuccessful albums in LA, Hour Glass broke up, with Duane heading to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to work as a studio musician at the great Fame Studios, where he recorded with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, King Curtis, Boz Scaggs, and many others, heightening what was already a stellar reputation.
Encouraged to put together a new band, Duane assembled the Allman Brothers Band in '69, and after a long jam session, the group and its signature sound, gelled. The Allman Brothers Band have often been labeled as "Southern Rock," but their uniquely brilliant blend of blues, country, rock, jazz and Latin-esque percussion is only superficially related to Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker and others of the ilk.
In fact, the only album comparable in sound and power to the Allman's classic albums of '69-'73 (The Allman Brothers Band, Idlewild South, At Fillmore East, Eat a Peach, Brothers and Sisters) is Derek and the Dominos' Layla, an album that not-coincidently features Duane Allman on slide guitar.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave
How does this release differ from The Fillmore Concerts, the expanded edition released in '92?
2 - Eric Olsen
Hi Dave, excellent question. The only diffeence I can see is the addition of "Midnight Rider" and a slightly different order on Disc 1. It has also been remastered and there is a new booklet with a new essay. If you already have the '92 release, may not be worth the price.
3 - Chris Arabia
Interesting. I only wish the post title were bit more literal.
4 - Eric Olsen
Yes, perhaps I was a bit glib. It's remarkable that the band has been able to carry on with quite a bit of success for 30 years after they lost not one but two key members within a year. Who knows what that band may have accomplished.
5 - Chris Arabia
I often think of Hendrix the same way, but on the other hand, I wonder how he could have topped EL and some his other stuff. But on the other other hand...
As for the Allmans, maybe they had several more in store...
6 - Eric Olsen
The tragic difference between the Allman deaths and many of the others of the era (and since for that matter is that they were both accidents, not the seemingly inevitable result of a drug habit or regular binging, etc. You could argue that with Hendrix and Joplin, Morrison, Elvis, Cobain, etc that it was just a matter of time.
7 - Mark Saleski
this record is quickly becoming the Kind Of Blue of rock music...let's see how many times have i bought it?.....
8 - Eric Olsen
Mark, I know what you mean, but this seems to be the logical extension of it. All the songs recorded at the Fillmore shows are now in one place (well, there may be more, but they must have fatal flaws), in a very nice package, for a reasonable price.
9 - Mark Saleski
oh yea, i didn't mean to implying that i wasn't gonna buy it...far from it. five years from now they'll put out another version with outtakes of greg allman bitching out a roadie about his setup...i'll probably buy that too.
10 - Eric Olsen
you're a doomed music romantic
11 - Mark Saleski
yep.
12 - Taloran
"He made everyone in the band better... and especially inspired fellow guitarist Dickey Betts to his greatest recorded work."
Not to mention inspiring Eric Clapton to his greatest recorded work. Patti Boyd may have been the primary inspiration, but without Duane pushing EC to his considerable limits, Layla might have been just another ol' album.
13 - Eric Olsen
Couldn't agree more, the high point of Clapton's career, a high point in rock history, and the end of an era - Clapton has never been the same, Allman was gone shortly thereafter, the Beatles were gone, the '60s were gone.
14 - Dave
I never saw what the big deal was about D & the D's except for "Layla".
I have enough other A-Bros stuff that I still have to get, so I think I'll give this set a pass.
15 - Eric Olsen
Oh Dave, oh Dave, the album Layla is deep and wide as the ocean, the song "Layla" is just the centerpiece. It is a run through blues history as filtered through two of the greatest guitarists ever, at their most profound and mystical. And Clapton really sings.
Please listen to it again: the band is incredible, Bobby Whitlock's keys and background vocals are a moon unto themselves, and the album is a universe. You know what's what, just check it out again.
16 - Al Barger
Clapton really, really goddam annoys the bejesus out of me- yet even I have to agree that the Derek and the Dominoes album is the shiznit.
17 - Taloran
The last cut of Layla, Thorn Tree in the Garden, serves as a marvelous musical counterpoint to the hard-driving blues-rock of the rest of the album. It defines the Dominoes as well as the title cut does.
18 - Taloran
Seems to me that the music of Clapton is like black licorice - people either love it or hate it - there's no middle ground.
19 - Eric Olsen
There are also two very distinct phases to Clapton's career: before and after Layla.
20 - Natalie Davis
Indeed, there are those who love pre-Layla Clapton and can't abide post-Layla Clapton. No doubt there are those who prefer post-Layla Clapton to pre-Layla Clapton. I trust that number is a small one.
I assume most of us can agree on "Layla"'s deserved status as a masterpiece. And this music fan (who prefers early Clapton) believes Layla and Ohter Love Songs is damned fine, even magical, from beginning to end.
21 - Eric Olsen
right on Nat, your taste is phat
22 - Taloran
I think lumping Clapton's career into two phases is a bit overly simplistic. Bluesbreakers with Clapton were not Yardbirds were not Cream were not Dominoes were not Blind Faith, and comparing two albums post-Layla, say 461 Ocean Blvd. to Money and Cigarettes, or Slowhand to From the Cradle, is like comparing apples and tire irons.
23 - Eric Olsen
Perhaps, but there was a fundamental change that happened in and around Layla - he went into a heroin fog for like two years after the Layla tour and didn't come out until 461, which is a very nice album, but as if from a completely different artist. Looks like I'll have to post something on this.
24 - Natalie Davis
>>Bluesbreakers with Clapton were not Yardbirds were not Cream were not Dominoes were not Blind Faith
Indeed. But all were excellent and adventuous (well, save BF), but all, even BF had their moments of transcendence.
>>comparing two albums post-Layla, say 461 Ocean Blvd. to Money and Cigarettes, or Slowhand to From the Cradle, is like comparing apples and tire irons.
Perhaps. But I have to side with Eric: The artist who created them all was a changed man from his previous incarnation.
25 - Taloran
Point conceded - there is a paradigm shift induced by his heroin fog.