The Allman Brothers Band
The Allman Brothers Band |
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The Allman Brothers Band is a band from Macon, Georgia, labeled by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as "the principal architects of Southern rock."[1] Originally formed in 1969, two years later they were described by Rolling Stone's George Kimball as "the best damn rock and roll band this country has produced in the past five years."[2] Noted for their impressive jamming and improvisational abilities (best exemplified by their album At Fillmore East), the band has been awarded eleven Gold and five Platinum albums between 1971 and 2005[3]. Rolling Stone listed The Allman Brothers as one of their 100 Greatest Artists of All Time in 2004.[4] The band continues to record and tour to the present day.
Band history
Beginnings
The band was formed in Jacksonville, Florida on March 26, 1969, and consisted of Duane Allman (slide guitar and lead guitar), Gregg Allman (vocals, organ), Dickey Betts (lead guitar, vocals), Berry Oakley (bass guitar), Butch Trucks (drums) and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson (drums).
The actual Allman brothers, Duane and Gregg, had originally been in a garage band called the Escorts, then the Allman Joys and finally the Hour Glass. The Hour Glass had released two failed albums from Liberty Records. They were all released from the contract except Gregg, who Liberty thought might have some commercial potential. Duane Allman, with a stint as a session guitarist in Muscle Shoals, Alabama on Johnny Jenkins Ton-Ton Macoute album behind him (it was to be Duane's first solo album before the ABB was formed), started jamming with Dickey Betts, Butch Trucks and Berry Oakley in Jacksonville. Duane brought in Jaimoe, a drummer he had played with before and the nucleus of the band was formed. Gregg was in Los Angeles, fulfilling the Hour Glass contract with Liberty Records. He was summoned back to Jacksonville by Duane to "fill out the band and sing."
The Allman Brothers Band played numerous shows in the south before releasing their debut album, The Allman Brothers Band. Critics loved it, but the blues-rock album found few listeners, attracting only a cult audience. Most of the record had a blues-rock sound, but "Dreams", a spacy number in 12/8 time, would provide the framework for some of their best jams.
Idlewild South (1970), the followup, produced by Tom Dowd, was a massive critical success, and managed to be quite lucrative, as well. The upbeat "Revival" and the moody-but-resolute "Midnight Rider" showed the band getting more adept at shorter, radio-friendly song forms. (It was after the release of Idlewild South that Duane Allman joined in the recording of the classic Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs with Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominos group.)
1971 saw the release of a live album, At Fillmore East, recorded on Friday and Saturday March 12 and March 13 of that year at the legendary rock venue the Fillmore East. The album was another huge hit. Rolling Stone listed At Fillmore East as one of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time [5]. It showcased the band's unique mixture of jazz, classical music, hard rock, and blues, with arrangements propelled by Duane Allman and Betts's dual lead guitars, Oakley's long, melodic "third guitar" bass runs, the rhythm section's pervasively percussive yet dynamically flexible foundation, and Gregg Allman's gritty Ray Charles-like vocals and excellent piano/organ play which all completed the band's wall of sound. The rendition of Blind Willie McTell's "Statesboro Blues" was a straight-ahead opener, the powerful "Whipping Post" (with its famous 11/8 bass opening) became the standard for an epic jam that never lost interest, while the ethereal-to-furious "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" invited comparisons to John Coltrane and Miles Davis and the complex and surpassingly subtle rhythms in the driving "One Way Out" kept beat-counters, as well as all others, at once puzzled and mesmerized.
The Allman Brothers received the honor of being the last act to play the Fillmore East before it closed in June of 1971. The final shows there achieved legendary status, partly due to bands' literally playing all night; in 2005 Gregg Allman would relate how the jamming musicians lost track of time, not realizing it was dawn until the side doors of the Fillmore were opened and the morning light poured in. The band continued to tour; decades later, a special-order recording of one of their final concerts in this lineup, S.U.N.Y. at Stonybrook: Stonybrook, NY 9/19/71, would be released. It reveals that Duane Allman's slide guitar playing on "Dreams" and other songs was touching the farthest reaches of both that instrument and his imagination.
Loss and triumph
Duane Allman died not long after the Fillmore East album was certified gold, killed in a motorcycle accident on October 29, 1971 in Macon, Georgia (at the corner of Hillcrest and Bartlett) when he collided with a lumber truck. The loss of their leader was hard for the group to bear, but they quickly decided to carry on. The album continued to gain FM radio airplay, with stations even playing 13-minute and 23-minute selections, but with many new listeners and fans not even aware of the loss the band and the music world had suffered.
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Dickey Betts filled Duane's former role in completing the last album he participated in, Eat a Peach. The album was often softer ("Blue Sky", "Little Martha") and wistful in tone ("Melissa", "Ain't Wastin' Time No More"), capped by the 34-minute "Mountain Jam" reverie taken from the Fillmore East concerts. Writer Greil Marcus described parts of Eat a Peach as an "after-the-rain celebration ... ageless, seamless ... front-porch music stolen from the utopia of shared southern memory."
The group played some concerts as a five-man band, then decided to add Chuck Leavell, a pianist, to gain another lead instrument but without directly replacing Duane. This new configuration debuted on ABC's In Concert late-night television program.
Weeks later, on November 11, 1972, Berry Oakley died in another motorcycle accident, only three blocks away (near Napier Avenue and Inverness Street) from the site of Duane Allman's fatal accident. (The common retelling, that it was at the exact same site as Duane Allman's death, is incorrect, as is the legend that the Eat a Peach album is named after the kind of truck involved in Allman's accident.)[1]
Oakley was replaced by Lamar Williams at the end of 1972, in time to finish the next album, Brothers and Sisters (1973). Mourning their losses, the album marked a shift of direction towards a darker high energy country-metal fusion of the Velvet Underground, and their LP [[Loaded(album)].
Dickey Betts was becoming the bandleader. Brothers and Sisters included the group's best known hits, "Ramblin' Man," written for the soundtrack of the film The Exorcist(film) and "Jessica"; the former reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 as a single, while the latter was a seven-minute instrumental hit. The album was accessible with a sense of urgency, no doubt from the deaths of their band-mates, and the new band exploded nationally.
The Allman Brothers Band had become one of the top concert draws in the country. Probably their most celebrated performance of the era took place on July 28, 1973 at the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen outside Watkins Glen, New York, in a joint appearance with The Grateful Dead and The Band. Approximately 600,000 people were estimated to have made it to the racetrack where this massive outdoor festival took place. In the wake of the Allman Brothers Band's success during this time, many other Southern rock groups rose to prominence, including the Marshall Tucker Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Another peak of the Allmans' success came on New Year's Eve, 1973, when promoter Bill Graham arranged for a nationwide radio broadcast of their concert from San Francisco's Cow Palace. New arrangements of familiar tunes such as "You Don't Love Me" went out over the airwaves, as the show stretched out over three sets, with Boz Scaggs sitting in, along with Grateful Dead members Jerry Garcia and Bill Kreutzmann (The Allmans and Grateful Dead members guested at each others shows multiple times in the early 1970s).
Turmoil and dissolution
Personality conflicts started to tear the band apart, however. Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts both began solo careers, while Allman married Cher, separated quickly, reconciled, and eventually separated again, all in a storm of publicity; drug abuse took its toll on the entire band. Musically, Betts and Leavell were pulling in opposite directions, with Allman trying to mediate. The tension resulted in the uneven Win, Lose or Draw (1975), with some members not participating on all tracks or doing so only from afar. The few stand-out tracks included a stop-start take on Muddy Waters' "Can't Lose What You Never Had", Betts' instrumental "High Falls", and Allman's Jackson Browne-influenced title song. The band still managed to limp along until 1976, when Gregg Allman was arrested on federal drug charges and agreed to testify against a friend and employee of the band. Leavell, Johanson, and Williams formed Sea Level, while Betts worked on his solo career. All four swore that they would never work with Allman again.
Meanwhile, Capricorn Records released a compilation album, The Road Goes On Forever, and a poorly-received live album, Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas; neither sold very well.
The group reformed in 1978 and released the strong Enlightened Rogues (1979). It featured new members Dan Toler (guitar) and David "Rook" Goldflies (bass), who replaced Leavell and Williams, both of whom concentrated on Sea Level instead. "Crazy Love" was a minor hit single, and the instrumental "Pegasus" got some airplay, but overall The Allman Brothers Band was no longer as popular as before, and financial woes plagued both the group and Capricorn Records, which collapsed in 1979. PolyGram took over the catalogue, and the Allman Brothers Band signed to Arista Records. The group released a pair of critically-slammed albums, firing Jaimoe in the process, and then disbanded once again in early 1982.
Allman quickly formed the Gregg Allman Band with the Toler brothers in 1982 and began touring small venues and clubs. Betts, Leavell, Trucks and Goldflies formed the band Betts Hall Leavell Trucks (BHLT). Neither garnered attention from any record labels. BHLT would dissolve two years later.
The Allman Brothers reunited in 1986 for a pair of benefit concerts for promoter Bill Graham in New York and Macon. Allman, Betts, Trucks, Jaimoe, Leavell, and Dan Toler performed together but no subsequent reunion plans for the band were made. The following year, the Gregg Allman Band and the Dickey Betts Band co-headlined a theatre and club tour. After each band played a set of music, Betts, Allman and the Tolers performed a closing set of Allman Brothers music together.
In 1987, Epic Records signed both Allman and Betts to separate solo contracts. The Gregg Allman Band had a surprise FM hit single with the title track to the 1987 album I'm No Angel. Just Before the Bullets Fly quickly followed from Allman in 1988. The Dickey Betts Band was also formed during this time and released the album Pattern Disruptive in 1988. This series of collaboration among bandmembers and interest from a major label during the late 1980s laid the groundwork for next era of Allman Brothers Band activity and success.
Revival
In 1989 The Allman Brothers reunited and returned to popular consciousness of the American public, spurred by Allman's recent FM radio solo success, the release of archival material by PolyGram, and the start of regular appearances on the American summer outdoor amphitheatre circuit. Warren Haynes (guitar, vocals), Johnny Neel (keyboards and harmonica), and Allen Woody (bass guitar) joined originals Allman, Betts, Jaimoe and Trucks. Leavell was part of the reunion discussions in 1989, but opted to go on tour again with the Rolling Stones, whom he has been a touring member since 1982. No other former bandmembers were invited to return.
After the 20th Anniversary tour, the band signed to Epic Records and released Seven Turns (1990), which got excellent reviews. This was followed by Neel's departure and a series of moderately-selling, but critically well-received albums including Shades Of Two Worlds (1991) and Where It All Begins (1994, certified Gold by the RIAA 1998), both featuring new percussionist Marc Quinones. Warren Haynes and Allen Woody formed their own side project Gov't Mule in 1994. In 1995, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 1996 they won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance for "Jessica". When Haynes and Woody decided to concentrate full-time on Gov't Mule in 1997, Haynes was replaced on guitar by Jack Pearson, while Woody was replaced on bass by Oteil Burbridge. Derek Trucks, nephew of original Brother Butch Trucks, replaced Pearson in 1999.
In 2000, the band forced Dickey Betts to sit out the summer tour due to personal and professional reasons. For this tour, he was replaced by Jimmy Herring. Betts then filed a lawsuit against the other three original members and the summer separation turned into a permanent divorce. Also in 2000, former bassist Allen Woody was found dead on August 26th. The band did release the live CD Peakin' At The Beacon that year which chronicled the now-annual March tradition of a many-night stand at the Beacon Theater in New York City. The band has played the Upper West Side Manhattan theatre 200 times since 1989. The tradition is known as the "Beacon Run" among fans, who travel from across the United States, Canada and Western Europe to see these annual March and April shows.
Warren Haynes began appearing with the Allmans again in 2000 and rejoined full-time in 2001, while also maintaining his active schedule with Gov't Mule. (Haynes also toured during this time with Phil Lesh and Friends, and later with The Dead in 2004). Haynes' return marked a new period of stability and productivity for the band after nearly four years of lineup changes. The Haynes-produced Hittin' the Note was released in 2003 to popular and critical acclaim, as was the Live At the Beacon Theatre DVD film (2003, certified Platinum 2004). The live CD One Way Out 2004 also chronicled the Beacon concerts.
The Allman Brothers garnered back to back Grammy Award nominations in 2003 and 2004 in the category of Best Rock Instrumental for performances of "Instrumental Illness" from Hittin' The Note and One Way Out. In 2003, Rolling Stone Magazine named Duane Allman, Warren Haynes, Dickey Betts, and Derek Trucks to their list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time [6], with Allman coming in at #2 and Trucks being the youngest guitarist on their list.
The Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks lineup continued the band's connection with younger music fans via concert pairings with popular jam bands moe. and The String Cheese Incident, among others. The Allman Brothers were a major attraction at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in 2003 and 2005. Since 2005, the Allmans have staged their own two day Wanee Music Festival at the Spirit of Suwanee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida. The Allmans, Gov't Mule and The Derek Trucks Band perform on different stages along with younger roots artists the North Mississippi Allstars, Robert Randolph and The Family Band, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Devon Allman's Honeytribe, Nickel Creek, and many others.
Allman Brothers' songs have been used in various advertising campaigns and television programs, with the most well-known use being that of "Jessica" used in both formats of the BBC television series Top Gear.
Awards and recognition
- Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, 1996, "Jessica"
- Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1995
- Ranked #52 by Rolling Stone Magazine on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[7], 2004
- Rolling Stone listed At Fillmore East as one of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time [8].
- Duane Allman listed #2 of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. [9].
Discography
Lineups
Original members bold| (1969-1971) |
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| (1971-1972) |
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| (1980-1982) |
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| (1989-1990) |
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| (1991-1997) |
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| (1997-1999) |
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| (1999-2000) |
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| (2000) |
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| (2001-present) |
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| Live/Studio Musicians: |
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Samples
- Download sample of "Ramblin' Man" from Brothers and Sisters
Further reading
- The Allman Brothers Band: Dreams liner notes
- Freeman, Scott. Midnight Riders: The Story of the Allman Brothers Band, Little, Brown & Co. 1995.
- Leavell, Chuck with J. Marshall Craig. Between Rock and a Home Place, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004.
- Perkins, Willie. No Saints, No Saviors, Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2005.
- Poe, Randy. Skydog: The Duane Allman Story, Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 2006.
- Reid, Jan. Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos (Rock of Ages). New York: Rodale, Inc., 2006.
References
- ^ Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee page for the Allman Brothers Band.
- ^ At Fillmore East review by George Kimball (Rolling Stone, 8/19/71).
- ^ http://www.riaa.com/gp/database/default.asp.
- ^ "The Immortals: The First Fifty". Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
- ^ "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone.
- ^ "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Rolling Stone Issue 931. Rolling Stone.
- ^ "The Immortals: The First Fifty". Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
- ^ "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone.
- ^ "Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". Rolling Stone.
See also
External links
- Official Allman Brothers' website
- Chuck Leavell's web site
- The Allman Brothers Band (the New Georgia Encyclopedia)
- Former Bass Player David Goldflies' Website