Walking the Tightrope
Life as an Allman Brothers Band fanboy/scholar
Greetings from Nashville and welcome back to Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the crossroads of Southern music, history, and culture.
Today’s post is brought to you by the Master of Space and Time, the great Leon Russell—wrote about him last week.
“Tight Rope” was the lead track of his 1972 album Carney.
Today’s issue includes:
Life as a fanboy and scholar
Long Live the ABB in Conversation interview preview
Notes on the Unending Conversation: Looking for the merits
Butch “The Freight Train” Trucks
Spotify playlist
Walking the Fanboy/Scholar Tightrope
I began Play All Night with an admission:
Before you start reading you need to know one thing. I am far from unbiased when it comes to Duane Allman and the Allman Brothers Band.
Though I am an academically trained historian who has worked in the field of history museums since 1999, my dyed-in-the-wool, unabashed, hardcore Duane Allman fandom led me to this project. I rank the Allman Brothers Band among the greatest, most significant rock bands in history. At Fillmore East is why we remember them as such.2
Though I’d like to think I’m somewhat thoughtful in the way I approach my love of the Allman Brothers, I’m a fanboy at heart. I mean, why else would I have spent all of this time thinking about this story, five years getting my Ph.D., and three years writing Play All Night?
I discussed this dynamic, among other things, at the Heritage Center of Murfreesboro and Rutherford County with Dr. Carroll Van West, Tennessee State Historian and a giant in the field of Southern and public history.
Dr. West was my dissertation advisor on what became Play All Night. He is also a fellow academic iconoclast
We sat down recently and talked about a range of things: from my background as a historian to why At Fillmore East resonates as an artistic statement.
I’ve queued the video below to the moment we talk about one specific way I navigated the fanboy/scholar line.
You’ll probably enjoy the full video. (Please share it with others.)
Duane Allman, An Anthology Vol. II
I’ve got some exciting stuff coming up for y’all, including an exclusive conversation with Tony “TY” Yoken.
“Who’s that?”
Open up this album:
Look underneath the gatefold photo, right under the monitor.
TY was executive producer of the second Duane Allman Anthology album.
A former radio guy, TY is also an encyclopedia about the early shows of the ABB that circulated and played on FM radio in the early 1970s.
I met TY in Memphis a year or so ago and we’ve had BIG FUN talking all things Allman Brothers through all means of communication: email, text, social media, here on Substack.
When I found out he was at the 4/7/72 Manley Fieldhouse show3 the ABB just released, I finally pinned him down for a discussion.
Here’s a snippet of the conversation about the song selection on the album.
Stay tuned for more on the Long Live the ABB Youtube channel.
Notes on the Unending Conversation: Finding the merits
Like trolls4, bad reviews are part of the territory. And Play All Night just got a humdinger. While I5 disagree (and yes, it stung), there’s really nothing I can do about it.
It did, however, remind me of the Unending Conversation6 and why I don’t like to critique someone else’s creative work as lacking and have always tried to focus on the merits of others’ work.
As big a fan as I am of the Unending Conversation, it is really vulnerable putting your work out there.
Once you create something, it’s no longer yours to behold. That’s tough. (And I’m just getting used to it.)
It makes me admire artists all the more, quite frankly.
In Memory of Butch Trucks
Butch died seven years ago: January 24, 2017.
As survivor of suicide (my father-in-law), I am all-too aware of the complexity of emotions that comes with such a tragedy—the lifetime of what ifs that survivors live with.
And while Butch was larger-than-life to his legion of fans (I among them), I never forget that he was a man with an actual family that loved him dearly who are dealing with the same questions my family has.
Here’s what I wrote in 2017
Godspeed Claude Hudson "Butch" Trucks, founding member of the Allman Brothers Band that has provided the soundtrack of my life since the early 90s.
Some losses outside of our immediate family hit particularly close to home. This is one of those.
I lost track of how many times I saw the Allman Brothers Band in concert between 1993-2014. But between those shows, Butch's short-lived but incredibly awesome band Frogwings, and his two post-ABB incarnations—Les Brers and the Freight Train Band—I reckon I've seen Butchie play nearly 75 times. All with power and intensity that men less than half his age lacked.
The Freight Train was the real deal—a phenomenal drummer with a personality as large as the stages he played on.
Butch was also who carried Duane’s legacy the most. Butch was a damn good drummer and he knew the Allman Brothers Band—HIS BAND—was “the best damn band in the land.” And he wasn't afraid to tell it just like that.
Some of y'all know I'm doing my PhD dissertation on the ABB. In some ways I was scared of Butch knowing that and in other ways hopeful he'd read it and see that many of us truly got what he (and Duane) wanted us to—and my contribution helped answer the "why" about the band and its incredible majesty. That flame he carried with him daily and would regularly proclaim to the world.
There is one Les Brer today...the sky is crying, leaving the circle broken once again.
And here’s what I wrote in Play All Night about “Morning Dew”7 (listen closely.)
Containing half of the original Allman Brothers Band lineup, “Morning Dew” previewed the future Allman Brothers Band’s sound. The 31st of February played an aggressive arrangement of Bonnie Dobson’s original. Duane’s guitar featured prominently , including a blistering mid-song solo. Gregg’s vocals added a blues tinge to Dobson’s folk-pop.
Yet the real difference maker wasn’t Duane or Gregg; it was Butch Trucks.
The drummer’s playing was different than Sandlin’s. Butch hit the drums harder, providing a heavier rock foundation than Sandlin’s rhythm and blues swing.
Something else stands out: Butch and Duane are in lockstep. Butch seemed to anticipate Duane’s moves, sometimes following him, sometimes goading him.
The drummer propelled the song forward with a force that would later earn him the nickname “The Freight Train.”
Neither knew it at the time, but it was the beginning of the most significant musical collaboration of their lives. Six months later, Butch joined Duane in the Allman Brothers Band.
Playlist
I made a Spotify playlist in January 2017 in Butch’s honor that I revisit regularly. It’s in no ways comprehensive, just songs where I feel Butchies’s presence the most. I guess I choose to face death by remembering. 8
In case you missed hyperlink above.
See my breakdown of bad faith in the Unending Conversation.
And others, including many of y’all.
Here’s my best summation of the Unending Conversation to date.
If you are in a crisis, call 988. No matter what, make that call.
You definitely hear tinges of ABB in Morning Dew. What I'd give to have been there for all of this. Sounds like Duane was using that Vox distortion box on this one, as well. The one that's mounted to that Tele