Gregg Allman "One More Try"
Here's one from deep in the archives...
Welcome to Conversation from the Crossroads.
Most quotes from my archives have a soundtrack: albums and songs and musical passages, you name it.
This is the story of one: Gregg’s “One More Try.”
Jaimoe on Gregg’s artistry
“When Gregg sits down by himself and plays the piano and sings, with nothing but that, it is one of the most incredible things you'll ever hear. It has so much feeling and beauty to it.
There's only two other people I've seen do it like that live: Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles.
When Gregg does it, it's in that kind of class.
They become the band.
They become the orchestra, the piano is the orchestra and it carries all the feelings that they are trying to get out of it. They are the drummer, they are the bass player, they are the everything. So, it strips it down to their pure selves, their essence. It's them.”1
That’s what these two versions of “One More Try”—solo piano2 and a full band take—represent to me. They kick off One More Try: An Anthology, an incredible collection loving compiled by the Tour Mystic, Kirk West and including a great set of liner notes from Allman Brothers historian
.One More Try has been out of print since 1997.
But the world deserves to hear them.
So I’m liberating them today, on Gregg’s birthday.3
Dig it…
Random Notes
🍄 Gregg recorded a WAY-overproduced4 “One More Try” for 1977’s Playin’ Up a Storm.5
🍄 Happy birthday Gregg. Here’s an excerpt from Play All Night on Gregg joining the band.
Thanks for being here, y’all.
I believe this quote is from a 1997 Jaimoe interview with John Lynskey and Kirk West in the old Hittin’ the Note magazine—probably the same interview where he bragged about how great One More Try was.
Many of the Laid Back tracks saw release in 2019.
Listen closely and you’ll hear ice clink in the glass. (There’s Jaimoe’s orchestra for ya!)
Particularly compared to these two demo versions. He recorded “Come & Go Blues” in the same vein for the album.
IMNSHO, the best thing about that alum is its cover, which is really pretty awesome.
