“He did not look like your ordinary Muscle Shoals regular.”
Part 3 of an annotated read of the first Allman Brothers Band book
Welcome back to Long Live the ABB! Today, May 31, is National Smile Day.
I don’t usually join in these random celebrations, but it seems we all could use a little more smiling in our lives right now. Herewith, a photo of Berry Oakley from p153 of Play All Night!1 I quoted my best friend Troy in the caption2
“The joy on his face reflects how I feel when I listen to him play.”
Things that piqued my interest:
My friend Art3 sent along this video that inspired my own post a while back Interview with Gregg from 1982/3.
This one speaks for itself. “Duane Betts Says Playing Late Dad Dickey Betts’ Music Has New Meaning Now: ‘Really Treasure It ‘Cause It’s Precious’”4
The Allman Brothers Band and Jackson, Alabama. “Alabama coffee shop’s cool connection to the Allman Brothers Band” I spoke at the dedication of the historical marker at this site in April 2024 and recorded this video where the arrest happened.
Add Slash to my list of 80s/90s rock musicians who’ve named dropped the Allman Brothers Band.5 “Slash talks new music, making Appetite for Destruction, Allman Brothers influence”
The Allman Brothers Band: A Biography in Words and Pictures Part 3
These are the pages I’m commenting on today6
Full text of book posted here
Text picks up at the top of the second column.
Dr. B’s Marginalia
The original text looks like this.
My comments look like this.
Previously on Long Live the ABB
I ended my last post with Jerry Wexler talking about Duane.
“We were good friends. He would come to my house. He liked my wife and kids. We’d shoot pool, or go out to the boat, or play music; he always played, whenever he came, with whoever was there. It was some of the best music you would want to hear. Maybe outdoors, on the deck over the bay, late on a quiet summer night; Duane singing, with he and Delaney picking on acoustic, and maybe Bonnie on piano in the next room.”
Enter Phil Walden
Duane was beginning to earn a national reputation. Certain disc jockeys around the country made a point of informing their listeners it was Duane Allman playing guitar on that song by Wilson or Aretha, King Curtis, or Boz Scaggs. A Georgia man named Phil Walden, who had managed the late Otis Redding’s career, became convinced Duane Allman was destined for greater things than session work in Muscle Shoals, an opinion Duane made no secret of sharing.
Duane was definitely plotting something beyond session work. “In about a month,” he wrote Donna Roosman in December 1968, “I’m going to start getting my gigging band together. I can hardly wait. I love working in the studio, and it is very valuable experience, but I know I was born to play for a crowd, and I'm really itching to get started.”7
As Rick Hall remembered, “Phil kept saying, ‘I’m telling you he’s going to be a superstar. Hang onto him and go in the studio and turn on the machine and let him hang out back there and screw around, and a year from now you’ll make $1 million.”
Marginalia reserved for paid subscribers of Long Live the following services ABB
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.