Play All Night Playlist Project Chapter 7: The Birth of the Allman Brothers Band
“The band was so good we thought we’d never make it.” Dickey Betts
Welcome to Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads of Southern music, history, and culture.
Remembering Allen Woody
August 26 is the 23rd anniversary of the death of the great Allen Woody, whose bass playing was as essential to the 1989 Allman Brothers Band reunion as Warren Haynes on guitar. Woody and Warren recorded three studio records during their tenure with the ABB (1989-97) before leaving to pursue Gov’t Mule full-time.
Here’s Rev. Brother Haynes on Woody from a few years back.
“His Fearlessness as a Bass Player Was Second to None”: Warren Haynes Reflects on The Life of Allen Woody
It’s well worth the read.
The Play All Night Playlist Project
Here are the links to the Chapter 7 playlist, four-dozen songs representing a wide swath of music and influences of the original Allman Brothers Band.
Reminder that this list is not comprehensive, nor is it intended to be. I hope that it’ll inspire you to check out even more of the music that shaped the sound of the Allman Brothers Band.
Here’s the rest of the Play All Night Playlist Project
“The band was so good we thought we’d never make it.”Dickey Betts
When he left Muscle Shoals, Duane had a particular sound in his head for his next musical project. It was only a matter of weeks before he found it.
Duane arrived in Jacksonville sometime during the first week of March 1969. He brought with him a new bandmate, drummer Jaimoe, with whom he’d been living and jamming in Muscle Shoals.
Within three weeks, Duane identified and recruited the musicians to join his next, most important musical project: the Allman Brothers Band, whose members, individually and collectively, unlocked Duane’s originality.
Rick Hall intended for Duane to front a power trio. But, as Dickey recalled, “Duane was too warm and personal for that. He needed a lot of other guys to get that full sound he wanted.” As Duane assembled the band in early 1969, he sought others who would push him creatively, bandmates he, in turn, could also push.
The band comprised six musicians. All hailed from the South: Berry Oakley of Jacksonville by way of Chicago, on bass1; Jai Johanny Johanson of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, on drums; Dickey Betts of West Palm Beach, Florida, on lead guitar; and Butch Trucks of Jacksonville, on drums. Duane would play lead guitar, and brother Gregg joined on organ and vocals.
The musicians’ influences reflected the breadth of American poplar music.
Duane, Gregg, and Jaimoe were seasoned rhythm and blues players.
Jaimoe was steeped in jazz.
Oakley, Betts, and the Allmans were heavily influenced by the blues.
Betts was intimately familiar with country music, especially string music, bluegrass, and western swing.
Betts and Oakley used psychedelic rock as an improvisational guidepost.
Butch loved classical music, and his previous bands had a decidedly folk and folk-rock bent.
Gregg, too, had a folkie side, having drawn influence from writers such as Tim Buckley and Jackson Browne in California.
All six had grown up playing rock ’n’ roll and were road-hardened veterans of the touring circuit.
While it would take a little more than two years to achieve success, Duane had finally found the collective through which he could best express his musical values, the Allman Brothers Band.
In Jacksonville in March 1969, Duane assembled players with skills and spirit to match his own, virtuosos who fused their individual influences into an original sound built on live improvisation and musical conversation. Betts described the band as developing like a Polaroid photograph, with various elements slowly coming into focus. Playing together brought something special out of each musician. “We knew what we now had,” Betts said of their sound. Jaimoe called it “less copying. We brought our own thing to it.” The environment fueled Duane’s fire.
Chapter 7 is the longest in the book. It’s where the story pivots from Duane’s struggles with the music industry, to his seizing control of his career and forming a band.
LINER NOTES
The playlist is wide-ranging. It includes 48 songs and runs for nearly 3 hours. The tracks are roughly organized into the following categories:
Jazz
Rhythm & blues
Repertoire and influences
Dickey Betts’s influences
Blues influence
Contemporary influences
Pre-ABB work by Duane, Gregg, Butch, Berry, and Dickey
The Second Coming
Hour Glass
31st of February
While the playlists are free for everyone, Liner Notes are reserved for paid subscribers.
JAZZ
It was Jaimoe who introduced the band to jazz. He had been a long-time jazzhead.
“Jazz just slapped me in the face,” said Jaimoe. “It knocked the sense right out of me.” He found divine intervention in his high school library. “God sent DownBeat magazine to 33rd Avenue High School for me,” he said. “I read that magazine from front to back, everything in it.” He ignored the popular music of the day for jazz. “If it wasn’t Miles Davis or John Coltrane, I didn’t want to hear nothing about it.”
From Coltrane and Miles Davis, Duane and the band learned ways to incorporate improvisational concepts and ideas into their own music. Like Coltrane and Davis, solos would be extemporaneous, with bandmates providing support with their own improvised chords, rhythms, and countermelodies. Also like Coltrane and Davis, soloists would adhere to song format and structure, however loosely.
Miles Davis (with John Coltrane)
“Milestones”
“’Round Midnight”John Coltrane
“Blues to Elvin”
“Naima”Dizzy Gillespie “Night in Tunisia”
Dave Brubeck Quartet “Take Five” This is a particular influence on Butch Trucks, who loved odd time signatures. He co-wrote he 31st of February track “Pick a Gripe” (below), which is also in 5/4 time.
R&B
Jaimoe played with Otis Redding for five months in 1966.
“I did a 42-date tour with Otis — 41 days back-to-back with a day off. I played behind James Carr, Mitty Collier, the Ovations, Garnette Mims, Patti Labelle & the Bluebells, Percy Sledge, Sam and Dave & band co-stars. Woody [Wooderson] played behind Otis. Great tour. I learned a lot from Otis. I didn’t realize it at the time.” Jaimoe
Jaimoe backed the lower-billed stars on the tour: Sam and Dave, Sledge, LaBelle2, and James Carr. “That gave me the chance for variety. I’d rather play for three hours behind them rather than play for an hour behind Otis.”
Sam & Dave “Hold On, I’m Coming” This classic Stax track was a #1 hit on the R&B chart and #21 on the pop chart.
Percy Sledge “When a Man Loves a Woman” This was the first #1 hit recorded in Muscle Shoals. In addition to backing him on the Otis Redding tour, Jaimoe later played in Sledge’s band.
James Carr “The Dark End of the Street” Gregg recorded this on his 1997 Searching for Simplicity album.3 He called it one of Duane’s favorites.
Otis Reddding “Hard to Handle” and “I’ve Been Loving You too Long” (live). The Black Crowes’ cover of the former is probably as famous as the original. I never miss a chance to play anything from Redding’s 1967 Monterey Pop Festival set, but this one is particularly important because of how he and drummer Al Jackson, Jr. interact. You need to listen to the whole song, but if you’re short on time, just watch this clip (I’ve queued it up):
Repertoire and Influences
Johnny Jenkins “Down Along the Cove” an outtake from Duane’s solo project with Jenkins overdubbing vocals on this Bob Dylan original from John Wesley Harding. Players include Duane and Berry Oakley, and from Hour Glass: Paul Hornsby, Johnny Sandlin, Pete Carr.
Hour Glass (without Duane) “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” “It’s Not My Cross to Bear” Gregg recorded and released just one single for Liberty Records, a cover of Tammy Wynette’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” released as “Greg [sic] Allman & The Hour Glass.” Billboard found “a solid blues feel via [a] soulful and dynamic treatment. Much pop and R&B appeal.” Gregg called it “sellout bullshit.” “Cross to Bear” is a demo of one of the first of Gregg’s songs the ABB adopted. It show remarkable songwriting maturity.
31st of February “Sandcastles” The sole single from the band’s first album on Vanguard is a cover of a song by Muscle Shoals regulars Spooner Oldham, Dan Penn, and Chips Moman.
31st of February “Pick a Gripe” Butch gets a songwriting credit on the b-side of the “Sandcastles” single. The song is in 5/4 time, just like Dave Brubeck’s “Take 5” (see above).
Taj Mahal “Statesboro Blues” Mahal’s arrangement and Jesse Ed Davis’s slide inspired Duane to take up the technique. Duane revered Davis. “He plays so pretty,” he said. “You’ve got Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page ringing all the tension and hard loud violent sounding stuff, then Davis comes along and it’s like somebody came in and opened the window in the cool air came in when he’s playing. Man that’s the kind of stuff I like.”
“Trouble No More” Muddy Waters/Allman Brothers Band Muddy’s “Trouble No More” was the song the Allman Brothers Band played together in Jacksonville. This is Muddy’s original version and a demo the ABB recorded when they first arrived in Macon in April 1969.
The Second Coming
I grouped these together as this is what we know of the Second Coming’s repertoire.
Second Coming “I Feel Free” “She Has Funny Cars”
The Second Coming had a regional hit with their covers of Cream and Jefferson Airplane.
Cream “I Feel Free” The lead track on Fresh Cream, the band’s debut album.
Jefferson Airplane “She Has Funny Cars” Along with Phil Lesh, Airplane bassist Jack Casady had the greatest influence on Berry Oakley. This is the opening track on the Airplane’s breakthrough album Surrealistic Pillow.
Jimi Hendrix Experience “Manic Depression” “Fire” These are both tracks the Second Coming covered.
Tommy Roe “Dizzy” “Mystic Magic” Roe is where Berry got his start. I don’t think he ever recorded with Roe, but these are songs in Roe’s repertoire, which is so vastly different from the ABB’s oeuvre.
Dickey Betts
All of the band’s country influence comes from Dickey. Music was a long-standing family tradition for Betts. “I was probably five years old when I first joined in the weekly family musical gatherings, during which the combined sounds of fiddles and guitars would fill the household,” he said. The family played “country- and bluegrass-style music on acoustic instruments.” The music’s “natural beauty left a deep, lasting impression.” His love of country music and admiration for country stars Lefty Frizell and Hank Williams inspired his first goal: “I’m gonna play on the Grand Ol’ Opry.”
Lefty Frizzell “If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time”
Hank Williams “Move It On Over”
Chose these two because they’re classic honkytonk country records. “Move It On Over” could just as easily be an early rock & roll song.
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys “Ida Red” “Steel Guitar Rag”
All important influences on Dickey Betts. Chuck Berry adapted “Ida Red” for his hit “Maybelline” and I hear hints of Dickey’s sound in “Steel Guitar Rag”Chuck Berry “You Can’t Catch Me”
Jerry Lee Lewis “Whole Lot of Shakin’ Going On”
Dickey cites both of these tracks as an influence on his approach to music, specifically guitar.
Blues influences
The blues were always the ABB’s deepest root. “Duane’s melody came more from jazz and urban blues,” Betts said, “and my melodies came more from country blues with a strong element of string-music fiddle tunes. We were almost totally opposite except we both knew the importance of phrasing. We didn’t just ramble about.”
Except for “Three O’Clock Blues,” the ABB covered every one of these songs in the course of their career. They recorded “Come on in My Kitchen” (1992) “Statesboro Blues” (1971) and “Hoochie Coochie Man” (1970). “Oh Pretty Woman” and “Dimples” were part of their 1970 repertoire. Dickey played “Hideaway” as part of his 1974 American Music Show tour.4
Robert Johnson “Come on in My Kitchen”
Blind Willie McTell “Statesboro Blues”
Muddy Waters “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man”
Albert King “Oh, Pretty Woman”
John Lee Hooker “Dimples”
B.B. King “Three O’Clock Blues”
Freddie King “Hide Away”
Contemporary influences
Paul Butterfield Blues Band “Born in Chicago” Second Coming covered “Born in Chicago”—a track from Butterfield’s debut album featuring the great Mike Bloomfield on guitar.
The Byrds “Eight Miles High” Arguably the first psychedelic rock song, the Byrds combined their Dylan influence with the inspiration of John Coltrane. The song was banned from AM radio for its alleged drug connotations.
Cream “Spoonful” “Outside Woman Blues” Though Cream imploded in 1968, the group left a model for bands to follow: virtuosos performing originals and blues covers with a dose of jazz-inspired improvisation. Doing so live made audiences an important part of the music. I choose “Spoonful” because I was in a Howlin’ Wolf mood. Tedeschi Trucks Band has “Outside Woman Blues” in their repertoire.5
Enjoy the tunes! Thanks for listening.
I call Berry a southerner because he called himself one.
Labelle hit #125 with a song my fellow GenX’rs may remember:
Gregg Allman “Dark End of the Street” (1997)
The ABB also played it 12/31/73 with Jerry Garcia and again at the Beacon Theatre in the late 1990s.
Tedeschi Trucks Band “Outside Woman Blues”