The Allman Brothers Band: Live At The Atlanta Pop Festival

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND: LIVE AT THE ATLANTA INTERNATIONAL POP FESTIVAL (1970/2003)

CD I: 1) Introduction; 2) Statesboro Blues; 3) Trouble No More; 4) Don't Keep Me Wondering; 5) Dreams; 6) Every Hungry Woman; 7) Hoochie Coochie Man; 8) In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed; 9) Whipping Post; 10) Mountain Jam (part 1); 11) Rain Delay; 12) Mountain Jam (part 2); CD II: 1) Introduction; 2) Don't Keep Me Wondering; 3) States­boro Blues; 4) In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed; 5) Stormy Monday; 6) Whipping Post; 7) Mountain Jam.

Hungry for more of the true, genuine, authentic, original, unforged Allman Brothers? Look no further than this 2-CD monster, recorded July 3rd and 5th (actually, 6th, since the show closed around dawn) at the second Atlanta International Pop Festival, held, as the name clearly suggests, nowhere other than Byron, Georgia (quite a bit removed from Atlanta, but you gotta admit, «The Byron Festival» might have brought in an entirely different brand of people, especially since Da­vid Byron of Uriah Heep fame had only released his first album a month before that and was of no particular fame to get confused with Lord Byron).

Anyway, Byron, Georgia is right in the middle of Peach County, making it the perfectly atmos­pheric place for the Allmans to perform. For some reason, the previous year's Atlanta Pop Festi­val was marred with a confusion, as the Bros. were booked for the venue by a fake booker (!) and, upon arrival, were denied the right to play (!!). To compensate, perhaps, for the embarrassment, for the second (and, as it turned out, last) Festival they were allowed to both open and close it. Which they did, and both of the shows are reproduced on this set.

Honestly speaking, despite the hugeness of this thing, it is not nearly as good as either Fillmore East or «the Allmans doing their proto-punkish thing» on Ludlow Garage. The sound quality is quite all right, and the playing is tight, complex, and as honest as you could expect, but the little things that turn the band's excellent shows into explosive ones are not quite there. Either the fes­tival grounds did not quite agree with them, or the festival atmosphere — not every outfit can be always happy playing these huge outdoor venues — but neither Duane nor Dickey seem to be interested in burning up their guitars.

Everything that is out-of-the-ordinary with this album (and that does not necessarily surmise «awesome») revolves around 'Mountain Jam'. During the first show, the band was interrupted by upcoming rainclouds, and had to return to the stage after a while, making the performance kind of smothered and shortened. For the second show, however, they managed to get by uninterrupted, with a classic 28-minute length and accompanied by Johnny Winter on second slide guitar — al­though only a seasoned listener could tell that there is a third guitar out there, and only a genius could guess who it belongs to.

Otherwise, it makes perfect sense that, with the vaults opened, the band's first choice was Ludlow: this performance is strictly for the fans who can already recreate every note of Fillmore in their minds, or for those who do serious research on the history of pop music festivals (for some rea­son, the Allmans remain so far the only band that has released its set from the festival, despite a boat­load of classic artists also contributing — did they have a monopoly on the use of recording equipment or what? Actually, I believe some bootleg-quality videos of Hendrix's performance also seem to be floating around). On the other hand, the original Allmans in their prime probably never ever really played a bad show — so if it somehow happens that this can be your introduc­tion to the band, don't flinch.

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The Allman Brothers Band: Live At Ludlow Garage

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND: LIVE AT LUDLOW GARAGE (1970/1991)

1) Dreams; 2) Statesboro Blues; 3) Trouble No More; 4) Dimples; 5) Every Hungry Woman; 6) I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town; 7) Hoochie Coochie Man; 8) Mountain Jam.

As befits every legendary live outfit, the Allmans had hoarded tons of archive recordings from the good old days. Their vaults seem to be fairly thin when it comes to unreleased studio material (no big wonder there, since most of the material was thoroughly tried and tested live before being committed to vinyl, so that usually the Allmans went into the studio with a fairly good idea of what they were going to do); live shows are a whole different matter, and as of 2010, there are at least eight or ten officially endorsed retrospective live albums covering dates from 1970 all the way to 1973 — not counting, of course, the millions of bootlegs.

Not all of these releases are of comparable sound quality, and, of course, writing individual re­views for each one only makes sense if you are a paid biographer of the band or, at least, Mark Prindle, who can use each review as one more opportunity to inform you of one more turbulent event in his oversaturated life. Me being neither of the two, I will limit myself to just a few of these archival treasures — not necessarily the best ones, since I haven't heard everything, but you will just have to let the inductive method decide about the rest.

Live At Ludlow Garage, played and recorded at a small local club in Cincinnati sometime in April 1970, about one year before the legendary Fillmore set, is the earliest of these releases — it came out in 1991, just as the Allmans were making their big comeback with Haynes, and it was certainly a good time to remind the world what it actually used to be, that particular thing that they eventually came back for.

Most listeners agree that the sound is fairly raw and unpolished here (well, they do play in a garage, after all, har har) compared to the Fillmore gigs, and that, taken together with the imper­fections of the equipment, this makes it understandably inferior. Inferior, perhaps, in the sense that Fillmore East should certainly be one's first buy regarding the original lineup. But there is no reason why Ludlow Garage could not be a close second. For one thing, it is fun — and, from time to time, inspiring — to experience the Allmans in this sort of raw form, when the long jams and multi-section performances had not yet been rehearsed to utter smoothness, and the Bros. would occasionally compensate for their rough edges with extra loudness, shrillness, and aggres­sion. For another thing, as imperfect as the sound quality is (and it is really fairly good), it brings the dead guys — Duane and bassist Berry Oakley — way up in the mix most of the time, giving all us dead guy fans an extra reason to own this.

In terms of rarities, this is worth hearing if only for a grizzled, rabid version of John Lee Hooker's 'Dimples', with Hooker's minimalistic riffs transformed into scorching heavy blues the way the old master could never anticipate. The slow nine-minute blues version of 'Outskirts Of Town' had, by the time Fillmore rolled along, ceded its position on the playlist to 'Stormy Monday Blues', but is in no way inferior — and culminates in a mad sea of absolutely flaming licks from Betts practi­cing his soon-to-be-'Southbound' piercing tone. There is also a rarely heard live stomping version of the Oakley-sung 'Hoochie Coochie Man'; and 'Statesboro Blues' gets an extra four-minute coda as Duane teases the audience with volume level tricks.

Above all, there is a goddamn fourty-four minute long take on 'Mountain Jam' — longer than the Eat A Peach standard version by about eleven minutes, much of them courtesy of Mr. Oakley who takes quite a bit of time to play his solo part, much heavier and fuzzier than on the Peach version. Myself, having eventually become a convert to the religion of 'Mountain Jam' based on its Fillmore incarnation, I have no problem whatsoever with these fourty-four minutes either, but all those who still do — well, beware, this thing occupies the whole of Disc 2.

Anyway, these are the fuckin' Allman Bros. in their prime, in terrific shape, all set and burning to go, and after a few listens, you may even grow to love this sound quality — on no other record do the Bros. sound this much like a pack of dangerous outlaws playing for their lives. Thumbs up.

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The Allman Brothers Band: One Way Out

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND: ONE WAY OUT (2004)

1) Statesboro Blues; 2) Don't Keep Me Wondering; 3) Midnight Rider; 4) Rockin' Horse; 5) Desdemona; 6) Trouble No More; 7) Wasted Words; 8) Good Morning Little Schoolgirl; 9) Instrumental Illness; 10) Ain't Wastin' Time No More; 11) Come & Go Blues; 12) Woman Across The River; 13) Old Before My Time; 14) Every Hungry Woman; 15) High Cost Of Low Living; 16) Worried Down With The Blues; 17) Dreams; 18) Whippin' Post.

With the kind of quality standard already established on Hittin' The Note, it certainly makes lit­tle sense to doubt that the same standards would be upheld for the Brothers' next wave of live shows as well. So the nearly simultaneous release, in 2004, of a high-quality live DVD (At The Beacon) and a double CD commemorating the band's live status at the same time, suffers from a certain lack of surprise (at least the two Evenings sets arrived after a fifteen-year break in live album production, and the latest live album before that (Wipe The Windows) really wasn't all that hot anyway).

One other significant flaw of One Way Out is that it relies way too heavily on recent material, with six out of eleven tracks from Hittin' The Note (including all the long ones) reproducing way more than half of that album. Of course, these are excellent tunes per se, but too little time has passed between their creation and reproduction for the band to think of any interesting new twists — for the most part, they just faithfully recreate the arrangements, structures, and moods of the originals, the only minor differences concerning bits of solo improvisation.

It is far more interesting to hear how the latest lineup handles the classics — and whether, for instance, Derek Trucks really lives up to the «Duane reincarnation» moniker. It is certainly not a coincidence that the first number to be played (or, at least, sequenced on the CD) is 'Statesboro Blues' and the last one an extended version of 'Whippin' Post' — the exact same way we experie­n­ced it on Fillmore East: more than a transparent hint at the fact that the band feels confident enough to declare that they are just as good now as they used to be then.

«Just as good», however, does not equal «exactly the same». No matter what, both Trucks and Haynes belong to a different, more modern, school of guitar players than Duane. A very rough phrasing would be to say that they emphasize complexity and precision over gut feeling — rough, because no sane person would ever accuse Duane of lacking amazing technicality, or Warren and Dereck of playing without their hearts in it. (Insanity, or, at least, extreme narrow-mindedness will be assumed for all the odd people who refer to Derek's total immobility and lack of stage mi­mics as showing a lack of emotion). But, on the other hand, it is hard not to sniff a whiff of «pre­dictability», an over-polished approach to these here shows — with the original Allmans, you ne­ver really knew where exactly a particular performance would eventually take you, whereas the Haynes/Trucks duo steers the ship like a pair of expert, grizzled boatsmen, disciplined enough to know when it is safe to stick to the bottle and when the situation requires complete sobriety.

This is, probably, what people mean when they call One Way Out «just one step below» the ori­ginal concerts — this is the step. On the other hand, there are also those who prefer immaculate, well-calculated professionalism, not to mention a perfect sound quality, unimaginable on Duane-era recordings, and we have to think of them, too. No matter how predetermined and safely pa­ckaged we see this guitar communication language between Haynes and Trucks, it is still an awesome challenge to both enjoy and study it. And then there are all the little interesting cha­n­ges they do to the classics. 'Whippin' Post', for instance, gets its second chaotic part (the 'Frère Jacques' bit) cut off — a respectable decision, allowing them to go for less self-repetition. 'Mid­night Rider' gets a much harder-rocking treatment than it used to. 'Wasted Words', in its final sec­tion, is transformed into one of the most furious twin-guitar battles on the album, etc. etc.

In between 2004 and 2007, the Allmans would practice a special «Instant Live» gimmick, where they would make rough soundboard quality recordings of all of their shows and then select the best ones and trade them for fans off their website, increasing their «official» discography sky-high. Nobody except for diehards and studiosos really needs to bother with all these «authorized bootlegs», but One Way Out, as one easily available sample of the Allmans' greatness in the 21st century, is recommendable for everyone.

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The Allman Brothers Band: Hittin' The Note

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND: HITTIN' THE NOTE (2003)

1) Firing Line; 2) High Cost Of Low Living; 3) Desdemona; 4) Woman Across The River; 5) Old Before My Time; 6) Who To Believe; 7) Maydelle; 8) Rockin' Horse; 9) Heart Of Stone; 10) Instrumental Illness; 11) Old Friend.

Fortunately for all, the Allmans' latest streak of bad luck took less time and less toll on the band than earlier ones. By 2001, Warren Haynes had learnt to doubletrack, and so regained the status of a full-fledged Allman Brother. The balance was now restored; with the band once again featu­ring a monster twin-guitar attack as its main point of interest, they had a good chance of taking the Allman Brothers' legacy into the 21st century — and, sure enough, they didn't miss it.

Comparisons between the Haynes/Trucks and Duane/Dickey pairings are as inevitable as they are pointless, because all four guitarists have fairly individual styles. Trucks may occasionally «quo­te» from Duane, and Haynes may sometimes try to replicate some of Betts' Southern geometry, but neither of the two players could in any way be regarded as «reincarnations» — exalted cries of «Duane lives on through Dereck's playing!» should rather be treated as expressions of justified respect for Dereck's contributions than even semi-literal truths. But, obviously, this is a major ad­vantage rather than flaw: the fact that these guys, with their own styles of playing, still make the final result seem like a natural, easy-going progression from the classic ABB sound, serve to con­firm the band's exceptional status — ahead of the pack in 1969, still way ahead of the same pack in 2003, no mean feat considering how huge the pack has become since then. (The only other ex­ample of a similar late-period revitalization I can think of at the moment is Deep Purple, a band that, likewise, gained a new, fresh future from a smart lineup change).

The first and, for now, latest Haynes/Trucks-lineup studio LP, aptly titled Hittin' The Note, got no less than slobbering rave reviews from pretty much every critic alive — and there is no reason for any of us amateur evaluators to play it differently for the sake of being different. I do not know if it is really «better» than Seven Turns and the like, or how tall it stands in comparison to the Brothers' classic original output, but as far as energetic, heartfelt, and intelligent roots-rock can actually go in 2003, it certainly goes there — and then, just a little bit beyond, so that nobody could open his big mouth and say «Well, it's awful good, although, naturally, quite formulaic, so if you like good old Southern rock, grab this some time before your paycheck runs out».

Of course, you needn't expect any jaw-drop marvels of songwriting. Their oddball (but wonder­fully sweet) inclusion of 'Heart Of Stone' states this explicitly: «Mick and Keith — there's two great songwriters for you. We suck in comparison. But we can still blow 'em off the air any time of day». The material is standard fare — some fiery blues-rock to crispen up your day, some soul­ful balladry to soothe the spirit, some on-the-spot experimentation to keep the brain busy and the finger nerves well-trained. But that's how it would be on paper. With the talents pooled together for these sessions, and the clearly seen determination to pull it through no matter what, they could record an album of Barry Manilow covers, and still come up with a winner.

Actually, I must say that it's a big relief to see Trucks and Haynes constantly play off each other. Dereck is truly a magnificent, unique musician, but the fact that he always sticks to his sliding style makes it all a bit monotonous. Usually, as befits a traditional blues-rocker, he takes his time to get to the searing/soaring parts, and even if each individual solo culminates in near-psychedelic ecstasy, at least the early parts eventually start coming off as too predictable. The same can be said about Haynes, whose «normal» sound we have already studied to bits on his 1990s records for both the Allmans and Gov't Mule; he has not added much to it since then.

So it is the matching of the two styles that is Hittin' The Note's biggest attraction. On most of the tunes, true lightning strikes not when the two players are taking turns, but when they join together in a smorgasbord of sounds such as you never heard before on any Allmans' record. With Haynes' six-string all but choking on the amount of sonic venom it regurgitates, and Trucks' slide thing buzzing and stinging all over the surrounding space, it's a hell of a charge on the senses. It doesn't arrive too often, but watch out for it — for instance, during the final minutes of 'Woman Across The River', a song that would justify the existence of this seventy-plus-minute-long record on its own. Fortunately for us, there isn't really a single bad track anywhere in sight.

To be completely fair, one should also mention the damn fine form Gregg Allman is in — it is his presence, after all, that continues to provide the band with legitimacy after all these years, and jus­tifies their not having, as of yet, changed the name to «The Trucks Family Band». Not only does he receive a grand five co-writing credits on here (an absolute record since the 1969 debut!), but his singing also had not been so bravely upfront in almost as many years. And now, finally, his age matches his pathos: 'Old Before My Time' is a heartbreaking confession of a man looking down — in horror! — at all the different ways in which his life has been wasted, so aching and sincere that it could depress the living hell out of anyone... had that been its purpose — in reality, 'Old Before My Time' is a sad, but optimistic tune for somebody who has finally come to terms with himself. No two opinions about it, Mr. Allman: you may well have been «old before your time» back in 1970 or even 1979, but now you are exactly as old as your time requires of you.

Thus, with the two guitarists crackling a seemingly endless storehouse of fireworks and the singer adding his stately touch to ballads and rockers alike, Hittin' The Note truly never feels overlong for one bit. The twelve-minute jam 'Instrumental Illness' may be just a bit overdone, but the same things I used to say about the jam length in the Dickey/Duane period apply here as well — they go when they feel like going, and they stop when they feel they have really got nothing left to say. And even if the individual songs may feel underwritten, most at least have a line, a chord change, an odd gimmick or two to hold attention. Such as the ridiculously kiddie-like riff that opens and drives 'Maydelle', the album's heaviest number — I may be alone in thinking how much it re­minds me of 'The Itsy Bitsy Spider', but regardless of whether it only reflects my own craziness or if I really cracked a consciously idiosyncratic code here, it's FUN.

Other instances of FUN include the ballad 'Desdemona' (nothing to do with The Moor of Venice, unfortunately; I suppose they just thought of it as a cool name to use, being all out of 'Melissas' and 'Jessicas') suddenly transforming into slide-driven free-form jazz for the mid-section; the dark, smoking blues-rock of 'Who To Believe' totally owned by Gregg as if it were only yesterday that Cher finally blocked body access, and it hurts goddamn bad; and the Stones' 'Heart Of Stone' burde­ned down with years of experience and graced with weeping solos unthinkable on any Stones re­cord, even of the Mick Taylor period. Each new listen brings out some minor delight, and it almost makes you feel sad for poor old Dickey Betts — ten to one he never dreamed his old band could undergo another rejuvenation at his expense. But he did have this occasional nasty penchant for dragging them into generic Southern rock — and Hittin' The Note is certainly dren­ched in Southern, yet there is nothing generic about a record that kicks ass, surprises, provokes, and drains your emotions at the same time. Thumbs up, of course.

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