The Allman Bloggers
Why listen to the Allman Brothers?
For me, it has always been about Duane. To a lesser extent, it's about Dickey. In any other band, Dickey Betts would be awesome, but he's kinda second fiddle behind Duane. Listen to the Fillmore Concerts and it'll be obvious. Gregg has his organ? OK. Butch and Jaimoe on drums? Fine. Berry and Woody and Oteil on ( Read more... )
For me, it has always been about Duane. To a lesser extent, it's about Dickey. In any other band, Dickey Betts would be awesome, but he's kinda second fiddle behind Duane. Listen to the Fillmore Concerts and it'll be obvious. Gregg has his organ? OK. Butch and Jaimoe on drums? Fine. Berry and Woody and Oteil on ( Read more... )
Why would you not? God, Duane was the best! It's nice to see him mentioned here, too. And the old songs are still great, so I guess it's not surprising that people still want to hear 'em.
And swear to God, that version of "Old Friend" is suh-weeeet!
I'm a fan of the Derek Trucks Band and of Govt. Mule, although the band that kinda knocked me out in person, over at Hal&Mal's in Jackson, was North Mississippi AllStars and in person, they are a lot more Allman-ish than on their CDs.
Being a Duane fan, you might enjoy the following story:
Here in Vicksburg, we have an unusual type of soil called "loess" which is incredibly stable as long as it's cut vertically. When Interstate 20 was built, many hills (this IS the Hill City, after all) were sliced through, leaving long walls of earth on the sides of the shiny new highway. These lovely blank walls attracted diligent excavators who went out and carved their names and occasionally message of love for all to see.
But nothing ever topped the incredible message which I later learned was carved just a few months after that fatal motorcycle crash by some friends of mine. Armed with chainsaws, these dedicated musicians carved three words four feet deep into the side of a huge hill, and the enormous letters stayed there (because they were carved so deeply) for 20 years or more. The message read simply: DUANE ALLMAN LIVES!
Never failed to make me smile, and nod, because it was (and is)so true....
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I'm reminded of Allen Steele's Orbital Decay where there's mention of the Dead going on when half the band's replaced by young kids and the other half is replaced by cybernetics. I'm seeing ABB going that way (perhaps not the cybernetics part) and I'm not sure I like it. I'm seeing two great players punching the tar-baby of nostalgia and I don't know that they'll be able to get their new music out.
(I have The Word, which is NMAS backing Robert Randolph on gospel tunes, but not much else. I should get more.)
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