1971: Fillmores

Allman Brothers: Whipping Post
[purchase Don't Fight the Feeling - the Complete Aretha Franklin & King Curtis Live at Fillmore West ]
[purchase Allman Brothers Live at Fillmore East Deluxe Edition]
[purchase Mothers Fillmore East-June 1971]
[purchase Humble Pike Performance Rockin’ The Fillmore] 

1971 saw the closing of both the Fillmore West and the Fillmore East, the legendary venues operated by the equally legendary rock impresario Bill Graham. The original Fillmore Auditorium was located in a San Francisco building originally built in 1912, and Graham began booking shows there in 1965. It eventually became the center of the San Francisco music scene, with incredible musical performances and famous light shows. But in 1968, because of the increasing deterioration of the neighborhood and the insufficient size of the space, Graham moved his focus to the newly christened “Fillmore West.” That venue, formerly the Carousel Ballroom, was briefly run in 1968 as a cooperative venture by the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother and the Holding Company, before Graham took ownership and began booking shows there. (The original Fillmore was, for a while, operated by a different company as the “New Old Fillmore.”) 

The name “Fillmore West” was chosen because earlier in 1968, Graham had taken over a derelict space in New York City originally built for the Yiddish theater in the mid-1920s, and opened it as the Fillmore East. That venue, like its West Coast sibling(s) became hugely popular and influential, with shows on multiple nights a week, typically triple bills at 8 and 11 pm. The Fillmore East also featured elaborate light shows. 

However, by1971, the economics of the music business was changing in favor of stadium and arena shows (boo!), and Graham decided to shutter both venues. The last concert at the Fillmore East was an invitation-only affair on June 27, 1971, featuring The Allman Brothers Band, The J. Geils Band, Albert King and special surprise guests (Edgar Winter's White Trash, Mountain, The Beach Boys, Country Joe McDonald). The Fillmore West closed on July 4, 1971, after five nights of concerts by 14 bands, mostly from the San Francisco area, including Santana, the Grateful Dead, Hot Tuna, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and the New Riders of the Purple Sage. 

The Fillmore West eventually became a Honda dealership, before becoming a music and event venue called SVN West. The Fillmore East went through a few other iterations as a music venue before becoming The Saint, a gay nightclub in the 1980s. The former lobby of the venue is now a bank, and the auditorium was demolished to build an apartment building. 

The original Fillmore became a punk venue, The Elite Club, before reopening under Graham’s management. It was damaged in an earthquake, and after Graham died in 1991, it was repaired and reopened as The Fillmore. Live Nation operates the venue and has rebranded a number of theaters around the country with the Fillmore name, although in some cases, most notably at New York’s Irving Plaza, it didn’t take. 

Although 1971 was a bad year for the Fillmores West and East, it was a good year for albums recorded at the venues. On May19, 1971, Aretha Live at Fillmore West was released. It had been recorded there in March, and included a number of covers of current popular music. It’s pretty great, featuring, in addition to the amazing Franklin, King Curtis on sax, leading a band that included, among others, Billy Preston, Cornell Dupree, Bernard Purdie, and the Memphis Horns. And there’s a duet with Ray Charles. During the same shows, King Curtis’s band, which was also the opening act, recorded its performances (mostly covers), and they were released as Live at Fillmore West in August. Tragically, a week after its release, Curtis was stabbed to death in New York. 

If there’s one album that rock fans associate with the Fillmore East, it is the Allman Brothers’ At Fillmore East, recorded there in March, 1971 and released on July 6, 1971. I’m not really sure what else to say about this album that hasn’t been said better by others. Suffice to say that it is one of the greatest live rock albums of all time, and probably just one of the best rock albums of all time (which is why when I picked one song to feature above, it was from that album). In 2004, the album was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress, deemed to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" by the National Recording Registry. 

In June, 1971, The Mothers (formerly known as The Mothers of Invention, led by Frank Zappa) recorded performances at the Fillmore East (and some additional performances in May in Michigan), for Fillmore East-June 1971, released in August. It is raunchy and juvenile, and while it has some good music, really hasn’t aged well. 

Humble Pie, which featured Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton, recorded performances at the Fillmore East in May, 1971, and released Performance Rockin’ The Fillmore in November, 1971. I can’t say that I’m at all familiar with it, although I have a vague sense that I’ve heard the single from it, “I Don’t Need No Doctor.” Before the album was released, Frampton left the band for a few years of minimal success before he came alive, briefly.

IN MEMORIAM: GREGG ALLMAN

I actually chanced upon the music of the grizzled and younger member of the eponymous brothers band via his solo work, which may be the exception proving the rule. It was about 1974, maybe 3, and I was "out of bounds", visiting a newly opened record shop in Eastbourne, a town on the south coast of England, where I had been sent away to school. It was just over the borderline of Terminus Road, whereby I would be gated (aka grounded) if caught there by a prefect or a teacher. It had been commended to me by my study-mate Nige, a 15 year old with a ridiculously large and precocious record collection, usually involving gritty singers like Van Morrison, Joe Cocker and Captain Beefheart. He had a copy of 'Laid Back', by Allman, and had been ramming it into my ears on rotation. I liked and he told me where to buy it. I was entranced by the maudlin, hoarse drawl, ever a moment just behind the beat, and drenched in a spicy southern stew of country, soul and blues. I was not caught that day and bought a copy I still own, unplayable from day 1 due to some pressing error. I never had the opportunity to again to sneak out and get it changed, so had to rely on playing Nige's copy to death. My entry, probably, to much of the music of the southern states, as I was soon gorging on he and his brothers, blood and otherwise, at the Fillmore East, as well as all the other vivid colours coming up out of the Capricorn label, with which I became swiftly acquainted. Hell, if the South was going to rise again, did Eastbourne count?

It was easy to be drawn into the fantasy. Short haired adolescent schoolboys in uniforms will always be drawn into outlaw vibes, and I was no different. Gregg Allman was one step better than the rest as he played the organ: my earlier musical infatuation was with E.L.P., so I was still more comfortable, then at least, with a keyboard than a fretboard. (And I say the brief solo in Stormy Monday remains one of the most consummate few bars in my heart, at about 5.12.)

I never knew much of his backstory, relying on the inkies and upon record sleeves for my information. I thus followed the tragic death of his brother and of other band member Berry Oakley with interest, if, truth, preferring the more melodic direction led by Dickey Betts, centred upon his chiming guitar and the rippling piano of Chuck Leavell. Indeed, Allman seemed increasingly sidelined, renowned more for marriages and for snitching on his dealer, in the music press of the day a despicable deed. I lost interest and the decades went by.

Fast forward into this century and, whilst the Allman Brothers Band were still on the road, give or take a break or two, they were making little impact on my musical tastes of the moment. That is until I foolishly decided I might like the Grateful Dead and to investigate their oeuvre. Part of this involved looking at whatever other near apocryphal forever bands were up to. Like Govt. Mule. And, via Warren Haynes, guitarist thereof and also of the post Grateful and post Jerry band, the Dead, listening to a couple of his solo efforts, I got drawn back to his other other band, the Allmans. It was as if I had never been away, the sound an amalgam of my memories and my fantasies. Then two years or so ago, which I now discover was 2011, Allman brought out one of the comeback albums of the age, 'Low Country Blues', a mere 16 years after his last solo recording. (OK, strictly speaking, he hadn't been away, even if the stories similarly suggested he hadn't been all here either. A liver transplant had been involved.)

'Low Country Blues' caught my imagination, sonically and symbolically, the old ranch hand coming again good with the album of his life, looking and sounding fit, raring to go, with a fresh complexion belying his years. This time, rather than awaiting his 3rd wind, I went back and researched out his intervening years, yes, even the Cher ones. Suddenly he was, in my eyes, a colossus and unimpeachable until came the news. At 69 his liver cancer was back, a complication of Hepatitis C unappreciated at the time of initial surgery, and he died in May, with the last hurrah provided by his final record, the posthumous 'Southern States', another cracker, following 4 months later. What better legacy? Listen to the words.

Or his own words, when asked about what may lie next:
"Music is my life's blood. I love music, I love to play good music, and I love to play music for people who appreciate it. And when it's all said and done, I'll go to my grave and my brother will greet me, saying, "Nice work, little brother—you did all right." I must have said this a million times, but if I died today, I have had me a blast."

Dig in here!!

STORMS: STORMY MONDAY

I suppose this should really be a learned discourse on the origins of this oft-covered stalwart of the idiom, but, hell, no, let's cut to the chase and forget the earnest original and celebrate Duane, Gregg and the boys. Is this live track not the most uplifting downbeat song ever? Tacked on with Statesboro' Blues on 'Live at the Fillmore' (1971!), this was my introduction to the Allman Brothers and it remains their pinnacle, something I can listen to for time eternal.

Of course, in their decades long history, 1969 - 2014, give or take the odd recess, they have produced a zillion live albums and a trillion live versions of this old warhorse, but it is this outing I always see as the template, even comparing other artists to it, as if it were truly the original. So, then, what of the song? Penned by T-Bone Walker, it was a hit as far back as 1948, although maybe a decade or so elapsed before Bobby 'Blue' Bland cut the version many see as definitive. Indeed, as I much later learnt, much of the phrasing and a lot of the licks were lifted wholesale by the Allmans.

The lyric is the age old simple lament of the working man, the grind of the week, trajecting through to payday and the celebration of the weekend, grounded with some sunday religion, before it all starts again. Whilst Bland seems more celebratory of the contrast between the highs and lows, poor old Gregg Allman sounds completely dragged down by the repetition of the cycle, his vocal as downbeat a lament as any sharecropper half a century his (then) senior. So the then contrast as his hammond kicks into an unexpected jaunty and jazzevocative statement is all the more pronounced. Has he ever produced a more inspired burst of soloing? (In truth I find it hard to recall any other piece of soloing by him at all, making it all the more remarkable.)

Anyone else come close? Well, any blues legend worth his salt, such as Kings, Freddie, B.B. and Albert, most of the white boys, like Clapton and Beck, as well as wild cards like Eva Cassidy and ? and the Mysterians have all given it space. But I guess my other favourite is the one by Jimmy Smith, maybe no surprise if it is the organ that so appeals to me in the Allmans, Smith being the jazz-blues maestro of the same. Here it is in all its instrumental glory:

Now is Tuesday really just the same after any of these? Hell, I hope not.

Get your Stormy Mondays here, not forgetting where the best one came from.

Brothers and Sisters: Jessica

Allman Brothers Band: Jessica
[purchase]

I confess that right from the start of the “Brothers” theme, I had this album in mind – with the hopes that I would get around to it and that maybe no one else would get there before me.

Back in the ‘70s, I attended a college in the South (of the US, of course) that had hosted the Allman Brothers at about the time of their rise to fame (Atlanta not being too far from Greensboro, NC). I wish I had been there then because I had already been listening to their music when I was in high school (Idlewild South anyone?). I was also already a die-hard Clapton fan, which has made Derek and the Dominoes an eternal favorite (Duane Allman + Eric Clapton = made in  heaven)

The Allman Brothers’ <Brothers and Sisters> album came out in ’73, shortly after the death of the band’s lead guitarist Duane Allman. You probably know that Allman’s death was more or less quickly followed by the death of bassist Berry Oakley – in curiously similar circumstances. However, Oakley is credited and played on the Brothers and Sisters album that this clip is taken from.

Following Duane’s death, Richard “Dickey” Betts assumed the lead guitar position – less flamboyant than the lost Allman brother, but a highly competent guitarist in that he was the second guitarist of the band's original double lead guitar setup.

The photos that make up the album covers are “brothers” and “sisters” shots of the band members’ kids: I do wonder how much they still feel like siblings all these many years later. (Those were special years for those of us who were here back then, so I assume the bonds from this still tie them together somehow).

The clip I located (with the best video  that I could locate - and a live version to boot) is from well beyond the Duane Allman era, but it retains the essence of the original. You’ll see Dickey Betts on guitar and Greg Allman at the keyboard.

And so … on to <Sisters> …

We Are Family: The Allman Brothers

The Allman Brothers: In Memory of Elizabeth Reed

[purchase]

Brothers Duane and Gregg Allman grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida and formed various bands... The Escorts, The Allman Joys, The Hour Glass... before eventually connecting with Dickey Betts, Butch Trucks, Berry Oakley and Jaimoe to form The Allman Brothers Band, a Southern rock, roots and blues group who were at the top of their game in the late 60's and early 70's until the untimely deaths of Duane and Berry in separate motorcycle accidents, one year and three blocks apart (they're actually buried next to each other in Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Georgia)...

You can certainly read more about the various incarnations of the band since - what I recall personally is that, spending my teen years in Atlanta, I was lucky to see them live, for free, many times in Piedmont Park, Live at Fillmore East changed my life (the band consisted of two lead gutarists, two drummers, a bass player and a vocalist/keyboard player - who does that?!?)... and I had a poster of Duane over my bed until I went away to college in 1972...

In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, which I wanted to post for our Long Songs theme... and again for Leftovers last week but never got around to it either time, is, in my opinion, a perfect instrumental, written by Dickey Betts...

From Wikipedia:

In this performance, Betts opens the song with ethereal volume swells on his guitar, giving the impression of violins. Slowly the first theme begins to emerge, and Duane Allman's guitar joins Betts in a dual lead that sometimes doubles the melody, sometimes provides a harmony line, and sometimes provides counterpoint. The next section has the tempo pick up to a Santana-like, quasi-Latin beat, with a strong second-theme melody being driven by unison playing and harmonized guitars.

Betts now takes a solo that starts from the second theme. This leads into an organ solo from Gregg Allman, with the two guitars playing rhythm figures in the background. Throughout, percussionists Butch Trucks and Jai Johanny Johanson play in unison, providing what has been described as "a thick bed of ride-snare rhythm for the soloists to luxuriate upon."

Now it is Duane Allman's turn, and he starts out quietly rephrasing the first theme. He then gradually builds to a high-pitched climax, with Berry Oakley's bass guitar playing a strong counterpoint lead underneath him against the band's trademark percussive backing. Allman cools off into a reverie, then starts up again, finding an even more furious peak. Parts of this solo would draw comparison to John Coltrane and his sheets of sound approach, other parts to Miles Davis and his classic Kind of Blue album. Duane Allman biographer Randy Poe wrote that the solo reflected the emerging jazz fusion movement, but in reverse: "[Allman]'s playing jazz in a rock context." Allman himself told writer Robert Palmer at that time, "that kind of playing comes from Miles and Coltrane, and particularly Kind of Blue. I've listened to that album so many times that for the past couple of years, I haven't hardly listened to anything else." Almost two decades later, Palmer would write of the Allmans, "that if the musicians hadn't quite scaled Coltrane-like heights, they had come as close as any rock band was likely to get." Rolling Stone would say in 2002 that the song's performance found the musicians "lock[ed] together ... with the grace and passion of the tightest jazz musicians," while in 2008, it said the trills, crawls, and sustain of the guitar work represented "the language of jazz charged with electric R&B futurism."

Following the Duane Allman solo, the band drops off and a relatively brief but to-the-point percussion break is taken by Trucks and Johanson, that reflects Kind of Blue drummer Jimmy Cobb's work. The full band then enters to recap the mid-tempo second theme, and the song is finished off abruptly. The Fillmore audience lets a couple of silent beats pass before erupting in applause.


I can still hum/ba-dum/air-strum every note of the 13-minute tune... 38 years later - backstory on Elizabeth Reed's inspiration here (and, interestingly, she is buried "144 steps to the south" of Duane and Berry)...

Tricky Beats: Whipping Post

The Allman Brothers Band: Whipping Post

[purchase]

Unless you have quite literally been sequestered in some radioless juror's motel for the last forty years, you know the Allman Brothers Band, even if you don't know the various guest spots (Duane Allman made Layla what it is), side-projects (see, for example, both Gov't Mule and the Derek Trucks Band) and incarnations (aka the infamous 1978 - 1982 years) which the various members have undergone since death began tugging at their core. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees for their role as "principal architects" of the Southern Rock tradition, these guys may not have cracked the top half of Rolling Stones top 100 acts of all time, but after almost forty years as a touring band and over a dozen albums turned gold, their high recognition factor speaks to their double-A rating as mainstays of classic rock radio, not to mention their roles as partial forefathers to a variety of more modern musical forms, from alt-country to jamband.

But though Southern Rock isn't known for any particularly innovative musical envelope-pushing, the Allman's ability to innovate within the confines of the powerful, typically 4/4 guitar-laden tropes of barroom bluesrock often go without notice. Case in point: familiar anthem Whipping Post, which owes its driving, overpresent pulse to the unusual choice of an 11/4 metric for the intro and verses. When the song swings into a set of pulsing triplets for the chorus, nominally framed around a twelve-beat 4/4, the transformation of odd meter into something familiar brings with it an overwhelming release and relief, making mincemeat of our hearts and souls. Bring a lighter, not a cellphone, for the encore; prepare to scream yourself hoarse, and enjoy.

1973: Ramblin' Man

The Allman Brothers Band: Ramblin' Man

[purchase]


In 1973, the Allman Brothers were touring in support of Brothers and Sisters, and they became the first band I ever saw live. So I have no choice but to love the album. Luckily, it happens to be a good one.

Brothers and Sisters is also a landmark album, one of the first southern-rock albums, although no one recognized that at the time. I have mixed feelings about that.

1973 marked the end of blues rock, which I love. Cream had broken up. Bands like the J Geils Band, the Climax Blues Band, and Fleetwood Mac had changed their lineups or their sound, and were no longer playing the blues. (Side note: did you know that Fleetwood Mac started as a blues band? Maybe I'll find a way to do a post on that someday.) Even John Mayall, who had nurtured so many blues rock legends in his bands, had moved to California, and was adding pop elements to his sound.

As for the Allman Brothers, Brothers and Sisters was the first full album they recorded without Duane Allman, who had died in a motorcycle accident. Original member Berry Oakley died during the Brothers and Sisters sessions, appearing on only two tracks. So Greg Allman and Dickie Betts decided to take the band in a more pop direction. On Brothers and Sisters, they succeeded, and the album still sounds great today. But they never again equaled this artistic or commercial success. Ironically, a band which found its first fame jamming on blues based tunes, and then toned the jamming way down as they remade themselves, has now found a niche in the current marketplace by re-remaking themselves as a jam band.


Submitted by Darius