Southern Blood
Well, it sucks that Gregg got old before his time but what he poured into his time was several lifetimes’ worth of living and as he said he had himself a ball so why should we feel sad? For us the core fans who have been with him through thick and thin for decades it’s like losing a family member. It really is and it’s going to take time. I’ve been listening to Southern Blood exclusively. I wanted to get past the immediate emotional reaction as the song selections have laid us bare and ripped our souls out.
But there is more here than just all of that and even though the music is powerful beyond words it works simply standing alone. Imagine for a second if Gregg was healthy this album would still be a religious experience of expert playing, singing and sounding craft combine that now with the unfortunate circumstances and it will weaken your knees and tighten your throat.
Those are tears you are trying not to cry and why not you’ve just lost a family member and a friend and the music is so very soulful and moving and isn’t that what we want from our art? It’s supposed to make us feel something. We are inundated with the shallow, exasperated by the petty. It is our art our creativity that reminds us of our humanity and the essential and real depth of our lives. Often ignored daily preoccupied with self-imposed distractions we paper over our experience with the superficial. But it’s a carnival as well believe it or not The Band sang so truthfully to us a celebration and a tragedy all at the same time. It’s a dualistic reality in which we choose what to accentuate. It’s a horn section and a backup singer’s good time and it’s a drunk in a gutter you step over or become.
The Album Southern Blood jumps out righteously with Steve Potts muscular drums and then Gregg’s voice recorded so clear. He picked the right time to get into the studio. He was in exceptional voice and it’s all there the nuanced pronunciation the extended vowels for just the right length. Bravo to the engineers, the makers of microphones and recording equipment and the mixers. The disc sounds beautiful, the musicianship outstanding. Scott’s guitar work is tasteful, elegant, piercing and punctuates the melody with strength and grace. My Only True Friend climbs and falls dramatically with the poignant lyrics and heart felt voice. Gregg is writing and singing to all of us and speaking to his fans, friends and family without any other consideration except for getting it right. The ending with Marc Franklin’s trumpet and Scott’s outro is warm with the lights turned down low. The timing is paced beautifully with Peter’s piano cascading over the ending.
Then comes Gregg Allman’s great American song book. I really truly think this among other things is Gregg saying once again look here. Southern Blood is like a sign post pointing the way to Tim Buckley, Jackson, Percy Sledge, Robert Hunter, Lowell, Willie Dixon, New Orleans, and Bob Dylan and the Band. Everything is on this platter soul, gospel, R&B, swing, blues, and country sweet heart of the rodeo twang.
To begin with navigating Once I Was will slice through you and lay you low. The acoustic guitar opening followed by Gregg’s vocals slowly, calmly, not exactly a whisper but singing quietly those words to us and the band in the background subtly waiting for all of Gregg’s delivery clearly makes this a beautiful delicate song. Lorca is Tim’s album that really got me as well as Goodbye and Hello from which this song originated. And then Planet Waves. What a great choice. This is a Bob Dylan album that is immediately accessible and features The Band and some of Bob’s finest work. Going, Going, Gone is righteous and again we find Gregg in a contemplative mood, singing slowly, with purpose delivering the important messages of our lives as written by Bob.
“Grandma said Boy go and follow your heart and you'll be fine at the end of the line all that's gold isn't meant to shine don't you and your one true love ever part." What more does anybody need to know than that? Don Was and Gregg’s band wrapped this number up with a Flying Burrito Brother vibe and it invokes the heart wrenching finest work of Graham Parsons with Greg Leisz’s pedal steel. It’s different than the original but it’s just as great.
For me the song track list is like Gregg peered into my record collection or listened to my show. I never anticipated he’d pull off of In The Dark - Black Muddy River. After listening to Garcia sing that song when it first came out I got worried how could Gregg deliver this tune. It’s Garcia at his heart wrenching best and I was worried but there it is with the mandolin opening and the familiar melody. Robert’s lyrics and we all love Robert Hunter’s lyrics are delivered beautifully and by the time we get to the scream of an eagle on the fly we are all in and Gregg has us. Bring in the McCrary Sisters and we are in the pews nodding our heads.
Thankfully Gregory gives us a break I mean how much can we take and one of our favorite classics comes “nasty” strolling down the sidewalk on its way to the pool hall. I mean this was our rallying call growing up I Live the Life I Love and I Love The Life I Live. Jay’s big baritone sax and Scott’s guitar work shades of Roomful of Blues and Sugar Ray Norcia another outstanding vocalist come to mind. No regrets here people this is a swanky, swinging, punch back of defiance. Gregg’s growl before the “how I love it” lyric and his little well placed howls as the song winds down are expertly placed and extended just at the right volume well I’ll take every day you got… amen brother amen.
Willin’ are you kidding me? Gregg needs to give me my albums back. How great are these lyrics, how great was it when we first heard this song? Gregg, Buddy Miller and the band breathe new life into this seminal work. Peter’s piano and the pedal steel briefly dance and the acoustic guitar is right there in the background supporting Gregg’s voice. It’s a great arrangement with the horns quickly punctuating the beat anchored by Steve and Ronald’s solid rhythm. How great it is to hear this song sung and played so well again… Dallas Alice.
Thankfully we get nice and greasy with Blind Bats and Swamp Rats. You have to mix it up when you are putting your play list together and after repeated listens of the whole album this is an excellent segue. Mac has got to be proud as Marie Laveau herself comes straight up out of the swamp brushing the Spanish moss from her hair and laying down her voodoo magic. Gregg snarls and growls out the lyrics and you feel like you are in the middle of the bayou, hot, sweaty, something other worldly breathing down your neck, eyes darting looking for gators….love it!
Then out of left field we get Percy Sledge’s soulful love song. And it isn’t hard to imagine Gregg recorded this for Shannon what a sweet song and gesture and if you aren’t thinking about your significant other when this is playing you are missing the point. She made me a mountain from a little grain of sand. Everything is all right and the horns sound like Memphis Stew, Stax, and Sun Records all rolled up into one. Gregg grew up with this music it was of the era and he reminds us all of the treasure trove of soul and R&B that is out there waiting for us and that we should be listening to that as well.
The first time I heard Gregg and the boys tear into Love Like Kerosene I leaped out of my seat. Bring it on this is the gutsy roots ripping barrel house jam my soul requires. I want my ears pinned back I want that shuffle, I want that beer spilled on the floor things to get a little dangerous, dance a little too close, a sweaty night with an edge but never losing the fun. She’s pretty ain’t she and you're dead meat I might just be having a heart attack. It’s a joint is jumping horns are screaming bass is pounding drums are thrashing good time. Hell yeah! More of this!
The opening guitar of Song for Adam turns us once again and immediately we are thrown back into church where we belong whether your church is an ever expansive wildflower field in the plains of Denver like mine or a wooden pew with stained glass windows we are there. Gregg and Jackson’s delivery of the lyrics is the focus. Throughout the whole album Gregg’s voice paints the landscape with all the depth of life and twists and turns and death the fantastic, wretched journey all of it and all it can be and all it is. “And when I stood myself beside him I never thought I was as strong” listen to how Gregg sings this line and how the word strong rolls out. Imagine now you are a young boy without a father and somehow your older brother is strong and you can’t fathom it the first one into the fire going a hundred miles an hour or at rest and now still while so young he vanishes as well. But strength is not just all about bravado and bellicose behavior strength is not false, strength is passion, strength is honesty, strength is open, strength is understanding and wisdom and vision and drive and compassion and the ability to persevere.
Gregg Allman was as strong as they come relentlessly coming back like Sisyphus. Fifteen times he went into rehab pursuing and scraping his will and soul to survive exhausted by trials and tribulations and getting out of the way of himself and the record machine to finally emerge fully realized, happy resolved. It was a herculean effort and many, many others fell by the way side when confronted with challenges far fewer and just as many self-imposed. To walk from chemotherapy when you have the best doctors in the world at your disposal not fearing death but challenging it one final time and living on your own terms those actions take deep resolve, deep faith in something unseen. That takes strength the kind of inner strength you cannot find by just adding muscle to your bike, car or body. That’s the foundational strength of love, a love or many loves of something other than and outside of yourself.
For all the words, music, fame, money and looks that is the real beauty of one Gregory LeNoir Allman.
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