90 Miles Outside of Vegas - New Song Alert

Acoustic Set for Susanne 1/16/2023

SET LIST: Pancho and Lefty, Country Road, Three Little Birds, Uncle Johns Band, Sunshine on My Shoulder, Streets of Arklow, For A While, Oh La La, New Speedway Boogie, Coffee Blues, You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go, Glory of True Love, Tumbling Tumbleweeds, River of Joy, You and Me, Wharf Rat, The Garden Song

Acoustic Session 11-23-2022

Two Hour Set from last nights live broadcast - get your gear out and jam along - covers and originals
Radar Love, Honky Tonk Women, Caravan, Hold Me Now, Come and Go Blues, Stairs to the Mayan Sky, River of Joy, The Valley, Show Me Time, Diamond Girl, Crazy Girl, Black Water, Bertha, Deal, Don't, Coffee Blues, Just My Imagination, Don't Stop Believin, Thank You, Just Like Heaven, Friend of the Devil, Heroes - if you don't recognize the title - it's one of mine.  

Allman Brothers Band - Eat A Peach

Stand Back - when listening to Eat a Peach and believe me it was almost impossible to get to as I had to pry The Fillmore Concerts out of my player - its beguiling to think, project where and what the band was going to do next had brother Duane decided to stick around for some more studio albums. His contribution to Les Bres alone would have taken that tune to another level and I say that absolutely loving that butt shaking tune that Berry just rumbles through.

Okay so maybe I'm stating the obvious but we really only get Blue Sky, Stand Back and Little Martha as studio cuts from Eat a Peach. It’s an immense rip off by the music gods. I know, I know they are a live band and Duane is more than well represented on the Eat a Peach Album I'm listening to the Deluxe Edition with the June 1971 closing of the Fillmore represented on the second disc. It's a wonderful compilation with excellent liner notes, packaging and throwback labeling on the discs. But contrast Stand Back, Blue Sky and Little Martha for a moment and hold them in your mind. Each tune is in its own right a different genre. While Stand Back is the fuel injected brothers swaggering through their composition Blue Sky is its melodic counter point. Much like their playing these two songs back to back represent the branches of the tree that was the Allman Brothers. They are two tonal opposites yet together much like Dickey and Duane trading riffs. Of course Gregg is writing here and Dickey is writing there but what brings them together the playing of Duane is a very necessary bridge. Not to draw too fine a point on it but Duane was the glue that kept Dickey and Gregg together and without Duane they blew apart and it’s no one’s fault and their personal vision which they were more than entitled too and deserved were different but Duane was the Fulcrum through which their immense talents traveled.

Considering the emergence of the sound that Dickey was bringing forward (Blue Sky) and the swagger of the ABB (Stand Back) and then Little Martha is it really that far out to imagine an all-acoustic album considering Dickey's Highway Call effort (which I freaking love) and Duane's solo work with Sam Samudio as featured on the track Goin' Upstairs? Would it have been so far out of the question that the Allman Brothers with Duane would have done a record sounding like Taj Mahal melded with their swagger? Considering all their influences that were revealed the above mentioned Highway Call and Gregg's Low Country Blues would such a collective effort over time eclipsed or outfitted the Dawg Music genre with the power of the blues as opposed to just Django? It’s fascinating to imagine what that would have sounded like.

Much has been written and spoken about Duane and the Trane - John Coltrane and Miles - righteous brothers indeed and Tom Dowd's jazz cat ways but what about the root of the tree of music as embodied by Little Martha? How much more of that would we have seen and heard (Pony Boy)? What would have Duane's input done to Jessica and Southbound (songs I am passionate about)?

So here we are with Eat a Peach and we just have three studio cuts that are dynamic and all together different and just the greenest of shoots of the myriad of directions this band would have taken, could have taken, fanning off like a giant river oak.

The tree of music that remained and rebirthed time and time again was fortuitous and mighty in its own right and we are all the better for its perseverance, fortitude, drive and power but for a moment play the what if game and use Stand Back, Blue Sky and Little Martha as your jumping off points.

I'm a big fan of the ABB studio work as well, Gregg's and Dickey's solo efforts but imagine if it had all stayed together - just three studio cuts from Eat a Peach point the way.

The Allman Brothers Band and the Simultaneous Groove

My oh my this is a great shot of the original sextet working the simultaneous groove. It looks like its Berry's turn to break out notice where Butch's eyes are watching on Berry's hands.

I can't over emphasis the beauty, power and velocity of talented musicians owning their musicianship fighting the urge of ego, working together and delivering the goods like no other.

A friend of mine asked me to differentiate between the grateful dead and the allman brothers after I laughed out loud (its a blotter vs mushrooms, roses vs peaches thing) I thought for a moment. Please know I'm a veteran of decades of both bands and I would simply state the ABB locked in more often, stronger and together. It's degrees of variation but while the grateful dead was more of a cosmic soup sloshing around the bowl of existence lapping up side to side with solar flares of transcendence over heart aching ballads and thundering reverberation following Jerry religiously no matter what blind alley he lead them down, through or up the Allman Brothers Band in contrast jumped on that first note like a skim boarder ridding a wave as far as it would take them then turning and charging after the next wave of music and consciousness shredding the lip catching air, turning and pivoting with the waves. Tighter by necessity the ABB driven by a freight train of rhythm, organ and bass achieved thundering elevation immediately while the Dead meandered wobbly floating seemingly directionless then focusing sharply in an Escher like pattern getting there sooner or later but getting there they did.

I watched Pelicans dive for game yesterday afternoon striking their targets, diving in directly from over head in a straight line quickly and with acceleration hitting their targets repeatably over and over again - the visualization of screaming marshals and stalking thundering rhythm in a cascade of movement and righteous glorious splash reversing gravity throwing water in the air as they submerged and reemerged floating then taking flight again seemingly effortlessly sweeping through the air wings fully extended only to recoil and strike again. It was something to marvel at and behold and it looked like music to me and felt like something heavenly