Found a video on YouTube last night from a 1980 volunteer jam of the Allman Brothers with Toy Caldwell and Bonnie Bramlett guesting and oddly Butch Trucks is in the left and Jaimoe on the right.
I'm looking for it now but don't see it this morning.
The harp player is Jim Essery who was brought into the band by Gregg and is listed and pictured on Reach For The Sky as a member. But he was gone by 1981. David Toler replaced Jaimoe on drums, a vote Butch said he regretted casting at the very first show they played with David Toler on drums. Butch felt David Toler tried to sound too much like Butch and Dan Toler too much like Dickey and it was the worst lineup they ever had. With Mike Lawler on keys and Snythisiser which had a neck similar to a guitar, Butch felt the chemistry was awful and it was killing the legacy began by Duane Allman.
Mike Lawler and his music partner Johnny Cobb were dispatched by Arister Records to produce Reach For The Sky but the band ended up co producing. The next year the lable put John Ryan in charge and had the band to stand back. After Brothers of the Road, the band refused to record the 3rd album. I remember the roadie at a Gregg show I saw with the Toler Brothers in summer of 1982 said the ABB was unhappy with their lable and refused to record the next album and Gregg quit and took the Toler Brothers with him. Dickey, Butch and Chuck Leavell decided to add new players including Wet Willie's singer Jimmy Hall and change their name. I wondered what could it be. Of course they changed their name. No way they could bill that as the Allman Brothers. Jimmy Hall is good but he ain't no Gregg Allman.
This was a miserable time for Jaimoe. Jaimoe was living near poverty and working as a farm hand according to two magazine articles I read. But at the show David Goldflies said he was playing in a band that was the house band at a small club in Georgia.
In that configuration they might be best heard on their Madness of the West solo - good stereo separation, active & dynamic, their longest studio solo
Their individual playing is also crisp & just tops in that Butch-left-speaker, Jaimoe-right, in the Mar y Sol version of AWTNMore
What about One.More Ride, or Blues for BO/Berry’s Jam - their solo on One More Ride is the longer than Madness of the West’s, but rough recording
I saw all lineups and the band dozens of times and NOT ONCE did I see them play live with Butch on the left and Jaimoe on the right except in the above video.
Maybe since it's the volunteer jam with changing acts on one stage the drum sets got reversed and no time to change it.
