I thought it'd be fun to highlight some of Gregg's very best performances here. I find right now I'm gravitating more towards his solo stuff because the lower volume lets you focus on his voice a bit more, and I haven't listened to this stuff as much as the ABB work, so it's easier to appreciate with fresher ears. Apologies if there was an earlier thread about this, by the way.
One More Try (demo)
One of Gregg's best songs. The full version is fine, but here he's singing for himself and he puts so much feeling into every phrase. This is the one I put on for my wife to show her how good he really was.
Stormy Monday
By itself this would put Gregg up there with Bobby Bland and Ray Charles and the other blues and soul singers he admired.
Oncoming Traffic
Tucked away near the end of The Gregg Allman Tour, which is excellent but is mostly made up of covers and moody orchestral arrangements of songs Gregg had recorded before, is another of his best originals with maybe his best lyric.
The Oncoming Traffic he did for Dan Rather is also good even though his voice gets a little weak in a few places, and I can't think of another recording that's that intimate. It's a little hard to watch. Makes me wish again that he'd done some more work in a quieter setting. But the one he did at the Beacon with Bonnie Bramlett might be even more stunning: the feeling he puts into "I just don't give a half a damn" blows everybody away.
Here's that version:
Drown in My Own Tears
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d1ZJechrnok
Gregg's voice was very strong in the mid 2000s after he got sober. This was recorded in '99, before he got a little more gentle in his singing, but it's a powerful performance of a classic song.
All My Friends
Like most fans I wish Gregg had written more songs and recorded more on his own, but I think he saw himself as an interpreter, like a lot of the singers he modeled himself on. Little Milton and Muddy Waters and their ilk could write songs and wrote some great ones, but they didn't need to write originals to express themselves. They could do that just as easily through a well-chosen cover or even something they'd done hundreds of times before.
The Needle and the Damage Done
When the ABB broke out this cover in their acoustic sets it was an almost a shocking choice for Gregg to comment on his own life and times this way. I know I wasn't the only one who found it almost unbearably poignant. And it hit close enough to home that in the last line Gregg changed "junkie" to "sick man," either because he didn't want to say that word as a recovering addict, or because he felt it also spoke to his own health problems.
These Days
There's not much I can say about this that Jackson Browne didn't: Gregg found an amazing depth in this song, and his lyric change at the end was excellent. I wish we knew some more examples of his editing pen.
Whipping Post
Of course the Fillmore version is definitive, but the way Gregg hits the high note in the last chorus is special.
End of the Line
Mostly Woody's work, I think, but this was a great piece for Gregg. A really meaningful and scary reflection on what he'd been through, almost a statement about the character Gregg was known as. He had a long way to go in the early '90s but there was already so much to look back on.
And I'll round it off with a little more Muddy.
Trouble No More:
The way Gregg nails "Goodbye, baby!" has always been one of his highlights for me.
Rolling Stone:
Still roaring to the last.
[Edited on 6/3/2017 by Marley]
Nice compilation!
Two of my absolute favorites:
The original Please Call Home may be his best vocal:
Old Before My Time - just haunting - I love that they didn't "reverb" his voice. It makes it that much more impactful:
And I think he was absolutely tremendous on High Cost of Low Living and Desdemona, too.
And an obvious choice is One Way Out. Just wow.
I forgot the cover of Drown in My Own Tears he did with the dTb. That's one of the very best he ever recorded and I'll add it to the OP.
Good Thread!
Some of my favorites:
1.Never knew how much
2.Desdemona
3.I'm No Angel
4.No one to run with
5.Aint waisting time no more
6.Try it one more time
7.Angeline
Great list, I love the "One More Try" demos. When I first spun Laid Back, "Multi-Colored Lady" stopped me in my tracks. Love the solo acoustic demo version from One More Try:
Two takes on Queen of Hearts (both fan-cam's):
My favorite is Dreams. It says it all. Also,
Come and Go Blues
Midnight Rider - from Laidback and Duane's Anthology
Please Call Home
and all the stuff from his solo albums, especially Ocean Awash the Gunwale,
Ain't My Cross to Bear (with Dangerous Dan),
Things That Could Have Been
Are You Lonely For Me (GA Tour 1974)
Lovelight (GA Tour 1974)
Standback (Peakin' at the Beacon - Derek was sublime on that too)
Just love it all.
"Oncoming Traffic" as found on the live Gregg Allman Tour album. Great vibe, great vocal, great writing. And when the strings come in about midway, achingly beautiful in that awesome goosebumps sorta way. Maybe flirted with self-indulgence just a bit with the drawn out ending, but still his best work IMHO.
My #1 will probably always be Oncoming Traffic. For his newer stuff Just Another Rider and House of Blues are my faves.
I love his vocals on DOWN IN TEXAS. For whatever reason, I just really really like it.
Two takes on Queen of Hearts (both fan-cam's):
Hard to pick a favorite of Gregg's tunes, but this would be it - a wonderful composition. A great song for instrumentation & the perfect tune when he did the tour with the orchestra. The solos with sax & then at end with piano are excellent. Had the chance to see this tune live many times.
Nice set list Marley.
Nice list, but I would add Gregg's vocal on the ABB version of the Sam Cooke classic "Change is Gonna Come" always gave me chills when they played it live.
Always loved his cover of the Beatles tune "Rain." Incredibly soulful and with that amazing choir behind him, it just moves me...
I would have to say from his newer ABB material, "Desdemona" is my favorite. I'm grateful that I had the chance to hear Gregg and the band play a stellar version of it at my one and only Beacon Theater show back in 2009. I've heard it at other shows, but something about that Beacon version was just special.
One other memory of that evening at the Beacon was Butch coming out from behind the drum kit just before or after (I can't remember exactly which it was) a break and speaking to the audience about what an amazing musical exprerience that particular Beacon run had been for him personally. The one show of that run that I witnessed was certainly special for me.
[Edited on 6/3/2017 by Chain]
Great list.
You all have it pretty well covered.
I also think Desdemona is one of the finer songs from the more recent incarnation of the band.
Here is one that has not been mentioned:
Tears of Rage from 2013 Beacon run. It was a surprise to hear them play it. Gregg is strong and soulful here.
-Rob J.
