..... a really cool thing. You often read posts about folks saying "they need to release more stuff from the archive" etc which, I'd agree, my appetite is also insatiable but, they gave us the Fillmore box! It was something we always wanted - always said we wanted - and they put it out. So, thanks to all who worked on making it happen.
So, my question to you all is : what do you think of it ? Did it live up to expectations?
I find it better to listen to it in one show blocks myself - but, love to put a set here and there .
Happy Sunday
Yes, really dig it, hearing it as the performances as they happen, without the sax player removed etc.
"Is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?"
Can a true fan ask for more? The original 6 playing with everything on the line being recorded by the great Tom Dowd in the Mecca of rock. Add in the best remix of all the previously released material.
Still convinced that the very best performances had already seen the light of day but still this was an exceptional group of performances. Personal favorites from the previously unreleased material were the You Don't Love from the first performance (not part of the other two performances that were spliced) and the Liz Reed with Johnny Winter's conga player, Bobby Caldwell, mastering the role Mark Quinoes would fill later. Most disappointing was Juicy Carter's sax work on two different Liz Reed's (luckily he was given one night "off" so a classic could be recorded).
[Edited on 6/25/2017 by dzobo]
Well past my expectations!! The level of play is over the top.!!!
It is what we love.
Long live the Allman Brothers Band!
eap,
Steve
About to get on a 7 hour flight - the ABB Fillmore shows look like 28 songs and 4 hours and 18 mins so that should help me pass the time. Thanks for the inspiration to give these a new listen!
[Edited on 6/26/2017 by mikesolo]
Just landed - 2nd night first show was really something. Like with the Beacon runs they seem to get stronger, tighter (and looser) and more improvisational show by show. Great.
I'm really glad I bought it. Great sound, great shows. Now if only 6-26 existed??????!!!!!!!!!!!! (I have a feeling it doesn't though).
This has moved to the top of my "to get" list.
Good reminder that I have it and still need to listen.
Too much music, too little time.
Good reminder that I have it and still need to listen.
Too much music, too little time.
I'm presuming it's still being pressed ? I have the vinyl version also, which as yet, I've not opened .
About to get on a 7 hour flight - the ABB Fillmore shows look like 28 songs and 4 hours and 18 mins so that should help me pass the time. Thanks for the inspiration to give these a new listen!
[Edited on 6/26/2017 by mikesolo]
Nice 
Yes the Fillmore shows, At Fillmore East, tracks on Eat A Peach and the box set IS the Allman Brothers Band. Was reading an interview with Warren Haynes yesterday and he said the original line IS the Allman Brothers. That lineups power, energy. musicianship and creativity is high watermark and the foundation of the Allman Brothers and as good as later lineups we're, none matched the original lineup.
I was listening to Wipe the Windows just this morning and Ramblin' Man and Southbound left a trail of smoke on the Winterland Ball room stage in San Francisco that night. The Chuck Larmar lineup was hot, hot that night.
But I must admit NO lineup of the Allman Brothers equals the original. No later lineup could match songs such as Statesboro Blues, Trouble No More, You Don't Love Me on At Fillmore East. Anyone hear a version of Liz Reed that equals or tops the version on At Fillmore East? Or One Way Out and Trouble No More on Eat A Peach?
In one of Butch Trucks last interviews he said he was getting tired of the last lineup. He tried and tried to get Warren and Derek to jump of the deep end like Duane and Dickey's use to and take those jams into another place and create something new on the fly. But Warren and Derek always wanted to play it too safe. They didn't want to take a big chance out of fear of a train wreck. Butch said he was encouraging the players in The Freight Train Band to not be afraid to get loose and take me somewhere new. Butch said the best he could get out of Warren was a tease from another song.
Duane, Dickey and Oakley perhaps were better at creating on the fly and Butch, Jaimoe and Gregg we're good at going with them.
But I remember Warren saying some of the stuff he and Dickey did on stage, people would say " when did you all rehearse that?" and they would be surprised when Warren said they came up with that part suddenly on the fly and the rest of the band went with them.
But often later lineups did stay inside familiar boundaries on the solos and jams and Dickey and Gregg were just as guilty as Warren and Derek. I assume Butch agreed. Butch didn't like the 1978-1982 version of the band, especially after they let Jaimoe go. He said David Toler got in his way and would play what he ( Butch) was going to play.
Maybe Butch Trucks was like me. He missed the energy and creativity of the original line up!!
But if Duane and Berry had lived, would the original lineup have stayed together? And would they still be able to play like 1971 in 2014? Apparently Dickey couldn't. And Gregg had his bad nights over the years when like Dickey he was too far in the bag to play. We will never know.
I wish Gregg, Duane, Berry, Butch and the others were still alive and playing like 1971. But I'm thankful for all the recorded material and it's a treat to see Gov,t Mule and TTB. I like to think they are an extension of what Duane Allman started and I think they are.
. But Warren and Derek always wanted to play it too safe.
Well, Derek and Jimmy weren't afraid.
I love this, and the Gregg "Phish" comment story cracks me up every time.
That was good. Bet Butch and Gregg were surprised to see it run off the road that far and still hitting the note. I only have a cell phone to post with right now and the spell checker changes some of the words when I hit send. It's a pain.
Guess Butch didn't remember the Derek/Jimmy version in 2000. Butch did offer the gig to Jimmy but he turned it down out of respect to Dickey and said nobody had replaced a living original Allman Brother before and he would not be the first. Gregg later said if Warren had not accepted, they were going to break up in 2000. Said Warren wouldn't have that lable because he played with Dickey for 8 years in the band. When I read that back then I also thought of Jack Pearson as he would be another who was in the band before the other originals voted Dickey out. It was never determined if Dickey was voted out for just the summer with orders to get treatment then Dickey quit and sued the band winning more than a million dollars in arbitration or if Dickey was completely out at the moment of the fax then he sued and won all that money. Well it's all in the past and Dickey and Gregg had several nice phone conversations during the last months of Gregg's life. They were still brothers!!!
As good as Derek and Jimmy are on the piece, there is NO doubt at all NO later lineup could bring it like the original six. Warren was right about that. Just a quick listen to One Way Out and Trouble No More on Eat A Peach proves that.
blackey, I think part of the tension in the final years of the ABB was that Butch wanted to go far out like you say, while Gregg was into tighter arrangements and obviously didn't enjoy things like the Mountain Jam posted earlier in this thread. As Derek put it beautifully in a recent interview, that just wasn't Gregg's musical aesthetic, and the tight crisp style of his solo work proves it.
You have to feel for Derek and Warren. On one hand you have an original member encouraging you to go out into the cosmic ether, on the other hand you have the only living Allman Brother saying "Who's the ***ing Phish fan?" when you do. The ultimate no win scenario.
I feel like Derek and Warren did a lot to keep the spirit of the ABB alive, despite a lot of dysfunction and conflict in the band. The more times passes, the more amazed I am by their ability to keep the band on the rails and performing at a high level. They may not have been the equal of the original lineup, but they did a very difficult job extremely well for a long time.
You are correct. Warren and Derek did do a good job and on the old stuff would walk that tight line of playing some of Duane's licks and Dickey's too. Warren signaled Dickey often in Jessica, Blue Sky etc. They couldn't bring it like Duane and Dickey in 1971. If Duane and Berry had lived, could they still put it on the stage like they use to at the Fillmore? Apparently Dickey couldn't. Years of drugs and alcohol and getting old takes it toll on rockers.
And you're right about Gregg. No question he loved the Allman Brothers and had a lot of respect for the band because it was his brother's baby and it's what put all of the original six on the map. But I learned for interviews with Gregg starting in 1973 with his Laid Back tour that Gregg had mixed emotions about how his song's arrangements were altered and changed up when the Allman Brothers got to working them up. Whipping Post was not a all the way he wrote it. The intro and time signature was Berry Oakley. Duane put a long guitar solo in Dreams and he and Dickey added some changes to the song. And Gregg became kinda bored with the long guitar solos and all the jamming. The Laid Back tour was more compact and structured. It kept the spotlight more on the singer and the lyrics. And Gregg made a point of doing one of his ABB songs arranged closer to the way he wrote them. Midnight Rider on Laid Back and Whipping Post on Searching for Simplicity are good examples. And a big reason he started a solo career in 1973 is Queen of Hearts. When Butch didn't want to do the song and Dickey felt it didn't make the cut either for Brothers and Sisters, Gregg was really pissed. He broke into the studio that night and got some guys together and started on what became Laid Back. Berry Oakley played bass. But when Johnny Sandlin got involved helping Gregg produce and they brought in Chuck, they started over so Berry's bass playing didn't get on the album. But he did get a special thanks. Yes you are right about Gregg and it just may be that if his solo band had become as big live as the Allman Brothers or Eric Clapton or Bob Dylan, I may be that Gregg would have passed on being in the Allman Brothers beyond the Dreams box set tour in 1989.
