Thank you for sharing this

What beautiful, powerful writing.

Yes beautiful poweful writing. And very sad too. Very sad. Lots of missed opportunities and tragic events too. Duane and Berry getting killed so young, heavy drugs and alcohol abuse, fights and breakups, ups and downs. In the early 1980's I thought it was over. Betts, Hall, Leavell, Trucks couldn't get a label deal and Gregg was held hostage to the Arista record contract and filed bankruptcy and poor Jaimoe, booted from the band in 1980, was living near property.

Rebirth in 1989 but by 1993 drugs and alcohol were making Gregg unreliable again and Dickey mean and sometimes sloppy on stage.

With the exception of Warren Haynes, most of their decent original material did come from Dickey and Dickey and Warren writing together. There is nothing on Hitting The Note that changes that.

If Duane had lived the band would have been more stable and better moving forward. Or would it? It seems so but you can't know.

One thing you can know is Duane Allman was the hottest guitar player EVER in the ABB. None of the others could light up a solo like Duane Allman. And that is just the way it is.

Stopped reading at: "In the early Seventies, they single-handedly invented Southern rock."

Still waiting to read an article stating the Grateful Dead created Western folk rock.

DJTrader. I'm 73 years old. When Duane and Berry were still alive I had never heard of "southern rock". And like the Grateful Dead, the ABB was developing a following on both coasts. Yes Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas were beginning to come see the Allmans but New York City and Boston and San Francisco were becoming band strong points. The northeast became Allman Brothers territory and that was still true in the 2000s. New York City, Boston, New York State, New Jersey gave the band huge support and may have been more responsible for putting the band on the radar than the south.

Southern Rock is a term we began hearing in 1973 when Ramblin'Man was a hit single and suddenly bands with many members from the south such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker, Charlie Daniels came on the scene while Brothers and Sisters was on the charts and apparently a record store chain decided to group all those bands into a category and call it southern rock.

Also rock with a little country sound mixed in became what most people thought of when they heard the term along with Confederate Flags and Dixie and peaches.

Duane Allman wasn't part of that. He was gone before that started and Butch Trucks and Gregg never liked it. Also Butch blamed Dickey for moving the ABB sound in that direction and Butch said he can hear the 1973 version of the ABB in much of so called modern country. He can hear how Brothers and Sisters influenced that kind of music and Butch was clear he wasn't proud of it and if they had it to do over, Ramblin' Man wouldn't have been on an Allman Brothers album. They would have blocked it and Dickey taking the band in that direction.

Also keep in mind Butch was very anti Dickey when he began talking about that so I'm not sure Butch felt that strongly about it in the mid 70's.

I had a laugh when I read "palpable eroticism."

And so called modern country probably would have evolved without Ramblin' Man, Southbound etc. Sweethome Alabama and Free Bird help that along too. And Marshall Tucker.

Great post, Blackey.

ABB are considered southern rock because of Brothers and Sisters but they are so much more than that. Aside from some elements of Marshall Tucker, I cant think of a band from the south that has a lot of jazz influence. Being from a geographic location isnt a genre. Have you ever heard of Phish considered Northern Rock? I haven't. I think it's silly when people say Chicago blues or Texas blues for example. It's all blues. No need to parse it down even further.

I also love Gregg's quote about calling southern rock "rock rock" since it was born in the south.

ABB are considered southern rock because of Brothers and Sisters but they are so much more than that. Aside from some elements of Marshall Tucker, I cant think of a band from the south that has a lot of jazz influence.

Agreed, and I get a little annoyed when the ABB is lumped in with some of the bands that came after them - they made simpler music and some of them really played up their Southern-ness as shtick. But most of that genre does descend from the ABB. They made a point of staying in Macon instead of going to New York or LA to make it big, and that was a big deal in its way. And like you said, they brought together a bunch of strains of Southern music in a unique way. I also agree that Brothers and Sisters is probably the template that future bands in that field drew from more than the first few albums because it had more country to it and was also the album with their only real hit single.

Being from a geographic location isnt a genre. Have you ever heard of Phish considered Northern Rock? I haven't. I think it's silly when people say Chicago blues or Texas blues for example. It's all blues. No need to parse it down even further.

They have their uses. They're all reductive, but some of them come from players influencing each other and developing a distinct style. Chicago blues doesn't sound the same as Delta blues and neither of them sound like Piedmont blues even though all of those styles share some elements. I don't think I've ever heard "Northern" used as a musical label in the US, but there's East Coast Rap and West Coast Jazz, so I don't know.

i have always thought of the ABB as a jazz band with heavy rock and blues influence. Yes, agree with others that Brothers and Sisters altered that template somewhat.

Also agree that Marshall Tucker had a definitive jazz touch. To me, they are one of the all time under-rated bands. they were palpable as a group