We've all read the story a million times: Gregg travels all the way back to Florida, from LA, to "audition" as a singer/songwriter for the ABB. When he gets here, he plays 20-22 songs for the band to see which they liked. Towards the end of the batch, Gregg finally plays "Dreams" and "It's Not My Cross to Bear," the band loves 'em and the rest is history.
It's a great story, and more than one member of the band has corroborated it, so it appears to be true. But here's my question:
What were the other 18-20 songs in the bunch?
It would stand to reason that Gregg would have played the band what HE thought were his best songs, which means there were at least a dozen and a half songs that Gregg played the guys he he thought were good enough. So which songs are they?
Gregg himself said that he wrote "Blackhearted Woman," "Every Hungry Woman" and "Whipping Post" after he got to Florida, so there are a good 18-20 Gregg Allman songs just lost to history that I'm really, really curious about.
Anyone have any insights into this?
When it comes to Gregg talking about songwriting I don't even pay attention anymore, he has so many resources to work with and the last 20 + years he has provided his fans very little to listen to. He wrote some great songs in his younger days.
No insigths here. Even if more then one other member has corroborated it and the core story appears to be true i wouldn't be surprised if the actual number of songs (partly) played during those "auditions" were actually something like 10-12. Almost everything in the ABB's early history seems to suffer from cloudy memory and is often exgagerated (number of shows each year, length of shows, people in attendance, etc.). My wild guess that only a handful of songs were turned down and scrapped. Maybe a few were re-written and re-emerged during later sessions. I think the first time Gregg was really dissapointed about his new songs being turned down was 3 or 4 years later with "Queen Of Hearts" which triggered his debut solo album.
You are forgetting the Gregg Allman Divide by 5 Factor. Any amount that Gregg says, you must then divide by 5 so Gregg originally had 4 or 5 (part) songs written.
You will find Noah's Arc before you find those songs.
Possibly some of those songs ended up on Laid back or any of the other Gregg solo albums
Some were probably recorded then not used on ABB albums...ex: One more ride.....
You are forgetting the Gregg Allman Divide by 5 Factor. Any amount that Gregg says, you must then divide by 5 so Gregg originally had 4 or 5 (part) songs written.
You will find Noah's Arc before you find those songs.
Spot on.
I think some of them were leftovers from Hourglass et al, like Bad Dream and God Rest His Soul.
Given that he was into a singer/songwriter/ballad phase the band would need to hear a way to
muscle up anything he played.
