Life’s good!” That’s how Gregg Allman begans this interview, via telephone. He’s in an upbeat mood: nine months after the final Allman Brothers Band concert, Gregg’s solo career is going full steam ahead. He has a new live album, Back To Macon, he’s working a new album (with another one on the back burner) and is currently on a tour that will see him play several festivals including the Peach Festival (which will see him sharing the bill with a handful of his fellow ex-Allmans) and the first Laid Back Festival, which he’s headlining.
It was clear that his current band is what he likes talking about the most, but he was also game to talk about his now-retired band, and also his thoughts on the continuing controversy about the Confederate flag.
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When I last spoke to you, you were getting used to a new, healthier diet. How’s that going?
It’s working perfect!
One might have thought that you’d slow down since the last Allman Brothers Band concert, but it seems like you’ve been on the road a lot since then, and I know you’re starting your own festival next month in Long Island, New York, the Laid Back Festival.
Boy, you’re in for a treat! My new band is the most incredible musical experience I’ve ever had the honor and pleasure to be a part of.
Given some of the musicians you’ve played with, that’s quite a statement.
That’s a fact! It took me about 7 1/2 years to find everybody. Somehow, through some stroke of luck, I got my hands on two of Bobby “Blue” Bland’s horn players.
It seems that you play more guitar on your own than you did with the Allman Brothers.
I play rhythm guitar, I always used to play guitar in the other bands that my brother and I had. I played guitar long, long before I ever played keyboards.
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I got tired of sitting down all night, you know? I like playing guitar. But I broke my wrist last year. So my thumb, index and “bird” finger on my left hand went numb, and man, that’s just no good for a guitar player. Actually it happened in Wanee.
But you’re good now? You can play guitar and keyboards?
Yeah, I play every day. That was April 10, 2014, and today I’m back to normal!
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Another thing you told me was that you were thinking of doing a follow up to your [2011] album, Low Country Blues with T-Bone Burnett.
There was supposed to be a Low Country Blues II, I’ve got another thing in the works, so that’s on the back burner, and I hope to do it someday. And to work with T-Bone Burnett again, and that band we had with Dr. John, and Bone’s boys from Tennessee. My my next record will be hopefully produced by Don Was, and will hopefully be cut in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
Yeah, you told me about that one too. Is it still going to be called All Compositions By Gregg Allman?
I’m shooting for it, but whether or not that will actually be the title remains to be seen.
Will you be re-recording your old songs, or writing new ones?
I can’t say right now. Right now, it’s touring season and festival season. We’re going to the U.K. This has nothing to do with the song, but we’re playing something called The Rambling Man festival [laughs]. We’re headlining with the Scorpions. They headline one night, we headline the other.
In the U.S., I know that you have the Peach Festival coming up, and your former bandmates Warren Haynes, Butch Trucks and Jaimoe are all playing with their own bands. Will you jam with them?
I’m not really sure, man, that all depends. I’m not sure we’re on the same stage or what the timing is, some people come in on the day they play and then leave. Personally, I cannot stand to travel and play on the same day. Something about it, it makes it difficult to tune a guitar. When you ride in a jet plane, every single fiber of your existence, every single cell in your body is vibrating. That’s why people get so whipped from flying.
Yeah, but if your band is playing and Warren is on the side of the stage, will you jam with him?
Sure, man, there’s no hard feelings.
Concert Review: Allman Brothers Band Play Epic Final Show at New York’s Beacon Theatre
I was at the final Allman Brothers Band concert. What was going through your mind that night?
I felt like it was a good run, and it was time to go. I had already been putting my band together and looking ahead. And that was in October. By December, my tour started. We parted on good terms. Forty-five years! And even the newest cats in the band had been there for a long time. It was a good lineup, it was fun, and now it’s over. It was fun playing with them boys.
What’s your take on the whole controversy around the Confederate flag?
Well, I was taught how to play music by these very, very kind older black men. My best friend in the world is a black man. If people are gonna look at that flag and think of it as representing slavery, then I say burn every one of them.
OK, tell me about the Laid Back Festival, which features you, the Doobie Brothers, Bruce Hornsby and Jaimoe’s Jasssz Band, and it’s named after your [1973] solo album, Laid Back.
Ain’t that something? It is something that will happen every year, and if I have anything to do with it, there will be other ones with the same name popping up in other places.
Will you jam with the other acts on the bill?
Well, Jamioe, we’ve been touring together all summer, we play together. The doobies are old friends of mine, especially Mr. Tom Johnston. I really enjoy them as people, always have. They’ve written some of the greatest songs, man. Bruce Hornsby, he’s my good buddy man, I’m crazy about Bruce. So I’m really looking forward to this, so is my band. And Jones Beach, which I’m so familiar with. And we’ve got all this different food, it should be quite a party.
If people are gonna look at that flag and think of it as representing slavery, then I say burn every one of them.
I agree with Gregg.
A lot of people don't equate the flag with slavery. Didn't Gregg have one on his Corvette awhile back? he never equated it with slavery.
Why does the rest of the world have to change the way they think about the flag to placate one group of people who feel offended?
Nobody is denying slavery happened, or that blacks are offended. Since there should only be one flag in the country, of the country, it is reasonable to ask it to be taken down from any bldgs. it is still up at. But that is it. Non-black people have a right to their heritage and beliefs too, which does not mean they believe in slavery.
