Duane Allman - in Memorium (bootleg)

(Bugs Bunny was known to say, “If I dood it, I get a whuppin’. Okay, I dood it!” So “I dood it” too, and, let the whuppin’ begin, because this is a bootleg release. But Duane played for the love of music—and that’s why I wrote it.)

Duane Allman:

In Memorium 1946-1971

They say the best tribute of a musician’s legacy is the test of time. How does/did an artist compare against his or her peers? What influences did he or she contribute that still manifest today? And most important and vital: does the music hold up with the same fire, charisma, charm, and devotion that made us listen in the first place?

It is therefore a privilege, an honor, and with the strongest affection I bring as a dedicated and inspired fan that I acknowledge the 30 years this past October since Duane Allman left us with a chance to say how much he touched our lives with music. That’s quite a statement, but there is a wonderful reason to rejoice: an assignment like this marks a sacred anniversary. With three decades behind a loss as powerful as Duane, it is an effort of love and joy to write this in behalf of so many fans and musicians who played with or listen to him.

What more treasured a way to add a tribute and inaugurate our group effort in music publication than to give center stage to a rebel who embodied a musician’s visions in so many classic ways? With Duane, it seems afresh that he truly brought out the best of others in his studio and stage contributions, whether it was in blues, rock ‘n roll, jazz, or country influences. In deepest thanks and acknowledgement, this has now been enhanced due to the double-CD I recently added to my collection of Duane’s work: Duane Allman – In Memorium. As a new collection of Skydog Allman at his uncanny brightest, I’m lighting this one first. Besides, it has six funny photos in one small convenient place of that red-haired free spirit: Duane with Berry from the Ludlow Garage CD; Duane deep into his solo in the studio; playing an acoustic with total glee radiating in his face; defiant and proud with arms crossed; a marvelous side profile of those elegant chops; and outdoors at Piedmont Park.

Take it back to Muscle Shoals, back to 1969-70, and let the Hawk, Ronnie Hawkins, step to the podium for a few cuts of testimony. Ronnie is “Down in the Alley,” and Duane starts off with a chainsaw screech on bottleneck that captures the slow molasses pace of this song. It sounds like he double-tracked his slide solo, but when you’re playing alongside Roger Hood, Barry Beckett, Eddie Hinton, Roger Hawkins, and King Biscuit Boy, Duane had the company to strut his stuff. And off they go, as “Red Rooster” parties all night long behind Ronnie’s deluxe boogie, and you can hear him twice call out for Duane on cue to lay down that electricity.

Duane could also drop down solos with a sheer ferociousness that could make a mediocre song sound good. He does so with wild abandon on the next two tunes, buttressing up the Soul Survivors’s “Darkness,” and then Sam Samudio’s (Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, y’all) “Relativity.” When that special ingredient was needed, Duane could season up anything and make it tasty. But for himself—that’s where Duane doesn’t get the support from his fellow musicians, and it’s not because he wasn’t trying. Vocally, Duane just didn’t have the range to comfortably front a song for an entire album’s worth of work, as shown by “Steal Away,” a psychedelic wailing cut from a project that was mercifully better left abandoned. Duane redeems his poor singing on “Dimples,” but that’s on Volume II. And when it came to singing, outtakes from the first Allman Brothers release shows why Gregg was the natural choice for a song like “Trouble No More,” which shows up here in a version that was found in a tape on Momma A’s kitchen shelf. Duane’s stinging treble slide really gets in tasty comments, and it’s also worth noting that Gregg really threw his heart and throat into his delivery. The brothers, at age19 and 18 years old respectively, knew their roots. The same goes for “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’” and “Revival,” which can also be found on the bootleg CD Second Coming.

However, it was also with his extended family of friends that Duane found companionship (see Delaney Bramlett’s interview and comments in the Gritz archives), and DB and Friends had a party when King Curtis and Duane played in August 1971 in New York City at a radio-sponsored show. Showcasing the talents of their intimate close connection, the self-proclaimed “Three M’skeeters” added in Little Feat’s Sam Clayton and Kenny Gradney to party hearty on “12 Bar Blues.” Delaney does stand-up comedy bits, Curtis blows golden smoke rings, and Duane preens like a peacock with trademark slide guitar comic comments, chuckles, laughs, and quips that literally speak in a special language of his love for playing. And for all you roasted and toasted freaks, Bobby Weir and the rest of the Grateful Dead were thrilled to have Duane come onstage to join them in April 1971 (just after the legendary Fillmore Concerts shows) to fill in on second lead for “Sugar Magnolia.” The visual impact of so many wild and crazy personalities must have been worth the price of an acid tab. This song is worth hearing if only to have a second opinion as to who had more jazz influences: Phil Lesh or Berry Oakley.

The CD ends with two early versions of the Brothers themselves onstage in 1970, taking a spin on “Elizabeth Reed” (at the Warehouse in New Orleans, March 19^th) and “Stormy Monday” (at Swarthmore College, on May 2^nd). The recordings don’t do justice to the band’s performance, although they have been cleaned up from sonic distortion, hiss, and crackles, and that’s only because the Brothers hadn’t really explored the possibilities that these tunes would eventually become a year later on “Fillmore.” But it’s Duane’s commentaries about the audience (“There’s a pervert down here…if any of you young ladies would like to pick up on one…”) that would make a fan blush. This is not to ignore or overlook his lusty, leering introduction to Dickey’s epic composition: “I’ve Got Peanut Butter Caught In My Pubic Hair…Crunchy Peanut Butter!” What else can you do when the leader of your band has the cojones--and talent--(and love as a leader from his mates)--to make Eric Clapton ask for guitar lick ideas and support on a masterpiece compilation like Layla and Other Love Songs?

On side two, though, is when Duane really shows why he was the unparalleled master of both slide and lead in a style that continues to be learned today. “Statesboro Blues” and “Whipping Post” (from a 4^th of July, 1970 show) are as colorfully artistic as the liquid light displays that the band used, and even in a shorter version, the latter is still breath-taking and loaded with opportunities. But come on back to the Warehouse in September 1971, with a fated few short weeks of time left in that remarkable life, when Duane blazed like a comet on “Blue Sky” and “Dreams.” The recording quality is lacking, but they are the two most vital songs on the package. On the former, Berry finds his wings behind Duane’s songbird-in-spring outpouring, following his and Dickey’s lead notes like a trio of soaring eagles. This takes the studio version to a magical realm that only the Allmans could have imagined in their creative capacities.

It is on the latter song, though, where Duane’s abstract jazz themes traveled to new dimensions. In his solos on previous recordings, he always floated as effortlessly as the out-of-body night trips we have of flying, but on this recording, he dove to the bottom of the deepest ocean to prepare for his ascent. If you want to track it on the sonar scope, the missile he fired broke the surface with that incredible liquid bronze fuel-powered sound on slide approximately 12 minutes into the song.

Duane must have been as hard to control offstage as he was daring in concert, so Dave Herman (host of the WPLJ-FM show in August) of WABC-FM in New York had to verbally wrestle with his guest’s quicksilver outbursts that scurried like the surface of a pond with water bugs. The closest man I can think of as a similar uncontrolled terror to interview must have been the late Keith Moon. I’ll argue with my credentials as a middle/elementary schoolteacher that Duane was as hyperactive as any student I ever tried to control—and we label ‘em as ADHD these days. That doesn’t take away from the potential and enthusiasm that goes with that—and I’m an acknowledged candidate for that behavior label, too, as friends can testify. But coming in drunk on Jack Daniels didn’t make Duane any less inhibited--if anything, he was ready to raise holy hell, and there was nothing holding him back.

This also included an endorsement to the audience to take off their clothes, which Duane cheerfully detailed in testimony for album covers, his views on the raw seething power of Dickey Betts as an unheralded musician, insights on the making of “Layla,” and nearly blurting out the private phone number for friend Johnny Sandlin. Oh, and he also encouraged a phone-in caller to meet him (obviously a female) for a potential X-rated rendezvous: “Say any dirty words you want…10:00 at your hotel…I’ll bring the whips and masks!” Dallas Taylor, drummer for Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, also present at the taping, must have been ready to dive for the fire escape to reach safety, as Duane was wired and ready to explode. To close the CD, Duane and his beloved band are back at the Fillmore for his gorgeous brief solo ending on the Eat A Peach and Concerts CDs, as “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” gathers in the flock to safety. This song in its entirety (“Mountain Jam”) would be my vote for the last music I would wish to hear in my final moments on Earth, as it is a magnum opus of jazz, rock, blues, and gospel, built around a pop ballad.

As he was founder and inspirational father of the Allman Brothers Band, consider here that Duane inaugurated what I call the Allman Cousins (Berry, Scott Boyer, Tommy Talton, Pete Carr, Paul Hornsby, and Johnny Sandlin). They were more than just an extended family group, because they had been making music with him through so many precious moments, and deserve honoring their own category. Delaney Bramlett told me about how Duane and King Curtis and he were so closely bonded; I also saw fellow Domino Bobby Whitlock moved to tears when he finally viewed the photos of Duane’s gravesite. There is no denying that many men and women still grieve for their long-gone friend’s presence and spirit, and the years will continue to fall aside. As new generations of musicians and audiences explore the archives, and they will surely find themselves captivated by Duane’s extensive collaborations. With luck and personal negotiation, more material may yet surface. It would certainly be his way of spreading the joy of the music he loved, and in turn, our ways of giving it back. God bless you, Duane, for making it sound so beautiful and magnificent. Dedicated to a Brother.