Goodbye, Allman Brothers

October 28, 2014 • 5:58 pm

One of the best bands in rock history, and the greatest “southern rock” group ever, is playing its last gig tonight at the Beacon Theater in New York City. Although individual members of the band may continue to play (I find it hard to imagine that Greg Allman will ever hang it up, for what would he do?), the group, as presently constituted and named as The Allman Brothers, will cease to exist at the end of this evening.  As CBS News reports (see the video at the link, too), guitarist Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes (good substitutes for the original members, though Dickey Betts and Duane Allman were irreplaceable) are leaving, and that’s all she wrote.

They’ve been playing for 45 years, and have managed, despite breakups, drugs, alcohol, deaths, imprisonment, and other impediments, to maintain a smoking band going for nearly half a century. I can’t think of another group that comes close, though the Rolling Stones (never a favorite of mine) still put on a creditable show.

So long, and thanks for all the songs. Let’s remember them like this:

or this:

or this, the original group:

40 thoughts on “Goodbye, Allman Brothers”

  3. Not quite my style – especially when they veer more toward the pop charts – but “Whipping Post” from their Filmore East live album has got to be some of the best twenty minutes in rock history.

    1. Agreed. “Whipping Post” is a great song and the opening riff is incredible. George Hrab, the voice of the “Geologic” podcast, told an interesting story about the song but sadly I can’t find the specific podcast. One of my favorite albums as a teenager was “Eat a Peach” (which doesn’t contain “Whipping Post” but is the album that turned me onto “The Allman Brothers”).

    2. I agree as well. That’s rock as it should be, in my opinion of course. There is a ton of new, fresh rock out there right now reminiscent and derivative of the great rock of the seventies, but it’s not overly popular so isn’t well known outside of small circles.

  5. My lone shout follows a Duane Allman lick in the song Stormy Monday, on the Fillmore album. I wasn’t the yelling and screaming type, but I knew they were recording so I sent a little encouragement Duane’s way.

    It was my little contribution to the best live album ever!

  6. Many thanks Jerry. Caught all three with
    a shot of Hennesy. A peak experience. Tomorrow will try it with Wild Turkey.

  7. Or when they start dying of “natural causes” rather than accidents or too much drugs & alcohol. Jack Bruce was about a month older than my mother (who was exactly a year younger than Paul McCartney). She died last February at age 70 of various ailments, including liver disease, which also killed Bruce a few days ago. Still too young but then they had a bit over 46 more years than Duane got. He accomplished a lot in the short time he had.

    1. …or when their music is played on nostalgia radio stations and accompanied by phrases such as, “blast from the past,” or, “golden oldie,” or, “banner year.”

      Or, even worse, in elevators….

      b&

      2. Yep…Recently entered an elevator to hear Lou’s “Walk On the Wild Side”…sad but awesome.

  8. ‘Jessica’ has to be one of the all time best blues rock instrumentals ever. I wonder how many people don’t realise it was an Allman Bros standard and look on it as just the theme music to ‘Top Gear’.

  9. Eat a Peach is one of the greatest albums of all time in my book. Duane, unfortunately, was too central to the band. They were never as good after his death.

  10. And hey, how about something for Jack Bruce? Everybody in the world played snippets of “White Room” and “Sunshine of Your Love”, but I would have liked to have heard something from “Harmony Row”. Now that was a great album.

    1. My favorite Cream, and very high ranking period in the genre of music in general, in my opinion, is Tales of Brave Ulysses.

      I recently introduced my children to it. I haven’t quite got them to understand how epic it is. I’ll have to work on that.

  11. Mention of the Stones – who would have thought, back in the day, that any of them would live past 30? Recipe for a long life? – sex, drugs and rock & roll. 😉

  13. The Allman Bros band, like the Stones, are at their best when in the strongly blues side of their repertoire.

    [The Stones live recording from the 80s with Muddy Waters, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy has got to be one of their best moments]

        1. Thanks Jay! I must have at least 15 Stones albums, but not that one. Amazon just got $15 more of my money for the DVD/CD combo.

        2. Love You Live is another favorite album of mine, recorded in Toronto at the El Mocambo shortly after I moved here ( late 70s). It was one of those surprise appearances which I unfortunately missed, despite dancing once or twice a week with a West Indian/African dance group right upstairs from the El Mo:-(

  14. Santana spring to mind. They’ve been around at least as long, still sell well and have never stopped touring.

  15. All good stuff, Allman Brothers, Rolling Stones, Santana.

    I think highly of the Stones, but I must say that the one time I saw them live, it was in the early 80’s, I was really disappointed. Mostly it was MJ’s vocals that fell flat. They were pretty awful.

    Sometimes you catch a good show, sometimes you don’t. Aerosmith had a reputation for being awful, or great, depending on level of drugs and how they were getting along. When I saw them, also in the early 80s, they were supposedly on the mend. Whatever the case may have been they were very good that night, even the vocals.

    Never caught the Allman Brothers, but would have loved to. I have many regrets about missed concerts.

  16. In high school, there was a special reading “laboratory” I used to hang out in because the teacher was so cool. She had a poster of a bunch of guys wearing nothing but fig leaves and standing in the woods and sitting in streams. I had never seen anything like it even in the psychedelic/counterculture/hippie milieu of the time and was delighted by this gutsy and unabashed display of male bodies. Then I started listening to them–wow. The best things they did were re-workings of songs by Elmore James and other blues musicians. The genius of the Allmans was that they took these already great songs and added so much to them. Their versions of “Statesboro Blues,” “One Way Out,” and “Done Somebody Wrong” have kept their power over the last forty-some years.

  17. There don’t seem to be very many Rush fans among the WEIT readership. They’ve been together with their current line-up for 40 years, are still touring and performing to the largest crowds of their career, and doing it behind new music and not just trading on nostalgia.

    2. Not a huge fan of Rush’s music, but some of the members have a lot of class.
      Fan to Neil Peart: “How does it feel to be the greatest rock drummer of all time?”
      Peart: “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Stewart Copeland.”

    3. Another here. It may be premature for such a sad verdict. Rush is epic, and has withstood the test of time. For example even, or especially, Working Man off of their first album. H-o-l-y SHIT! It is everything necessary to define epic, mind altering, Heavy Metal, Night Flight, Rock N Roll.

      Never done acid, but I bet that song would really enhance such an experience.

  18. Loved the Allmans. But Derek Trucks without them is still very much still worth seeing, especially when he plays with his wife, the blues singer Susan Tedeschi (of whom I’ve also long been a fan, since she was opening for Buddy Guy and so on).

    1. Love Susan Tedeschi. She a actually played at a street fair here in Oakville ( outside Toronto) a few years ago. Had no idea she was married to one of the Allman’s players.

        1. My bf thinks that maybe he was the guy playing with her lo these 7 or so years ago. We just kind of stumbled on them playing outside the library, and I think they said the guy was her husband, but we somehow didn’t catch his name. Cool!

  20. The spouse’s favorite is Statesboro Blues, and he idolizes Dickey Betts. If the spouse bites the dust before me, I’m playing Statesboro Blues nonstop at his funeral.

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