The Allman Brothers Band (album)
The Allman Brothers Band | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | November 4, 1969 | |||
Recorded | August 3–12, 1969 | |||
Studio | Atlantic, New York City | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 33:18 | |||
Label | Atco, Capricorn | |||
Producer | Adrian Barber | |||
The Allman Brothers Band chronology | ||||
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Singles from The Allman Brothers Band | ||||
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The Allman Brothers Band is the debut
The album was recorded and mixed in two weeks at Atlantic Studios in New York City. Much of its material was premiered live over the preceding months and combines blues, jazz and country music to varying degrees. It includes re-workings of "Trouble No More" and "Don't Want You No More," as well as notable originals such as "Dreams", which highlighted the band's jazz influence, and "Whipping Post", which became a crowd favorite. Although the group was arranged to work with producer Tom Dowd (whose credits included Cream and John Coltrane), he was unavailable, and they instead recorded with house engineer Adrian Barber. The album's artwork was photographed in Macon and surrounding areas.
The record initially received a poor commercial response, charting in the lower levels of Billboard's Top 200 Pop Albums chart. Despite this, the album received critical acclaim from publications such as Rolling Stone, who called it "subtle, and honest, and moving." Following the band's increased fame in the early 1970s, this album and its follow-up, Idlewild South (1970), were repackaged into the compilation album Beginnings. Owing to the band's dislike of Barber's original mix, their debut album was remixed by Tom Dowd. In 1973, Beginnings was certified gold for sales of 500,000 copies, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.[1]
In 2016 a Deluxe version of the album was released by Mercury Records that contained the "Original Stereo Mix by Adrian Barber" from 1969 and the "Beginnings" Stereo Mix by Tom Dowd from 1973.
Background
The Allman Brothers Band was formed in March 1969, during large jam sessions with various musicians in
After the duo moved to Jacksonville, they began to put together large jam sessions.[7] Dickey Betts had played in Oakley's previous band, the Second Coming, and became the group's second lead guitarist, while Butch Trucks, with whom Duane and Gregg had cut a demo less than a year prior, fulfilled the role of the second drummer.[8] The Second Coming's Reese Wynans played keyboards, and Duane, Oakley and Betts all shared vocal duties.[8] The unnamed group began to perform free shows in Willow Branch Park in Jacksonville, with an ever-changing, rotating cast of musicians.[9] Duane felt strongly that his brother should be the vocalist of the new group (which effectively eliminated Wynans' position, as Gregg also played keyboards).[10] Gregg accepted the invitation and entered rehearsal on March 26, 1969, when the group was rehearsing "Trouble No More" by Muddy Waters.[11] Although initially intimidated by the musicians, Gregg was pressured by Duane "into singing [his] guts out."[12] Four days later, the group made their début at the Jacksonville Armory.[12] Although many names were suggested including Beelzebub, the six-piece eventually decided on the Allman Brothers Band.[13]
The group moved to Macon, Georgia by May 1, where Walden was establishing Capricorn Records.[14] The band performed locally, as well as eighty miles north in Atlanta's Piedmont Park, and practiced at the newly minted Capricorn nearly every day.[15] The group forged a strong brotherhood, spending countless hours rehearsing, consuming psychedelic drugs, and hanging out in Rose Hill Cemetery, where they would write songs.[16] Their first performances outside the South came on May 30 and 31 in Boston, opening for the Velvet Underground.[16] In need of more material, the group remade old blues numbers like "Trouble No More" and "One Way Out", in addition to improvised jams such as "Mountain Jam."[17] Gregg, who had struggled to write in the past, became the band's sole songwriter, composing songs such as "Whipping Post" and "Black-Hearted Woman."[18] Much of the material collected on The Allman Brothers Band was written between May and August of 1969, and premiered live. According to Johanson, the group gauged crowd reaction to the numbers and adjusted the songs accordingly.[19] "Before we went into the studio, we had a very clear idea of what we were all trying to do musically and that it was unique, totally different from anything else that anyone was playing," said Betts. "From the earliest rehearsals, we all had the same mindset."[20]
Recording and production
The whole experience of making the first album was absolutely wonderful. I felt comfortable in the studio, having recorded a bunch before, as did we all, and the music was great. We had played these songs so much and we were all just busting to get them down on record.
Butch Trucks, 2014[19]
The band set off from Macon for New York City in August 1969, and faced setbacks along the way, such as their equipment truck breaking down in South Carolina.[21] In addition, they had arranged to work with Cream producer Tom Dowd, who was unavailable; Atlantic Records house engineer Adrian Barber recorded the sessions instead, and was credited as producer.[21] Recalled Dowd, "I was supposed to have done the first album with the band up in New York, but some way or other I got detoured. Jerry Wexler made a deal to keep them in the studio for three or four days when they were supposed to be with me."[22] The band had no commercial success in mind, having had troublesome experiences individually in the past with producers and labels that pushed for radio hits. The band felt that with time they would develop a small, devoted following and be strong enough to collect $3,000–$4,000 per night.[20]
The Allman Brothers Band was recorded and mixed in two weeks, and according to biographer Alan Paul, "virtually no outtakes exist from the sessions."
On August 5, the band cut "Black Hearted Woman" and "Trouble No More", and the group completed "Whipping Post" after another day off on August 7 (it took the entirety of that day's session to complete the recording, despite the fact that they had performed the number countless times).[25][21] The next day, the band attempted to record "Statesboro Blues," which was the song that influenced Duane Allman to begin slide playing. Unable to achieve the same energy as it would performed live, the band scrapped the recording and session for the day.[25] "Every Hungry Woman" was recorded on August 11, and their last day in the studio on Tuesday, August 12, produced a final version of "Dreams".[25] Johanson remembered the process as only taking four days; "We went in there, played our asses off, and that was it; we were done in four days and they spent the rest of the time mixing," said Johanson.[19]
Although Butch Trucks recalls the entire ensemble as comfortable with studio recording,[19] another source claims that Johanson, Betts and Oakley were unfamiliar with studio recording, but nevertheless not intimidated.[19] "They were out of their element in New York, hustled by a chap with an English accent," said Dowd of Barber. He spoke of Barber's direction as "perhaps intimidating, or push-push, shove-shove. 'Do what the guy says and let’s get out of here.'"[24] "Dreams", which later gained regard among band members as the high point of the record, was the only song in which the group got stuck, due to Duane Allman's displeasure with his guitar solo. The performance captured on record came when Duane instructed the other members to turn off all the lights in the studio after the day's session, and sat in a corner beside his amp and baffle.[26] Allman played slide guitar (which was not employed in previous attempts) and improvised the overdubbed performance, bringing all the band members to tears. "It was unbelievable," recalled Trucks. "It was just magic. It’s always been that the greatest music we played was from out of nowhere, that it wasn’t practiced, planned, or discussed."[26]
During their tenure in New York, the group made their debut over three non-consecutive nights at Ungano's in
Composition
The songs on the album were largely arranged after Gregg Allman joined the band in
The album opens with an instrumental, a cover of
Among the most changed were two songs that would become the basis for two of the Allman Brothers' most famed epic concert numbers: "Dreams" and "
The final song on the record, "Whipping Post," was written shortly after Allman returned to Jacksonville.
Gregg Allman's lyrical contributions to the band's debut album have been called "remarkably mature lyrical conceptions for such a young man, expertly executed in a minimalist, almost haiku style."[34] Allman's inspiration came from his time in Los Angeles as a part of Hour Glass, "getting fucked by different land sharks in the business," experiencing great frustration among fierce competition.[34] The traditional blues songs were, likewise, regarded as "songs that were so good they couldn’t be left off the album."[34] On the writing of the record, Allman wrote in his memoir My Cross to Bear, "I wrote most of that whole first record in that one week. I had total peace of mind. L.A. and all its changes didn’t even cross my mind. I felt like I was starting all over, which I was."[36] Most of the songs on the album were written at Rose Hill Cemetery.[37]
Artwork
The cover for the album was taken by photographer Stephen Paley. Paley had gotten to know Duane Allman during photo shoots for Atlantic.[38] Paley stayed for "about a week" in Macon with the band, partying with the group.[38] They approached any areas about the town that appeared photogenic, such as "fields, old houses, railroad tracks, [and] the cemetery."[38] The front album cover photo was taken at the entrance of the College House (now owned by Mercer University) next door at 315 College Street. The back cover photo of the album was taken at the Bond Tomb at Rose Hill Cemetery, located at 1091 Riverside Drive in Macon.[37]
The gatefold cover of the
Paley later said of the cover shoot, "I never liked a band more. I was one of them. It was like being a rock star. I hung out with a lot of rock stars but no one ever did that to the same extent. There was just an ease to the whole thing. They really were the kindest, most fun band I ever worked with."[38]
Release and reception
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [44] |
The Allman Brothers Band was released in November 1969 through Atco and Capricorn Records.[31] Atco was a subsidiary label of Atlantic Records, and Walden had not even created a logo for Capricorn Records; instead, the LP featured an Atco label with a "barely noticeable" line reading "Capricorn Records Series."[45] The record received a poor commercial response, selling fewer than 35,000 copies upon initial release.[46] Executives suggested to Walden that he relocate the band to New York or Los Angeles to "acclimate" them to the industry. "They wanted us to act "like a rock band" and we just told them to fuck themselves," remembered Trucks.[47] For their part, the members of the band remained optimistic, electing to stay in the South. "Everyone told us we’d fall by the wayside down there," said Gregg Allman,[47] but the collaboration between the band and Capricorn Records "transformed Macon from this sleepy little town into a very hip, wild, and crazy place filled with bikers and rockers."[48]
The band played shows along the
Track listing
All songs written by Gregg Allman, except where noted.
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
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1. | "Don't Want You No More" | Spencer Davis, Eddie Hardin | 2:25 |
2. | "It's Not My Cross to Bear" | 5:02 | |
3. | "Black Hearted Woman" | 5:08 | |
4. | "Trouble No More" | Muddy Waters | 3:45 |
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "Every Hungry Woman" | 4:13 |
2. | "Dreams" | 7:18 |
3. | "Whipping Post" | 5:17 |
Personnel
All credits adapted from liner notes.[53]
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Charts
Chart (1969) | Peak position |
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US Billboard 200[54] | 188 |
Notes
- ^ "American certifications – Allman Brothers Band". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 6.
- ^ a b Paul 2014, p. 15.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 9.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 11.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 13.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 19.
- ^ a b Paul 2014, p. 17.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 24.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 25.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 28.
- ^ a b Paul 2014, p. 29.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 30.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 32.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 36.
- ^ a b Paul 2014, p. 46.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 41.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 42.
- ^ a b c d e f g Paul 2014, p. 52.
- ^ a b Freeman 1996, p. 58.
- ^ a b c d e f Paul 2014, p. 51.
- ^ a b Poe 2008, p. 124.
- ^ a b c Allman & Light 2012, p. 139.
- ^ a b Poe 2008, p. 126.
- ^ a b c d e f Poe 2008, p. 125.
- ^ a b Paul 2014, p. 53.
- ^ a b Allman & Light 2012, p. 140.
- ^ a b c d Paul 2014, p. 56.
- ^ a b Paul 2014, p. 60.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 61.
- ^ a b c Freeman 1996, p. 59.
- ^ a b c d e Freeman 1996, p. 60.
- ^ Allman & Light 2012, p. 111.
- ^ a b c d Paul 2014, p. 55.
- ^ a b Freeman 1996, p. 61.
- ^ Allman & Light 2012, p. 113.
- ^ a b Allman & Light 2012, p. 127.
- ^ a b c d e f Paul 2014, p. 58.
- ^ a b Poe 2008, p. 128.
- ^ a b c Paul 2014, p. 59.
- AllMusic
- ^ Bangs, Lester (21 February 1970). "Records". Rolling Stone. No. 52. San Francisco. p. 52. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
- ^ The Allman Brothers Band Album Guide, Rolling Stone
- ISBN 978-0195313734.
- ^ Poe 2008, p. 129.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 64.
- ^ a b Paul 2014, p. 65.
- ^ Paul 2014, p. 66.
- ^ a b c Poe 2008, p. 137.
- ^ a b Poe 2008, p. 138.
- ISSN 0035-791X.
- Allmusic. Retrieved March 23, 2014.
- ^ The Allman Brothers Band (liner notes). The Allman Brothers Band. US: Atco. 1969. SD 33-308.
{{cite AV media notes}}
: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link) - ^ "The Allman Brothers Band Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved January 22, 2024.
References
- Paul, Alan (2014). One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1250040497.
- Freeman, Scott (1996). Midnight Riders: The Story of the Allman Brothers Band. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0316294522.
- Poe, Randy (2008). Skydog: The Duane Allman Story. Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-0879309398.
- Allman, Gregg; Light, Alan (2012). My Cross to Bear. William Morrow. ISBN 978-0062112033.