The Allman Brothers Band - Beginnings (Classic Bluesrock US 1973)

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Beginnings is a 1973 reissue of the Allman Brothers Band's first two albums, The Allman Brothers Band and Idlewild South, made to capitalize on the band's popularity since those records had first come out. Beginnings also includes extensive liner notes by writer Jean-Charles Costa that gave many fans their first coherent view of the band's history, as well as useful guidelines for how to tell Duane Allman's guitar parts from Dickey Betts'. The front cover depicts them at one of their many famous performances at the Fillmore East.

The Allman Brothers Band (1969 album):
This might be the best debut album ever delivered by an American blues band, a bold, powerful, hard-edged, soulful essay in electric blues with a native Southern ambience. Some lingering elements of the psychedelic era then drawing to a close can be found in "Dreams," along with the template for the group's on-stage workouts with "Whipping Post," and a solid cover of Muddy Waters' "Trouble No More." There isn't a bad song here, and only the fact that the group did even better the next time out keeps this from getting the highest possible rating. The Allman Brothers Band, released in 1969, was the debut album of Southern rock group, The Allman Brothers Band.

The album sold poorly outside of Southern United States, reaching #188 on the Billboard charts. "Dreams" and "Whipping Post" would become the basis for two of The Allman Brothers' most famed epic concert numbers.

In April 1969 the Allman Brothers Band moved from Jacksonville, Florida to Macon, Georgia. They first rented a house at 309 College Street. The front album cover photo was taken at the entrance of the College House (now owned by Mercer University) right 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.

The song "Whipping Post" is part of the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list.

Idlewild South (1970 Album):
Idlewild South is the second album of The Allman Brothers Band, released in 1970.

Unlike the band's self-titled debut album, Idlewild South enjoyed some popular success as well as critical enthusiasm, mostly due to what Rolling Stone magazine called "briefer, tighter, less 'heavy' numbers" which were more radio-friendly. The two most prominent of these were "Midnight Rider" and "Revival", the latter of which, in conjunction with the instrumental "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed", foreshadowed the impact of Dickey Betts' songwriting ability upon the band.

The album title stemmed from the band's nickname for a farmhouse it rented in Georgia during the recording, the busy comings and goings at which reminded them of New York City's Idlewild Airport.

"Midnight Rider" has been covered by many artists, including Gregg Allman on his solo album Laid Back. "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" would go on to become iconic, along with "Whipping Post", as one of the band's signature concert jams.

The best studio album in the group's history, electric blues with an acoustic texture, virtuoso lead, slide, and organ playing, and a killer selection of songs, including "Midnight Rider," "Revival," "Don't Keep Me Wonderin'," and "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" in its embryonic studio version, which is pretty impressive even at a mere six minutes and change. They also do the best white cover of Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man" anyone's ever likely to hear.

Biography:
The Allman Brothers Band is an American rock/blues band once based in Macon, Georgia. The band was formed in Daytona Beach, Florida, in 1969 by brothers Duane Allman (slide guitar and lead guitar) and Gregg Allman (vocals, organ, songwriting), plus Dickey Betts (lead guitar, vocals, songwriting), Berry Oakley (bass guitar), Butch Trucks (drums), and Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson (drums).[1] While the band has been called the principal architects of Southern rock, they also incorporate elements of blues, jazz, and country music, and their live shows have jam band-style improvisation and instrumentals.

The band achieved its artistic and commercial breakthrough in 1971 with the release of At Fillmore East, featuring extended renderings of their songs "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and "Whipping Post" and often[when?] considered one of the best live albums ever made.

The group was formed in Macon, GA, and consisted of Duane and Gregg Allman, Dickey Betts, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks, and Jai Johanny Johanson. Brothers Duane and Gregg Allman grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida, and had been playing music publicly since the early 1960s. They formed a garage band called the Escorts in 1963, which evolved into the Allman Joys in 1965. From there the brothers formed Hour Glass and moved to Los Angeles. The Hour Glass released two failed albums on Liberty Records in 1967 and 1968. They were all released from the contract except Gregg, who Liberty thought might have some commercial potential. 

Gregg and Duane had previously met Butch Trucks and his band The 31st of February while touring as the Allman Joys, and decided to record an album with them in September 1968, shortly after the breakup of Hour Glass. This album was eventually released as Duane & Greg Allman on the Bold Records label in 1972. Duane Allman played on Wilson Pickett's hit version of "Hey Jude" and became the primary session guitarist for FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, recording with Aretha Franklin, King Curtis, Percy Sledge, and others. Allman started jamming with Dickey Betts, Butch Trucks and Berry Oakley in Jacksonville. Eddie Hinton, with whom Duane Allman had played in Muscle Shoals, was considered to play guitar, but Hinton refused in order to join the Muscle Shoals studio band. Duane brought in Jaimoe, a drummer he had played with in the past.

Gregg was in Los Angeles, fulfilling the Hour Glass contract with Liberty Records. He was summoned back to Jacksonville.

The Allman Brothers Band played numerous shows in the South before releasing their debut album, The Allman Brothers Band in 1969 to critical acclaim. It featured future jam standards "Whipping Post" and a 12/8 time slide guitar tour de force "Dreams". A cult following began to build.

Poster 1973

Idlewild South was released in 1970 to critical success and improved sales. Produced by Tom Dowd it featured the upbeat "Revival" and the moody-but-resolute "Midnight Rider". After completing the Idlewild South sessions Duane Allman joined Eric Clapton and his ad hoc Derek and the Dominos to record the classic Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.

The Allman Brothers' Cincinnati, Ohio concerts on April 4 & 5, 1970 were recorded and later released (in 1991) as Live at Ludlow Garage. This album features a 44-minute version of "Mountain Jam," which sounds different compared to the version of this song recorded at the Fillmore East one year later.

1971 saw the release of a live album, At Fillmore East, recorded on Friday and Saturday March 12 and March 13 of that year at the legendary rock venue the Fillmore East. The album was another huge hit. Rolling Stone listed At Fillmore East as number 49 on of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It showcased the band's mix of jazz, classical music, hard rock, and blues, with arrangements propelled by Duane's and Betts' dual lead guitars, Oakley's long, melodic "third guitar" bass runs, the rhythm section's pervasively percussive yet dynamically flexible foundation, and Gregg Allman's gritty Ray Charles-like vocals and piano/organ play which all completed the band's wall of sound. The rendering of Blind Willie McTell's "Statesboro Blues" was a straight-ahead opener, the powerful "Whipping Post" (with its famous 11/4 bass opening) became the standard for an epic jam that never lost interest, while the ethereal-to-furious "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" invited comparisons to John Coltrane and Miles Davis.

The Allman Brothers were the last act to play the Fillmore East before it closed in June 1971. The final shows achieved legendary status, partly due to bands literally playing all night; in 2005 Gregg Allman would relate how the jamming musicians lost track of time, not realizing it was dawn until the side doors of the Fillmore were opened and the morning light poured in.

The band continued to tour; decades later, a special-order recording of one of their final concerts in this lineup, S.U.N.Y. at Stonybrook: Stonybrook, NY 9/19/71, would be released. It reveals that Duane Allman's slide guitar playing on "Dreams" and other songs was touching the farthest reaches of both that instrument and his imagination.

Duane Allman died not long after the Fillmore East album was certified gold, killed in a motorcycle accident on October 29, 1971 in Macon, Georgia, The popular version of the accident was that he collided with the rear of a flatbed truck that had turned in front of him. However it has been revealed in recent years that the truck had turned before Allman was in view due to the road being on a slope. When Duane topped the crest of the hill it can be only assumed that he simply was going to swerve behind the truck. It is well known that Duane always broke speed limits on his motorcycle[citation needed] and on this day it would cost him his life. As he neared the truck and started the swerve the road dipped sharply and as he rode up out of the dip the motorcycle became airborne causing Duane to fly off the bike and land on the pavement. The motorcycle then landed on him with both sliding into a curb. Duane was taken to a hospital but never regained consciousness. He died from massive internal injuries. The group decided to carry on. The album continued to gain FM radio airplay, with stations even playing 13-minute and 23-minute selections.

Poster 1973

Dickey Betts filled Duane's former role in completing the last album Duane participated in, Eat a Peach, released in February 1972. The album was often softer ("Blue Sky", "Little Martha") and wistful in tone ("Melissa", "Ain't Wastin' Time No More"), capped by the 34-minute "Mountain Jam" reverie taken from the Fillmore East concerts. Writer Greil Marcus described parts of Eat a Peach as an "after-the-rain celebration... ageless, seamless... front-porch music stolen from the utopia of shared southern memory."

The group played some concerts as a five-man band, then decided to add Chuck Leavell, a pianist, to gain another lead instrument but without, however, directly replacing Duane. This new configuration debuted on November 2, 1972, on ABC's In Concert late-night television program.

Days later, on November 11, 1972, Berry Oakley died from head injuries he received in another motorcycle accident near Napier Avenue and Inverness Street, only three blocks from the site of Duane's accident the previous year. The common retelling that it was at exactly the same site as Duane's death is incorrect, as is the legend that the Eat a Peach album is named for what was being carried by the truck involved in Allman's accident. Both Duane and Berry were 24 years old, yet another coincidence.

Oakley was replaced by Lamar Williams at the end of 1972, in time to finish the next album, Brothers and Sisters, released in August 1973.

Dickey Betts was becoming the group's unofficial leader. Brothers and Sisters included the group's best known hits, "Ramblin' Man" and "Jessica", both written by Betts; the former reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 as a single, while the latter was a seven-minute instrumental hit.

The Allman Brothers Band had become one of the top concert draws in the country. Probably their most celebrated performance of the era took place on July 28, 1973 at the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen outside Watkins Glen, New York, in a joint appearance with The Grateful Dead and The Band. An estimated 600,000 people made it to the racetrack where this massive outdoor festival took place.

In the wake of the Allman Brothers Band's success, many other Southern rock groups rose to prominence, including the Marshall Tucker Band (who played as the Allman Brothers Band's opening act for many shows on their 1973 tour) and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Despite this success, Butch Trucks recalls of the time that, “celebrity is the worse thing that ever happened to the Allman Brothers." In an interview, Trucks recalled that after Allman’s death in 1971, the band “got away from the music," producing “country-fried hit records,” which created egos that “ripped [them] all apart.” 

Another peak of the Allmans' success came on New Year's Eve, 1973, when promoter Bill Graham arranged for a nationwide radio broadcast of their concert from San Francisco's Cow Palace. New arrangements of familiar tunes such as "You Don't Love Me" went out over the airwaves, as the show stretched out over three sets, with Boz Scaggs sitting in, along with Grateful Dead members Jerry Garcia and Bill Kreutzmann (Allmans and Grateful Dead members guested at each other's shows multiple times in the early 1970s).

Personality conflicts started to tear the band apart, however. Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts both began solo careers, while Allman married Cher, separated quickly, reconciled, and eventually separated again, all in a storm of publicity; drug abuse took its toll on the entire band. Musically, Betts and Leavell were pulling in opposite directions, with Allman trying to mediate.

The tension resulted in the uneven Win, Lose or Draw (1975), with some members not participating on all tracks or doing so only from afar. The few stand-out tracks included a stop-start take on Muddy Waters' "Can't Lose What You Never Had", Betts' instrumental "High Falls", and Allman's Jackson Browne-influenced title song.

Poster 1970

The band managed to limp along until 1976, when Gregg Allman was arrested on federal drug charges and agreed to testify against a friend and tour manager and bodyguard for the band, John "Scooter" Herring. Leavell, Johanson, and Williams formed Sea Level, while Betts worked on his solo career. All four swore that they would never work with Allman again.

Meanwhile, Capricorn Records released a compilation album, The Road Goes On Forever, and a poorly received live album, Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas. Neither sold very well.

The group reformed in 1978 and released the strong Enlightened Rogues (1979). It featured new members Dan Toler (guitar) and David Goldflies (bass), who replaced Leavell and Williams, both of whom concentrated on Sea Level instead. "Crazy Love" was a minor hit single, and the instrumental "Pegasus" got some airplay, but overall The Allman Brothers Band was no longer as popular as before, and financial woes plagued both the group and Capricorn Records, which collapsed in 1979. PolyGram took over the catalogue, and the Allman Brothers Band signed to Arista Records. The group released a pair of critically slammed albums, firing Jaimoe in the process, and then disbanded once again in early 1982.

Allman quickly formed the Gregg Allman Band with the Toler brothers Dan and David ("Frankie") (drums) in 1982 and began touring small venues and clubs. Betts, Leavell, Trucks and Goldflies formed the band Betts Hall Leavell Trucks (BHLT). Neither garnered attention from any record labels. BHLT would dissolve two years later.

The Allman Brothers Band reunited in 1986 for a pair of benefit concerts for promoter Bill Graham in New York and Macon. Allman, Betts, Trucks, Jaimoe, Leavell, and Dan Toler performed together but no subsequent reunion plans for the band were made. The following year, the Gregg Allman Band and the Dickey Betts Band co-headlined a theatre and club tour. After each band played a set of music, Betts, Allman and the Tolers performed a closing set of Allman Brothers music together.

In 1987, Epic Records signed both Allman and Betts to separate solo contracts. The Gregg Allman Band had a surprise FM hit single with the title track to the 1987 album I'm No Angel. Just Before the Bullets Fly quickly followed from Allman in 1988. The Dickey Betts Band, including Warren Haynes, was also formed during this time and released the album Pattern Disruptive in 1988. This series of collaboration among bandmembers and interest from a major label during the late 1980s laid the groundwork for the next era of Allman Brothers Band activity and success. [Wikipedia+ AMG]

Extra bonus inside folder: "The Allman Brothers Story" - Rolling Stone Magazine 1973 (Page 1-5)

The Allman Brothers Band (1969 album)
01."Don't Want You No More" (Spencer Davis, Edward Hardin) 
02."It's Not My Cross To Bear" (Gregg Allman) 
03."Black Hearted Woman" (Allman) 
04."Trouble No More" (McKinley Morganfield) 
05."Every Hungry Woman" (Allman) 
06."Dreams" (Allman) 
07."Whipping Post" (Allman)

The Allman Brothers Band - Idlewild South (1970 Album) 
08."Revival" (Dickey Betts) 
09."Don't Keep Me Wonderin'" (Allman) 
10."Midnight Rider" (Allman) 
11."In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" (Betts) 
12."Hoochie Coochie Man" (Willie Dixon) 
13."Please Call Home" (Allman) 
14."Leave My Blues At Home" (Allman) 

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