Aretha Franklin hooked up with Duane Allman and recorded this version at Muscle Shoals. It is Loose and funky as hell, and full of those incredible Aretha vocals I love, it sounds like good southern gospel. Duane Allman plays bottle guitar throughout like that guitar god that he is. Listen to it, heavenly is the best description!
2. Derek and the Dominoes/Eric Clapton with Duane Allman – Layla (studio outake)
Slowhand and Skydog together, what a match!
When asked about playing with Clapton, Allman said I played the Gibson parts and Eric played the fender parts. This studio outtake from the reissue in 2009 is even better than the iconic original.
3. Boz Scaggs with Duane Allman – Loan me a Dime
Boz Scagg’s self-titled album from 1969, Boz Scaggs (Atlantic SD-33-8239) which features Duane Allman on five tracks, including the amazing slow blues jam ”Loan Me A Dime.” On the video below, you can hear Allman exchanging riffs with Larry Knechtel’s organ. Here it is, a twelve minute blues lament:
This song portrays the best of both Duane and Boz.It is a shame we don’t have anyone making music like this anymore.Good music is never out of style. Duane’s work is incredible!
“I will take love wherever I find it and offer it to everyone who will take it.., seek knowledge from those wiser than me and try to teach those who wish to learn from me.”
― Duane Allman
Nice tribute:
From Wikipedia:
Birth name
Howard Duane Allman
Also known as
Skydog
Born
November 20, 1946
Nashville, Tennessee
Died
October 29, 1971 (aged 24)
Macon, Georgia
Genres
Southern rock, blues, blues-rock, soul, rock, jazz
Occupations
Musician, songwriter
Instruments
Guitar, vocals
Years active
1961–1971
Labels
Mercury, Capricorn
Associated acts
The Hour Glass, Wilson Pickett,The Allman Brothers Band,Derek and the Dominos, Aretha Franklin, Herbie Mann, Gregg Allman, The Allman Joys
Website
AllmanBrothersBand.com
Howard Duane Allman (November 20, 1946 – October 29, 1971) was an American guitarist, session musician and the primary leader and co-founder of the The Allman Brothers Band, until his death in a motorcycle accident in 1971 at the age of 24.
The Allman Brothers Band was formed in 1969 and, unusual for the time, based in the Southeastern United States. In the early 1970s the band was hugely successful. Duane is best remembered for his brief but influential tenure in the band, and in particular for his expressive slide guitar playing and inventive improvisational skills. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Allman at #2 in their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, second only to Jimi Hendrix and in 2011 he was ranked #9.His tone (achieved with a Gibson Les Paul and two 50-watt bass Marshall amplifiers) was named one of the greatest guitar tones of all time by Guitar Player.
Allman Brothers – Whipping Post, 9/23/70:
A sought-after session musician both before and during his tenure with the band, Duane Allman performed with such established stars as King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Herbie Mann. He also contributed heavily to the 1970 album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos.
Duane Allman’s skills as a guitarist were complemented by personal qualities such as his intensity, drive and ability to draw the best out of others in making music.He is still referred to by his nickname “Skydog”.
Allman Brothers – In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, 9/23/70:
From rollingstone.com (100 greatest guitarists):
If the late Duane Allman had done nothing but session work, he would still be on this list. His contributions on lead and slide guitar to dozens of records as fine and as varied as Wilson Pickett’s down-home ’69 cover of “Hey Jude” and Eric Clapton’s 1970 masterpiece with Derek and the Dominos, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, constitute an astounding body of work. But Allman also transformed the poetry of jamming with the Allman Brothers Band, the group he founded in 1969 with his younger brother, singer-organist Gregg. Duane applied the same black soul and rebel fire he displayed as a sideman to the Allmans’ extended investigations of Muddy Waters and Blind Willie McTell covers and to his psychedelic-jazz interplay with second guitarist Dickey Betts in live showpieces such as “Whipping Post.” Although Duane and Gregg had played in bands together since 1960, Duane did not learn to play slide until shortly before the start of the Allmans. In his only Rolling Stone interview, in early’ 71, Duane said that the first song he tried to conquer was McTell’s “Statesboro Blues.” Allman’s blastoff licks in the recording that opens his band’s third album, At Fillmore East, show how far and fast he had come — and leave you wondering how much further he could have gone. In October 1971, eight months after the Fillmore East gigs, Allman died in a motorcycle accident in the band’s home base of Macon, Georgia. -> Read more: rollingstone.com
Album of the day:
Stepehen Thomas Erlwine (allmusic.com):
Whereas most great live rock albums are about energy, At Fillmore East is like a great live jazz session, where the pleasure comes from the musicians’ interaction and playing. The great thing about that is, the original album that brought the Allmans so much acclaim is as notable for its clever studio editing as it is for its performances. Producer Tom Dowd skillfully trimmed some of the performances down to relatively concise running time (edits later restored on the double-disc set The Fillmore Concerts), at times condensing several performances into one track. Far from being a sacrilege, this tactic helps present the Allmans in their best light, since even if the music isn’t necessarily concise (three tracks run over ten minutes, with two in the 20-minute range), it does showcase the group’s terrific instrumental interplay, letting each member (but particularly guitarist Duane and keyboardist/vocalist Gregg) shine. Even after the release of the unedited concerts, this original double album (single CD) remains the pinnacle of the Allmans and Southern rock at its most elastic, bluesy, and jazzy.
“I am not a preacher, but drugs killed a lot of great men.”
– Neil Young (liner notes Decade)
Danny Whitten died 18 November 1972, 40 years ago
Daniel Ray Whitten (May 8, 1943 – November 18, 1972) was an American musician and songwriter best known for his work with Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and for the song “I Don’t Want To Talk About It“, a hit for Rita Coolidge, Rod Stewart and Everything but the Girl.
Songwriter Neil Young, fresh from departing the Buffalo Springfield, with one album of his own under his belt, began jamming with the Rockets and expressed interest in recording with Whitten, Molina and Talbot. The trio agreed, so long as they were allowed to simultaneously continue on with The Rockets: Young acquiesced initially, but imposed a rehearsal schedule that made that an impossibility. At first dubbed “War Babies” by Young, they soon became known as Crazy Horse.
Nils Lofgren – Beggar’s Day (Eulogy for Danny Whitten):
Recording sessions led to Young’s second album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, credited as Neil Young with Crazy Horse, with Whitten on second guitar and vocals. Although his role was that of support, Whitten sang the album’s opening track “Cinnamon Girl” along with Young, and Whitten and Young played guitar on “Down by the River” and “Cowgirl in the Sand.” These tracks would influence the grunge movement of the 1990s, and all three songs would be counted among Young’s most memorable work, continuing to hold a place in his performance repertoire to this day.
As did so many other rock musicians in the late 1960s, Whitten began using heroin and quickly became addicted. Although he participated in the early stages of Young’s next solo effort, After the Gold Rush, Whitten and the rest of Crazy Horse were dismissed about halfway through the recording sessions, in part because of Whitten’s heavy drug use. Whitten performs on “Oh, Lonesome Me”, “I Believe in You”, and “When You Dance I Can Really Love”. Young wrote and recorded “The Needle and the Damage Done” during this time, with direct references to Whitten’s addiction and its role in the destruction of his talent.
Harold Eugene “Gene” Clark (November 17, 1944 – May 24, 1991) was an American singer-songwriter, and one of the founding members of the folk-rock group The Byrds. He did write some of The Byrds’ best songs, among them: “Feel A Whole Lot Better”, “Here Without You” and “Set You Free This Time”.
Backstage Pass 1979 with Chris Hillmann and Roger McGuinn, taken from the album, McGuinn, Clark & Hillman:
Gene Clark will always be remembered for his two years as a vocalist with the Byrds between 1964 and 1966 (+ a brief period in 1967 and one in 1973). A fine legacy to be sure, but he did so much more and it’s a shame that Clark’s work outside The Byrds is not more known ; he was a superb songwriter, one of the founding fathers of country-rock, and recorded a number of fine albums (with an impressive array of collaborators) whose quality far outstripped their modest sales figures. So enough about the Byrds, that’s another story.
Here’s the song Gypsy Rider from the album, So Rebellious a Lover (1986) with Carla Olson:
What is it about this album?
Why is it so important in the americana /country/gospel music canon?
Satan Is Real is a gospel album by American country music duo The Louvin Brothers.
Released
November 16, 1959
Recorded
August 8–10, 1958
Genre
Country, Gospel
Length
31:54
Label
Capitol
Producer
Ken Nelson, John Johnson (Reissue)
The gospel/country duo Charlie and Ira Louvin was born and grew up in the Sand Mountain region of Alabama, they lived on a cotton farm south of the Appalachian Mountains, that’s where they developed their distinct harmony style in the deep Sacred Harp tradition of the Baptist church.
Ira Louvin died in a car wreck in 1965. Charlie Louvin died last year at 83 just a few months after publishing his story about The Louvin brothers.
In The recently published book, Satan is Real, the ballad of the Louvin Brothers, Charlie talks about their singing style.This is not a straight quote, but it goes something like this:
…people who saw the Louvin Brothers perform were mystified by the experience. Ira was a full head taller than me, he played the mandolin like Bill Monroe and sang in an impossibly high, tense, quivering tenor. I(Charlie) strummed a guitar, grinned like a vaudevillian and handled the bottom register. But every so often, in the middle of a song, some hidden signal flashed and we switched places — with Ira swooping down from the heights, and me angling upward — and even the most careful listeners would lose track of which man was carrying the lead. This was more than close-harmony singing; each instance was an act of transubstantiation.
I could not find any live footage from Satan is real, but this clip of them singing, I don’t belive you’ve met my baby is a fine showcase for their intricate singing style:
“It baffled a lot of people,” Charlie Louvin explains in his fantastic memoir. “We could change in the middle of a word. Part of the reason we could do that was that we’d learned to have a good ear for other people’s voices when we sang Sacred Harp. But the other part is that we were brothers.”
