Woodstock '94, Winston Farm, Saugerties, NY, 8-12-1994 to 8-14-1994 - Day 3, Part 11: The Allman Brothers Band

The 11th album from Day Three of the Woodstock ‘94 Festival is a set by the Allman Brothers Band.

This band went through a lot of highs and lows in their long career. 1994 was a good year. The band released the studio album “Where It All Begins,” a few months before this concert. It was the third studio they did in the early 1990s. Lead guitarist and sometime lead vocalist was also still a key part of the band. He would part with the band at the end of the decade.

I don’t remember why I put “[Edit]” in the name of “Statesboro Blues.” But it probably was due to a glitch part of the way through the song, which I fixed.

This album is an hour and 20 minutes long.

01 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
02 Statesboro Blues [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
03 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Blue Sky (Allman Brothers Band)
05 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
06 The Same Thing (Allman Brothers Band)
07 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
08 Soulshine (Allman Brothers Band)
09 Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band)
10 Jessica [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
11 No One to Run With (Allman Brothers Band)
12 Back Where It All Begins (Allman Brothers Band)
13 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
14 One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band)
15 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
16 Whipping Post (Allman Brothers Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16770750/VA-WODSTCK94_8-14-1994_11AllmnBrthrsBd_atse.zip.html

Alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xyRAY8kf

I couldn't find a good photo of most or all of the band members, since they were spread out on stage. So I went with a photo of lead guitarist and lead vocalist Dickey Betts. The photo is from this exact concert.

The Allman Brothers Band - Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, 1-5-1980

Today (April 18, 2024), another musical legend passed away. This time, it was Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers Band. He was a key lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and songwriter in the band from its inception in 1969 until 2001. As I often do in such occasions, I wanted to post some music to pay tribute. I've already posted a ton of stuff by the Allman Brothers Band, but I decided this unreleased soundboard concert fits the bill.

One reason I don't post more live concerts from certain musical acts is because so many full concerts have already been officially released by them already. That's definitely the case with the Allman Brothers Band. There's a particular focus on their indisputably greatest era, the early 1970s (especially when Duane Allman was still alive). But the band had other peaks during their long musical career, and some have few to no official live albums to represent them.

The late 1970s are one such time. The Allman Brothers Band broke up in 1976 due to the usual drug and ego problems faced by famous musical acts. But in 1979, they reunited (with slightly different personnel) and put out the album "Enlightened Rogues." Personally, I really like it, and consider it almost as good as their late 1960s and early 1970s stuff. But they were way out of step with the music times, with disco and punk and new wave and so on. They put out a couple more albums in the early 1980s that weren't nearly as good, so the era tends to get overlooked. But for a while, in 1979 and 1980, the band was rejuvenated and musically inspired.

This is also a particularly good time to highlight Dickey Betts, because he played a large role in the band in the late 1970s. It took a while to develop his singing and songwriting chops. He didn't sing lead on an Allman Brothers Band album until 1972's "Eat a Peach," with "Blue Sky." But by "Enlightened Rogues" he dominated, writing five songs on the album compared to only one song by the band's other big songwriter, Gregg Allman. (Two other songs were covers.)

For some reason, this concert was professionally filmed and recorded, though there doesn't seem to have been any official release as a result. One can find the film footage on YouTube, but it's pretty low-res, and in black and white. 

Overall, the sound quality is excellent, like an official album. However, there were problems with two songs (which is why both have "[Edit]" in their names). For "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," a chunk of the song is missing. (It's near the end, at least eight minutes into it.) I don't know how much is missing, but it could be a few minutes. I did an edit to try to hide the missing section, while keeping as much of the music as I could. For "Whipping Post," only a few seconds were missing. But unfortunately those few happened during a vocal line that wasn't repeated elsewhere. So I found a different soundboard recording of the song from 1979 and used that to patch in the missing bit.

If you haven't heard "Enlightened Rogues" before, this is a good way to get into it. It's a low-key album, without lots of long solos, but the songwriting and performance is very solid. Tracks 2, 5, 6, 7, and 9 come from it.

This album is two hours and 31 minutes long.

01 Don't Want You No More - It's Not My Cross to Bear (Allman Brothers Band)
02 Can't Take It with You (Allman Brothers Band)
03 Blue Sky (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Call It Stormy Monday (Allman Brothers Band)
05 Blind Love (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Crazy Love (Allman Brothers Band)
07 Just Ain't Easy (Allman Brothers Band)
08 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
09 Try It One More Time (Allman Brothers Band)
10 One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band)
11 Statesboro Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
12 Southbound (Allman Brothers Band)
13 Jessica [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
14 Whipping Post [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
15 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
16 Pegasus - Drums - Pegasus [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
17 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
18 Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band)
19 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Allman Brothers Band)
20 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
21 Ramblin' Man (Allman Brothers Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mneVMUeu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/X7s5KOwCZp1Sclo/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/jnZBq

The cover photo shows Gregg Allman on keyboards on the left and Dickey Betts on guitar on the right. This actually is a Photoshopped merging of two photos. Both were taken in Oakland, California, on May 17, 1979. The one of Allman had someone else standing right where I put Betts, so the size and placement and such should be roughly correct.

Thank You and Farewell - The Closing of the Fillmore East, Fillmore East, New York City, 6-27-1971, Part 7: The Allman Brothers Band

Here's the seventh and last part of the closing of the Fillmore East in New York City in 1971, featuring the Allman Brothers Band. I was a bit reluctant to post this, because it's the only portion of the concert that has been officially released. But I ultimately decided to post it for completeness's sake. 

The version of "One Way Out" here is actually the version that appeared on the band's "Eat a Peach" album in 1972. (Other live songs on that come from earlier concerts.) Then, when the deluxe version of "Eat a Peach" was released in 2008, the entire show was included as a bonus disc. The whole show was also included on the 2014 box set "The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings."

The farewell concerts to the Fillmore East actually took place over three days, but only the final night was broadcast live on the radio, so that's the only night where we have excellent recordings. Promoter Bill Graham, who controlled the Fillmore East, considered the Allman Brothers Band his favorite musical act. So he had them as the final act for all three nights.

Unfortunately, while this set by the band was certainly excellent, it sounds like the band's set from the night before was even better, and much longer. It's considered a kind of lost holy grail for fans of the band, but no recording of it has ever emerged. According to different accounts, the band played for anything between four to seven hours!

Band member Dickey Betts later said of the concert on June 26th (the night before this one), "That was a special show. We played until daylight that morning. I remember it was dark in there, and when they opened the door, the sun about knocked us down. We didn't realize we had played until seven, eight o'clock in the morning. Bill Graham just let us rattle, and nobody said, 'We gotta cut the time.' It was just a really free kind of thing."

Band member Butch Trucks added, "We played for roughly seven straight hours with everything we had. We played a three-hour set and then came back out. The feeling from the audience, not necessarily the volume, but the feeling was just so overwhelming that I just started crying. Then we got into a jam … that lasted for four straight hours. Non-stop. And when we finished, there was no applause whatsoever. The place was deathly quiet. Someone got up and opened the doors, the sun came pouring in, and you could see this whole audience with a big shit-eating grin on their face, nobody moving until finally they got up and started quietly leaving the place. I remember Duane [Allman] walking in front of me, dragging his guitar while I was just sitting there completely burned, and he said, ‘Damn, it’s just like leaving church.'"

Trucks added, "The next night, Bill [Graham] came running over, grabbed me around the neck so hard it hurt, and said, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you, for that show. It made all the years of crap I had to put up with worth it.' And I'll never forget what he said next: 'If I had my way, when you finished this morning, I would be sealed up in my bubble and gone off to wherever I’m going.'" 

So yeah, too bad we don't have THAT recording. But this one certainly is nothing to be ashamed of. Consider that the band liked it enough to include the whole thing on the deluxe version of "Eat a Peach," when there were other 1971 soundboard recordings they could have put there instead (with some of them eventually being released later). But I read the band was tired from the night before, and they felt the audience was tired too, so they chose to keep their set short and sweet, by their relative standards.

It's also worth noting that Graham gave the band an unusually prolonged and heartfelt introduction. That included the comment, "In all my life, I've never heard the kind of music that this group plays. The finest contemporary music. We're going to round it off with the best of them all – the Allman Brothers." 

Band member Gregg Allman later commented, "That was special. I'd heard a rumor before that Bill had said of all the bands he'd ever worked with, we were his favorites, but I hadn't believed it. So when I heard him say that with my own two ears, I was elated."

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

63 talk by Bill Graham (Allman Brothers Band)
64 Statesboro Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
65 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
66 Don't Keep Me Wonderin' (Allman Brothers Band)
67 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
68 Done Somebody Wrong (Allman Brothers Band)
69 One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band)
70 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
71 Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band)
72 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
73 Hot 'Lanta [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
74 Whipping Post (Allman Brothers Band)
75 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
76 You Don't Love Me (Allman Brothers Band) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376045/VA-ThnkYounFrwll197107AllmnBrthrsBnd.zip.html

The cover photo of the band's slide guitarist Duane Allman comes from this exact concert. This one, along with the photo I used for the Albert King set, were the only two good ones I could find that were actually in color. So that's why I used a photo that only shows Duane, because this was what was available.

The Allman Brothers Band - BBC In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 6-25-1991

It seems that just about anyone who is anyone in the music world performed for the BBC at least once (though sometimes the recordings didn't survive). A case in point is the Allman Brothers Band. They're so closely associated with the U.S., and especially the South, that it seems surprising they toured Europe at all. But here we are, with an unreleased BBC concert in London in 1991.

This happens to be a particularly good time for a BBC concert from them, in my opinion. Sure, their peak years were in the early 1970s, especially while Duane Allman was still alive. But they were still a solid band for decades after that. The 1980s were kind of a lost decade for them. But they reunited in the late 1980s and put out a good new album in 1990, "Seven Turns," and another one in 1991, "Shades of Two Worlds." Their creativity slowed way down after that, with only two more new studio albums for the remaining fifteen or so years the band stayed together. The band also lost a lot when Dickey Betts was kicked out in 2000, apparently after a few years of causing problems.

But in 1991, the band was still firing on all cylinders, and proud to play their new songs. Six of the 14 songs here are from their 1990 or 1991 albums, and they're all pretty good.

The sound quality is excellent, as you'd expect from the BBC. And while the BBC often edited concerts down to an hour or so, this time they didn't, since the concert is nearly two hours long.

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long.

01 Don't Want You No More - It's Not My Cross to Bear (Allman Brothers Band)
02 Statesboro Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
03 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Blue Sky (Allman Brothers Band)
05 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Low Down Dirty Mean (Allman Brothers Band)
07 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
08 End of the Line (Allman Brothers Band)
09 Loaded Dice (Allman Brothers Band)
10 Southbound (Allman Brothers Band)
11 Jessica [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
12 Good Clean Fun (Allman Brothers Band)
13 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
14 Gambler's Roll (Allman Brothers Band)
15 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
16 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
17 One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band)
18 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
19 Kind of Bird [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
20 Whipping Post (Allman Brothers Band) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/v7de1yrm

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/vQsnmYkgKKj3Zwp/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/bCxS7

It's really hard to find a photo of all the key members of the Allman Brothers Band on stage, since they usually were spread apart from each other. It's even harder to find such a photo specifically from 1991. I did find one, taken at a rather unusual angle. Not the greatest, so let me know if you have something better. This was taken at a concert in Dinkelsbuhl, Germany, in June 1991.

The Allman Brothers Band - Loan Me a Dime - Non-Album Tracks (1992-2000)

In recent days, I've been posting a bunch of Allman Brothers Band albums at my YouTube page (search for Albums That Should Exist there to find it), and that reminded me that I have more from that band to post here too. In particular, I've been posting a series of stray tracks albums that move forward chronologically through the band's entire history. Previously, I'd made it to the late 1980s. This album deals with the entire 1990s.

The Allman Brothers Band put out three studio albums in the 1990s, but I don't believe any of those have bonus tracks or the like. So most of the songs here were performed live. However, "Call It Stormy Monday" is from an unreleased in-person radio station performance. "No Life at All" is from a Floyd Miles album. And "Willie and Poor Boy" is from a solo album by band member Dickey Betts.

This band has released a lot of live albums, and it was bootlegged frequently. So I made sure everything has soundboard level quality, even if it's from a boot. The four unreleased songs are "Steady Rollin' Man," "Call It Stormy Monday," "Goin' Back to Daytona," and "Rave On."

Speaking of Dickey Betts, he was a key member of the band, singing and writing many of their best known songs. However, near the end of 2000, Betts was kicked out of the group due to personality clashes. So I made sure to end this right at that time. All the songs here contain Betts. But I plan on posting two more stray tracks albums from the years after Betts was gone.

The songs are mostly blues covers. "Loan Me a Dime" is a particularly inspired choice, because original band member Duane Allman played an epic guitar solo on a version of that song done for a Boz Scaggs album in 1969. All these years later, the rest of the Allman Brothers Band finally did a version, clearly inspired by the Boz Scaggs / Duane Allman version.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Steady Rollin' Man (Allman Brothers Band)
02 Midnight Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
03 Call It Stormy Monday (Allman Brothers Band)
04 No Life at All (Allman Brothers Band & Floyd Miles)
05 The Same Thing (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Goin' Back to Daytona (Gregg Allman)
07 I'm Not Crying (Allman Brothers Band)
08 Willie and Poor Boy [Instrumental] (Dickey Betts)
09 Loan Me a Dime (Allman Brothers Band)
10 Rave On [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16122736/TALLMNBB1992-2000_LonMeaDme_atse.zip.html

The cover photo was taken in Dinkelsbuhl, Germany, in June 1991. The line-up from left to right is: Marc Quinones, Jaimoe, Dicky Betts, Butch Trucks, Warren Haynes, Gregg Allman, and Allen Woody.

The Allman Brothers Band - Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 9-26-1973

I haven't posted any full Allman Brothers Band concert recordings until now mostly because they're pretty well covered with officially released ones. I just checked, and there are about 20 live albums by them, from all phases of their career. However, here's a really excellent one that has so far slipped through the cracks.

Musically, the band suffered a great loss when guitarist Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident in 1971, and then again when bassist Berry Oakley died in a motorcycle accident in 1972. (Motorcycles are dangerous!) But, in my opinion, the band remained at a musical peak at least through 1973. That year certainly was their commercial peak, thanks mostly to the song "Ramblin' Man" from the album "Brothers and Sisters" hitting Number Two in the US charts. But, as so often happens, big success led to the usual drug and ego problems. The band slowly fell apart over the next couple of years, then broke up altogether in 1976, only to reunite a couple of years after that.

The point of all that is, in my opinion, this concert took place before those problems got in the way of the music. This concert happened only a month after the release of the "Brothers and Sisters" album, their most successful album, which would go on to sell over seven million copies worldwide. So they still hadn't been overwhelmed by the massive success that was just starting to hit them.

This is a flawless soundboard recording. There were no problems needing fixing. There's also next to no banter between songs.

This album is two hours and 23 minutes long.

01 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
02 Wasted Words (Allman Brothers Band)
03 Done Somebody Wrong (Allman Brothers Band)
04 One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band)
05 Call It Stormy Monday (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band)
07 Ramblin' Man (Allman Brothers Band)
08 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
09 Statesboro Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
10 Come and Go Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
11 Southbound (Allman Brothers Band)
12 Jessica [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
13 You Don't Love Me - Amazing Grace (Allman Brothers Band)
14 Les Brers in A Minor [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
15 Blue Sky (Allman Brothers Band)
16 Trouble No More (Allman Brothers Band)
17 Whipping Post (Allman Brothers Band) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qB9oWX3c

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/I7xCwWaiyh2Wf6D/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/jvr9o

The cover photo of the band is from a concert in Little Rock, Arkansas, on August 17, 1983, about a month prior to this concert.

The Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton - Beacon Theatre, New York City, 3-20-2009

There aren't many cases of musical greats meeting up in a prolonged manner like this, so if you're a fan of the Allman Brothers Band and/or Eric Clapton, you should have this. 

In 1970, Clapton's short lived band Derek and the Dominos made the classic album "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs." Slide guitarist Duane Allman was a member of that band while still being a member of the Allman Brothers Band (ABB) at the same time. Clapton has said that he considered Duane to be kind of a musical soul mate. But tragically, Duane died less than a year after the release of that album, so further collaborations never came to pass.

Duane's brother Gregg Allman kept on with the Allman Brothers Band, to great success. Gregg had jammed some with Derek and the Dominos during the making of the "Layla" album. But the musical paths of Clapton and the ABB never really crossed paths again until two special nights in 2009, March 19th and 20th, at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. The ABB was doing a series of 15 shows at that venue that year, with a focus on remembering Duane Allman, and including lots of special guests who had a connection to him. Clapton joined in for about half the concert for both of those nights. He sang five songs, all from the "Layla" album, and played on three other songs led by the ABB.

I found a Rolling Stone Magazine article about the 2009 Beacon Theatre concerts, with some quotes from ABB lead guitarist Derek Trucks about the two Clapton shows. Here are some excerpts.

The ABB had made it a yearly tradition to do a long run of concerts at the Beacon every year. Trucks said that "since I joined the band, there was a rumor that Eric would play." When he finally showed up in 2009, "there was a palpable buzz in the place - and in the band, like there was unfinished business. For the Allmans, in a sense, it was something to prove. And it happened in the best spirit. ... It was a magical night." Trucks said that during "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" on March 20th, Clapton took a solo "that was a different side of him, that I hadn't seen. Where he normally would have gotten to his point, stayed and got out, he got in, stayed and realized he wasn't nearly finished. He kept plowing. There was a freedom and unhinged element to it that I really dug."

Derek Trucks Goes Behind the Allman Brothers’ Beacon Box Set – Rolling Stone

It's generally considered that Clapton collaboration on March 20th was the better one (something that the quote from Trucks above supports), so that's what I've included here. However, there was one song played by the ABB and Clapton on March 19th only, "Anyday." So I slipped that in after the track in which Clapton got introduced. Blues singer Susan Tedeschi also helped with the lead vocals on that song.

The entire performance here has been officially released. Normally, I don't post officially released stuff unless it's rare and/or I change or reorganize it in some important way. In this case, I'm doing it because this has only been available as part of the "Beacon Box," a box set containing no less than 47 CDs, with a cost of $500! Because of that, it seems very few people have this, or even know about it. 

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

01 talk (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
02 Anyday (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton with Susan Tedeschi)
03 Key to the Highway (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
04 Call It Stormy Monday (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
05 Dreams (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
06 Why Does Love Got to Be So Sad (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
07 Little Wing (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
08 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
09 talk (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)
10 Layla (Allman Brothers Band & Eric Clapton)

NOTE: The download link has been removed due to a copyright issue, sorry. But check the comments below.

The cover photo shows the ABB and Clapton on March 19, 2009. Left to right: Gregg Allman, Jaimoe, Marc Quinones, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Butch Trucks, and Eric Clapton.

The Allman Brothers Band - Demons - Non-Album Tracks (1985-1989)

Here's the next in my series of stray tracks albums for the Allman Brothers Band.

In 1982, the Allman Brothers Band broke up, and it seemed like they were done. Their musical style seemed out of date with musical trends of the time. They reunited for a few shows in 1986, but otherwise most of the 1980s were a lost decade for them. That started to change in 1987, when lead singer Gregg Allman had an unexpected hit with the song "I'm No Angel." Then, the band's career-spanning box set "Dreams" was released in 1988 and sold very well, showing there still were many fans interested in the band's music. As a result, they reunited and went on tour in 1989, remaining an active band until 2014, not long before Allman died in 2017.

The band put out an album of all new songs in 1990 called "Seven Turns." None of those songs were played in their 1989. However, they did play  five of the best songs from recent albums by band leaders Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts. These live recordings make up a majority of this album. I think it's nice to have Allman Brothers Band versions of solo songs like "I'm No Angel." Luckily, I was able to find a really good soundboard bootleg as a source. I managed to remove most of the audience noise, so these sound close to studio versions.

I've supplemented those with some other songs, so this can be a "best of" for the late 1980s. The first song, a cover of the blues classic "Key to the Highway," is by the whole band, and comes from one of their 1986 concerts. This was done as an encore during a benefit concert with some other big acts, so guitarists Mick Taylor, Stephen Stills, and Carlos Santana joined in, and adding guitar solos. Gregg Allman sang most of the song, but Stills sang a verse, and someone else sang another, though I'm not sure who that was (neither Taylor nor Santana were known to sing much).

For most of the other songs, I have a choice between live versions from bootlegs or the studio album versions. I generally chose the studio album versions, due to sound quality. Some of the solo albums around this time were marred by typical bad 1980s production, but not on these songs I chose. However, "Can't Get Over You" also comes from a live bootleg of a Gregg Allman concert, since the Allman Brothers Band never did that one.

Currently, I haven't put any more stray tracks albums of the band after this one. They put out three albums in the early 1990s, but then didn't do much new music after that, releasing only one more studio album in the last 20 years the band was together. I might be able to scrape together some live covers and solo material, but I haven't looked into that yet.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Key to the Highway (Allman Brothers Band with Mick Taylor, Stephen Stills & Carlos Santana)
02 Rain (Gregg Allman)
03 I'm No Angel (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Demons (Gregg Allman)
05 Loverman (Dickey Betts)
06 The Blues Ain't Nothin' (Allman Brothers Band)
07 Rock Bottom (Allman Brothers Band)
08 Can't Get Over You (Gregg Allman)
09 Just Before the Bullets Fly (Allman Brothers Band)
10 Duane's Tune [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123991/TAllmanBB_1985-1989_Demns_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any good color photos of the band iu 1989. So I used one of them from 1991, which I figure is close enough, especially since they had the same band members. I took the band name design from some promotional material related to their 1989 tour.

The Allman Brothers Band - Reach for the Sky - Alternate Version (1980-1981)

In 1979, the Allman Brothers Band reunited with most of their surviving original members after having a few hard years apart in the late 1970s. They put out a new studio album called "Enlightened Rogues," and successfully toured behind it. 

I'm not going to do anything with that album because I think it's an excellent album, so if you're a fan of the band, you should have it. Maybe there aren't any really classic songs on it, but every song is solid. Also, it's great that even though it was 1979 and the Southern rock style the band had helped pioneer was out of fashion, they avoided updating their sound with disco drumming, synths, and the like. It sounded exactly like the Allman Brothers Band of the early 1970s.

Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said of their next two albums, "Reach for the Sky" in 1980 and "Brothers of the Road" in 1981. The band's long-time record company went bankrupt in 1979, and their new record company pressured them to modernize their sound. The band gave in to some extent, and had a Top 40 single in 1981 with the song "Straight from the Heart." But this new direction is widely considered a terrible decision today. The band members weren't happy. They broke up in early 1982 because they felt they were embarrassing themselves and ruining their musical legacy. They wouldn't reunite until 1989, after the 1988 box set "Dreams" summarizing their career showed there was still a market for their type of music.

In my opinion, those 1980 and 1981 albums are pretty bad, and probably the worst ones they ever did. BUT! Many of the songs on them are actually good. It's just that they were ruined by bad production, and bogged down by some poor songs. Their hit "Straight from the Heart" is a case in point. It has synths and female backing vocals, and sounds like a song by Journey or Foreigner that happens to be sung by Gregg Allman. I didn't include it here because it's best forgotten.

So... what to do about the bad production on some otherwise good songs? Luckily, because this band's live work is so popular, there are soundboard bootlegs of concerts even from these lean years. I've created an album that uses live versions for six out of the ten songs. I could have included even more live versions, but I decided in a few cases that the studio versions were actually better (especially in terms of sound quality), and in a couple of cases the songs weren't done in concert, so I had no choice.

Technically, I'm calling this an alternate version of their 1980 album "Reach for the Sky," but that's a stretch. Only the first four songs here originally come from that album. The fifth, "Nancy," is a great Dickey Betts demo that was first released on the "Dreams" box set. (He made demos for a 1981 solo album of country songs that didn't fully fit the Allman Brothers Band sound, but the album remains unreleased except for this one song.) The remaining five songs originate from "Brothers of the Road." To be honest, the main reason I'm calling this an alternate version of "Reach for the Sky" is because I couldn't find any good photos of the band from this time period except for the one on the back of the "Reach for the Sky" album. It would be more accurate to call this the best songs from everything they did in 1980 and 1981.

Before I put this album together, I didn't think much of this time period for the band, and I didn't know most of these songs. But I must say, I'm pleasantly surprised by what I've come up with. By using mostly live versions, the Allman Brothers Band actually sound like themselves. And many of these songs are really good and could have become concert staples if they didn't date to this time period that the band is so eager to forget. 

Note that I made edits to a couple of the songs. For "Mystery Woman," the lead vocals were low in the mix, so I used the audio editing program X-Minus to bring those up. And for "The Judgement," the studio version is only three and a half minutes long, whereas the band turned it into a great jam in their concerts that usually went on for over ten minutes. But those long versions typically included a drum solo in the middle, and those have limited appeal, so I edited most of the drum solo out. But that still leaves the song five minutes longer than the studio version.

Also, note that one song that gets included on some best of collections is "Hell and High Water" from "Reach for the Sky." For instance, it's included in the band's "Trouble No More" 50th anniversary album. But I didn't include it because it's a nice song... until you realize it has many similarities to the band's earlier big hit "Ramblin' Man." That bothered me enough to keep it off.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Mystery Woman [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
02 From the Madness of the West [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
03 Angeline (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Famous Last Words (Allman Brothers Band)
05 Nancy (Dickey Betts)
06 Brothers of the Road (Allman Brothers Band)
07 Leavin' (Allman Brothers Band)
08 The Heat Is On (Allman Brothers Band)
09 Never Knew How Much [I Needed You] (Allman Brothers Band)
10 The Judgement [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123996/TAllmanBB_1980-1981_RechfortheSkyAlternate_atse.zip.html

The official cover of "Reach for the Sky" is dumb, if you ask me. It features a kid in a mask and cowboy outfit riding a rocking horse. (Why?!) But the back cover features a nice photo of the band, so I used that for this cover. I used Photoshop to edit out some text (I put the album title over that spot), and also to crop and sharpen up the image.

The Allman Brothers Band - One More Try - Non-Album Tracks (1976-1978)

I recently posted an alternate version of the 1975 Allman Brothers Band album "Win, Lose or Draw." With this album, I continue working chronologically through the band's career, compiling all the quality studio material I think you should have if you're a fan of the band, minus their classic albums.

For the time frame of this album, the Allman Brothers Band did not exist! So I should warn you think is a collection of solo material from their two leaders and lead vocalists at the time, Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts. 

Here's a quick run-down of what happened. As I explained in my write up for "Win, Lose or Draw," by 1975, the band was falling apart, split by the usual problems of bands that make it really big: egos, drugs, lifestyle excess, lack of direction, and so on. But things got even worse after that album came out. Gregg Allman was the main problem at the time. For one thing, he'd developed a debilitating heroin addiction (which he wouldn't kick until the 1980s). He also also got married to the music star Cher, and lived the Hollywood lifestyle with her in Los Angeles, away from the rest of the band. But the worst problem of all was that one of the band's roadies was arrested for drug possession. Allman testified against this roadie, basically throwing him under the bus to save his own skin, since the roadie had been getting drugs for him. The rest of the band considered this a betrayal and vowed to never work with him again.

As it happened, the band didn't stay apart for that long, reuniting for a new album and tour in 1979. But in the meantime, Allman released two solo albums (including one that was a duet album with Cher), and Betts released two solo albums. So basically this consists of what I consider the best songs from these four albums. They're generally in chronological order, but I varied that order a bit to avoid having too many songs by either Allman or Betts in a row.

There's one song that comes from another source. "Two Steps from the Blues" is a duet between Allman and Bonnie Bramlett (formerly of Delaney and Bonnie), and comes from a solo album she put out in 1976. I got the idea to add it after seeing it included on a Gregg Allman solo career best of compilation.

Also note that the Allman and Cher duet album (technically billed to "Allman and Woman") is generally considered a musical travesty. I suppose that's true. I have to admit I haven't listened to much of it, due to its bad reputation. But it has two excellent songs on it. "Can You Fool" was rightly considered good enough to be included in the 1988 Allman Brothers Band box set "Dreams." And "Shadow Dream Song" is a Jackson Browne song that isn't really a duet at all, with Cher only providing backing vocals.

In my opinion, although there are absolutely zero songs here done by the Allman Brothers Band, this sounds exactly like them anyway. Allman and Betts both had a well established sound by this time, and they knew to stick to a good thing (with the exception of songs on the Cher duet album that I've avoided). Even though it was the late 1970s with disco and new wave taking over the charts, they kept going with their exact same Southern rock thing. In fact, some of the side musicians on these albums would end up becoming members of the Allman Brothers Band when it reunited. In my opinion, a few of these songs are so strong that had they gone on proper Allman Brothers Band albums, they would have been concert staples for many years thereafter.

01 California Blues (Dickey Betts & Great Southern)
02 Two Steps from the Blues (Bonnie Bramlett & Gregg Allman)
03 Sweet Feelin' (Gregg Allman)
04 Bougainvillea (Dickey Betts & Great Southern)
05 One More Try (Gregg Allman)
06 Nothing You Can Do (Dickey Betts & Great Southern)
07 Shadow Dream Song (Gregg Allman & Cher)
08 Can You Fool (Gregg Allman & Cher)
09 Good Time Feeling (Dickey Betts & Great Southern)
10 Atlanta's Burning Down (Dickey Betts & Great Southern)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123849/TAllmanBB_1976-1978_OneMreTry_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from 1975, and features all the members of the Allman Brothers Band at that time. Dickey Betts (with dark hair in the front row) and Gregg Allman (with blond hair in the front row) both were looking off to the left. So I edited the photo in Photoshop to make it look like they were looking at the camera, the same as everyone else.

The Allman Brothers Band - Win, Lose or Draw - Alternate Version (1975)

I've posted a bunch of albums dealing with the peak years of the Allman Brothers Band, 1969 to 1973, as well as the years leading up to then. But what happened to the band after that? I plan to post more albums to gather more of their best music. Next up is the band's 1975 album, "Win, Lose or Draw."

This is a pretty decent album in its officially released form. But it pales in comparison to all the classic albums the band released from 1969 to 1973. Unfortunately, the band suffered the typical problems of bands that made it big, such as inflated egos, lots of drugs, and too many distractions. And they got really big in 1973, especially when their song "Ramblin' Man" became a number one hit in the US. But their problems were compounded by the death of guitarist Duane Allman in 1971 and then bassist Berry Oakley in 1972. In many ways, the band never fully recovered from those blows.

By the time the band worked on "Win, Lose or Draw," they were barely a band at all. The two remaining stars, keyboardist and vocalist Gregg Allman, and guitarist and vocalist Dickey Betts, spent most of their creative energies in 1973 and 1974 on solo albums and tours and the like. Relations between Gregg Allman and the rest of the band were so bad that he was rarely in the recording studio with them, doing the bare minimum to get his lead vocals done. But he was hardly the only problem. The band didn't sound that together because they weren't. Furthermore, many of the best songs were saved for solo albums instead.

That's not to say the album doesn't have its moments. In my opinion, "Can't Lose What You Never Had" and "Win, Lose or Draw" are classic songs that should go on any decent sized best of album. But the album had some duds too. Unfortunately, two of the lesser songs, "Nevertheless" and "Louisiana Lou and Three Card Monty John," were chosen as the album's two singles. Needless to say, they didn't do well. Overall, the album was considered a disappointment, even though it made it to number five in the US album charts. Then, further problems between band members caused the band to break up entirely in early 1976. (They would get back together in 1979, but that's a story for another time.)

You can read even more about the troubles the band had recording the album in the Wikipedia entry on the album:

Win, Lose or Draw (album) - Wikipedia

I believe I've made a much better version of this album, one that is worthy of standing with the albums that came before it, during their peak years. The official release is rather short, at only 38 minutes. I made it shorter still by removing the songs "Just Another Love Song" and "Louisiana Lou and Three Card Monty John," because I don't think they're worthy.

I also made significant edits to three songs. For "Can't Lose What You Never Had," I've always been frustrated by the ending. After the song cooks for five minutes, it seems to come to an end, only to have a surprise revival. However, that's brief, and the song fades out right when a guitar solo is wailing. I really wanted to hear more of that solo. In putting this together, I heard the excellent live version on the 1976 live album "Wipe the Windows, Check the Oil, Dollar Gas." It was recorded in Oakland in 1975. It goes on for almost another minute, so I've patched that extra part to the end of the studio version. To be honest, there isn't much more of that great solo, but I do like having the song come to a proper conclusion instead of fading out.

The edit to "Nevertheless" was a lot simpler. I was wavering about including this one or not. Then I realized the lead vocals were quite low. I used the audio editing program X-Minus to boost those vocals. That improved the song enough for me to decide to keep it.

My edit to the instrumental "High Falls" may be the most controversial. This is considered another highlight of the album by many. I agree that it's an excellent song. However, I take issue with the fact that it goes on for 14 minutes. That length would be fine in concert, or even on a different kind of album. But for an album that's only 38 minutes long total, it dominates things too much. Consider another great instrumental the band did, "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed." In concert, it was often stretched out to 20 or 30 minutes, but the actual studio album is just under seven minutes long. 

So I edited "High Falls" down to a more reasonable length. It started with about two minutes of what I consider aimless noodling before the song really kicked into gear. So I cut out that part. I also cut out a keyboard solo section in the middle. What's left is still almost nine minutes long, and it dominated by guitar soloing. Had the band cut the song down like this, it would have been short enough to get regularly played on classic rock radio like the instrumentals "Elizabeth Reed" and "Jessica."

If those were the only changes I made, the album would be a mere 27 minutes long. However, I also added some songs. In 1974, Gregg Allman put out a double live album. It's good, but generally features songs from his first album and Allman Brothers hits, and even some guest turns. There was nothing there that I decided fit here. However, he did have one really excellent song done as a piano demo in 1974 called "Bring It on Back." A fuller version would eventually appear on his 1977 solo album, but I prefer the simplicity of this version. I think it makes an ideal final track.

Meanwhile, Dickey Betts released a studio album in 1974 called "Highway Call." This is often considered the best album of his solo career. I picked the three songs from it that I liked the best, and thought would fit here the best. "Long Time Gone" was performed by the Allman Brothers Band in concert a fair amount in 1975 and 1976. I would have preferred to use one of those versions, except I didn't find any version that I liked as much as the studio version. (Mostly that was due to sound quality issues - there aren't many great soundboard bootlegs from this time period.)

The end result has four songs sung by Allman, four songs sung by Betts, and one instrumental (written by Betts). The album is 44 minutes long, which would have been an ideal album length for the time period.

01 Can't Lose What You Never Had [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
02 Long Time Gone (Dickey Betts)
03 Win, Lose or Draw (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Highway Call (Dickey Betts)
05 High Falls [Instrumental] [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Nevertheless [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
07 Rain (Dickey Betts)
08 Sweet Mama (Allman Brothers Band)
09 Bring It on Back (Gregg Allman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123852/TAllmanBB_1975_WinLoseorDrwAlternate_atse.zip.html

I might have just used the official cover, except I found an alternate I liked. For the band's 1975, some alternate artwork was made for concert T-shirts and handbills and the like. I took some of that art, cropped it to make a square shape suitable for an album cover, and did some cleaning up of some blurry areas.

Gregg Allman - Gregg Acoustic, Volume 2 (1974-2013)

I posted the Volume 1 companion to this a couple of weeks ago. In short, Gregg Allman is best known for playing in a full rocking band environment as part of the Allman Brothers Band, but from time to time he would play a song in the solo acoustic format. Unfortunately, whenever he did this he tended to play the same few songs. But I've found all the songs I could in this format, and I've included one version for each of them. 

This album is a bit longer than the first volume, even if you don't include the bonus tracks. That's because I found a couple more songs since I posted that first one. But I still like how these two albums divide up, because the late 1960s until 1973 is considered their peak era. This covers the rest, through to Allman's death in 2017. The classic songs didn't come as often in these years, and a few of the songs date to earlier years, but I think you'll agree after listening to this that everything he played in the solo acoustic format was top notch.

Seven of the 12 songs here are officially released. The first three come from the same "One More Try" anthology that was the main source for Volume 1. Another three are from an obscure 2006 live album Allman did with Warren Haynes. "Needle and the Damage Done," a cover of the famous Neil Young song, comes from a various artists live album. 

The unreleased songs sound nearly as good as the officially released ones, in my opinion. Three of them come from a 1981 studio session that was filmed and put on YouTube, somehow. That includes a version of "Melissa," a song I included on Volume 1. But this version is instrumental, so I thought that was different enough to warrant inclusion. Another one of the unreleased tracks comes from a TV show, and the last one is from a standard concert bootleg.

The bonus tracks are quite interesting, in my opinion. They include two famous Allman Brothers Band songs ("One Way Out" and "Whipping Post") that he'd never played in acoustic format before. Sadly, he died just a year later, so this probably was the one and only time he played them that way. Unfortunately, the sound quality isn't as good as the rest, so these were downgraded to just bonus tracks.

This album is 52 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

01 Win, Lose or Draw (Gregg Allman)
02 Oncoming Traffic (Gregg Allman)
03 Come and Go Blues (Gregg Allman)
04 Key to the Highway (Gregg Allman)
05 Melissa [Instrumental] (Gregg Allman)
06 Never Knew How Much [I Needed You] (Gregg Allman)
07 These Days (Gregg Allman with Graham Nash)
08 Old Before My Time (Gregg Allman & Warren Haynes)
09 Come On in My Kitchen (Gregg Allman & Warren Haynes)
10 Soulshine (Gregg Allman & Warren Haynes)
11 All My Friends (Gregg Allman with Warren Haynes)
12 The Needle and the Damage Done (Gregg Allman, Warren Haynes & Derek Trucks)

I Love the Life I Live (Gregg Allman with Scott Sharrard)
One Way Out (Gregg Allman with Scott Sharrard)
Whipping Post (Gregg Allman with Scott Sharrard)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123535/GreggA_1974-2013_AcoustcVolume2_atse.zip.html

I don't know when or where the cover art photo was taken. But clearly he was older than the photo for Volume 1, as can be seen by the grey in his beard.

Gregg Allman - Acoustic, Volume 1 (1972-1974)

Gregg Allman is most famous for being the main lead vocalist and keyboardist for the Allman Brothers Band, but he also had an occasional solo career from the early 1970s until his death in 2017. As part of his solo work, he sometimes played songs in a solo acoustic format. Personally, I really like his solo acoustic style, but he never released an entire album like that. So I've gathered two albums of songs in that format. Here's the first one.

The thing about Allman playing solo acoustic is that he had a small number of favorite songs, such as "Melissa" and "These Days," and he mostly just played those. But what I've done is including only one version of each song across these two albums. A few of the songs were also played by the Allman Brothers Band, such as "Midnight Rider," but most of these songs were from his solo albums instead, where they were usually played with a full band.

All but three of the songs here come from an official compilation called "One More Try: An Anthology," which was released in 1996. Nearly all of the performances from that album were previously unreleased. But for whatever reason, Allman didn't like that album. He pulled it from the stores after a short time, and it's remained out of print ever since. Most of the songs from it are studio versions done as outtakes from his solo albums. The first song has appeared elsewhere as a bonus track. The last two are officially unreleased, but they sound great because they were done for a radio station appearance.

This is very different from the Allman Brothers Band with extended solo work. The songs are generally just Gregg Allman singing and playing an acoustic guitar, or occasionally a piano or keyboards. So if you like acoustic music like I do, definitely check this out.

01 These Days (Gregg Allman)
02 Catfish Blues (Gregg Allman)
03 God Rest His Soul (Gregg Allman)
04 Multi-Colored Lady (Gregg Allman)
05 Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Gregg Allman)
06 Adam's Song - Shadow Dream Song (Gregg Allman)
07 Bring It on Back (Gregg Allman)
08 One More Try (Gregg Allman)
09 Midnight Rider (Gregg Allman)
10 Melissa (Gregg Allman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123528/GreggA_1972-1974_AcoustcVolume1_atse.zip.html

I'm not sure exactly where or when the cover art photo comes from, but I would guess from Allman's appearance that it's from the 1970s.

The Allman Brothers Band - Unplugged - Radio and Records Convention, Los Angeles, CA, 6-11-1992

In the early 1990s, MTV's "Unplugged" series was a popular musical trend, a reaction to the overproduction excesses of the 1980s. The Allman Brothers Band had never really played in the acoustic musical format before, at least not more than for a song here and there. But they jumped on the "Unplugged" train in 1992. This presents the best of their acoustic phase.

The Allman Brothers Band never actually played for the MTV Unplugged TV show, as far as I know. But they put out an album called "IRSA Acoustic Set" based on this concert. Unfortunately, it was only released on a limited basis for a limited time, with the benefits going to charity. As a result, most fans of the band have never heard it.

I've supplemented it with two extra songs at the end. "Pony Boy" was played occasionally in concert in 1992, during short acoustic sets in the middle of longer electric concerts. The last song, "Steady Rollin' Man," was done in 1998. However, you wouldn't know it was six years later, since the acoustic sound is the same as the others. Both of these extra songs come from bootlegs, but the sound is pretty close to the main concert.

That main concert sounds fantastic. However, it had one problem that annoyed me: the audience applause at the end of each song faded out after just a few seconds. The fade-outs were so obvious that they ruined the impression of hearing one continuous concert. So I did two things to fix this. One, I unfaded the fade-outs as best I could, meaning I steadily increased the volume as it was dropping, until there was nothing left to increase. This typically restored a couple of seconds at the end of each song. Sometimes even that wasn't enough for the audience reaction to sound like it came to a natural conclusion. So I patched in bits of the applause from other sounds to extend the crowd response a couple more seconds. The final result still isn't great, but I think it's better than the fast fade-outs.

As far as the music goes, I much prefer the early 1970s version of the band to their later versions, with markedly different personnel. But the 1992 version still had the essential members Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts on lead vocals. (Betts was with the band until 2000, while Allman stayed until the end in 2014.) This version also features the excellent Warren Haynes on lead guitar.

If you're a fan of the Allman Brothers Band at all, you should listen to this. Sure, they were great at rocking, but they were just as good at playing on a porch with acoustic instruments. There's even a decent amount of jamming here.

The album is 56 minutes long.

01 Come On in My Kitchen (Allman Brothers Band)
02 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
03 Seven Turns (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band)
05 Southbound (Allman Brothers Band)
06 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
07 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
08 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
09 Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad (Allman Brothers Band)
10 Melissa (Allman Brothers Band)
11 Midnight Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
12 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
13 Pony Boy (Allman Brothers Band)
14 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
15 Steady Rollin' Man (Allman Brothers Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288746/TAllmanBB_1992_UnpluggdRdioandRcordsConventionLsAngelesCA__6-11-1992_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo doesn't come from the exact concert in question. But it's close. It's from an acoustic performance on TV just one month later. There were multiple photos from the same appearance. The photo I chose was good except for the fact that Warren Haynes (third from the left) had his face bent down so it was blocked by a microphone. So I used a different photo to patch in a better version of him from the waist on up.

For the band name, I used the artwork from the 1979 album "Enlightened Rogues" (a surprisingly good album for the year, by the way). I rearranged the wording and then inverted the colors.

The Allman Brothers - Double Cross - Non-Album Tracks (1972)

So far, I've managed to compile at least one stray tracks album for each year of the Allman Brothers Band's classic era. Here's the next one, dealing with 1972.

The first five songs all come from the "super deluxe edition" of the "Brothers and Sisters" album. That album was released in mid-1973, but all of it was recorded in 1972. "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town" is a cover song. "Early Morning Blues" is closely related to it. That song, in turn, morphed into "Jelly Jelly," which actually made the "Brothers and Sisters" album.

The other songs are generally covers too, though I think "Double Cross" and the instrumentals are originals.

As I've mentioned previously, the band didn't have a wide variety of songs they played in concert, and instead focused on long versions of songs with lots of variety in the soloing from performance to performance. But I did find a couple of rarities done in concert in 1972. The first is just called "Instrumental Jam" on bootlegs, since that's what it is. If anyone know of a better name, please let me know. The concert it comes from is an excellent soundboard, so the sound quality is great.

"Don't Lie to Me" features Elvin Bishop on vocals. So I've stuck it at the end as a quasi-bonus track, since it's not exactly the Allman Brothers Band. But note that Bishop sings a song ("Drunken Hearted Boy") on the expanded release of "At Fillmore West," so at least in that case Bishop on lead vocals was considered legit.

The good news is that "Brothers and Sisters" was a huge hit in 1973, making the band one of the biggest bands at the time. The bad news is the band couldn't deal with their fame and success. They barely scraped together one album in 1975 before breaking up for a few years. So this is the last stray tracks album I can make from the band's classic era.

01 I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town (Allman Brothers Band)
02 Double Cross (Allman Brothers Band)
03 A Minor Jam [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Done Somebody Wrong (Allman Brothers Band)
05 Early Morning Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Instrumental Jam (Allman Brothers Band)
07 Don't Lie to Me (Allman Brothers Band with Elvin Bishop)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123864/TAllmanBB_1972_DoubleCrss_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is of the band in a 1972 concert in New York City.

The Allman Brothers Band - One Way Out - Non-Album Tracks (1971)

Here's another album of stray tracks from the Allman Brothers Band. This one just covers 1971, from the part of the year when guitarist Duane Allman was still alive.

The band had a pretty limited repertoire of songs. Instead of playing lots of songs, they focused on a small number, but varied their soloing and instrumental interplay dramatically. That said, they did do some songs that didn't appear on their studio albums.

The first three songs here are well known by fans of the band because they appeared on the classic live album "At Fillmore East," which was both recorded and released in 1971. No studio versions are known to exist. So what I've done is take versions other than the ones on that original album and removed the crowd noise to make them sound like studio tracks. I carefully chose versions that didn't have a lot of cheering over the music to better make it sound like studio versions. I did the same with the fourth song and fifth songs, though they are much less known since the band played they very rarely and they didn't make it on "At Fillmore East."

The sixth song, "Blue Sky," is a different case. This is one of the band's most famous songs, and it would appear on the 1972 album "Eat a Peach." However, this is a special version because it's a live performance, at excellent soundboard quality, that was played while Duane Allman was still alive. So I figured this version is significant enough to merit inclusion.

The bonus track is a similar case in that it's a live recording with excellent sound quality, and with Duane Allman playing a key role. But the song, "Dreams," is one where there are lots of other live versions with Duane on it, so it's not so special. Thus, I only made it a bonus track.

If you add up all the songs not including the bonus track, it's 43 minutes of music, which was a typical album length for that era.

01 One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band)
02 Hot 'Lanta [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
03 Done Somebody Wrong (Allman Brothers Band)
04 You Don't Love Me (Allman Brothers Band)
05 Soul Serenade [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Blue Sky [Live] (Allman Brothers Band)

Dreams (Allman Brothers Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16122196/TALLMNBB1971_OneWyOt_atse.zip.html

Regarding the album cover photo, I don't know where or when it comes from. However, the photo shows the band members in their 1969 to 1971 heyday when Duane Allman was in the band.

The Allman Brothers Band - Stormy Monday - Non-Album Tracks (1970)

First things first: who had the "brilliant" idea to have the Allman Brothers Band pose completely naked for a photo shoot? (In the photo I've used for the cover art, their private parts are strategically hidden, but that's not the case in some other photos from that shoot.) Somehow, I don't think that would fly today, at least for their type of music. But those definitely were different times. I suspect a lot of mushrooms were consumed. Anyway...

As I do with my stray tracks albums, I've collected all the songs I could find that didn't appear on studio albums at the time. A couple of songs here should be very familiar to fans of the band: "Statesboro Blues" and "Hoochie Coochie Man." Both of those have featured on popular live albums. But I've included them because they never were on any studio albums. "Statesboro Blues" is a studio version. For "Hoochie Coochie Man," I took a lesser known live version and removed the audience noise.

All the other songs are much less known, I'd imagine. "One More Ride" is an original (cowritten by Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts). It was never played live, and only an instrumental version has been officially released. I've edited the song, added the vocals from a muddy sounding bootleg version with vocals to the instrumental version. However, some people might not like what I did, or don't mind the muddy sound. So I've included the muddy version as a bonus track. It's three minutes longer, with a drum solo and then a second guitar solo. But the edited version I've put as the first track features a different guitar solo.

The remaining three songs are cover versions that the band occasionally did in concert. "Call It Stormy Monday" and "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town" are well known blues songs, and I was able to find versions with excellent sound. (I removed the audience noise, as I often do.) "Oh Pretty Woman" is much less known. Note that this is NOT the huge Roy Orbison hit "Oh, Pretty Woman" with a comma after the "Oh." Instead, it's a song by Albert King. Unfortunately, the band played this very rarely (with bassist Berry Oakley on vocals, as he is on "Hoochie Coochie Man), and the best version I could find only has decent sound, from an audience bootleg. But I still think it's worth inclusion, since the band didn't play that many different songs back in 1970.

This album is 38 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 One More Ride [Edit] (Allman Brothers Band)
02 Statesboro Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
03 Oh Pretty Woman (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Hoochie Coochie Man (Allman Brothers Band)
05 I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Call It Stormy Monday (Allman Brothers Band)

One More Ride [Long Version] (Allman Brothers Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15285353/TAllmanBB_1970_StrmyMondy_atse.zip.html

The naked photo used for the cover art (discussed above) comes from some album art by the band in 1970. But they didn't use it as the cover art, so I figure it's fair game to use here. I stole the text for the band name from the "Beginnings" compilation album.

The Allman Brothers Band - One More Ride (Edited Song) (1970)

Here's something I'm pretty psyched about. I feel like I've created a "new classic Allman Brothers Band song from their heyday! Maybe not, but I'd be curious what you think.

I don't know anything about this song except that it was co-written in 1970 by band members Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts. It first appeared as an instrumental just under three minutes long on the 1988 box set "Dreams." Then an instrumental "remix" just under four minutes long appeared as a bonus track on a "super deluxe" edition of the "Idlewild South" album in 2015.

Yet there's another version of the song available only as a bootleg that's seven minutes long, and it has vocals by Gregg Allman, with perfectly good lyrics! So it's not really meant to be an instrumental after all. If you listen to the instrumental versions, there are long stretches where not much is happening, for instance no soloing. Clearly, those are the parts where the vocals were supposed to go.

Normally, I would just put the superior version with vocals on one of my stray tracks compilations. But unfortunately, the sound quality for that version sucks. It sounds really muddy and muffled. That's probably why that version is hard to find even on bootleg. So I decided to try to merge the two versions together.

First, I used a sound editing program to try to reduce the muddiness of the vocal version. I only had limited success, since I'm far from an expert in this kind of thing, and there's usually only so much even experts can do. But I think it helped some. Then I patched the vocal parts into the longer of the two instrumental versions. I had a hard time getting the timing just right, because there were slight changes in the speed of the song as it went along, in both versions, since they were recorded by fallible human beings many years before most recordings became computerized and the variability of drumming was lost in favor of metronome-like consistency (and soullessness). Still, after a lot of tinkering, I think I got pretty close on the timing.

I also had to put an instrumental version of the verse at the start of the song, because otherwise the vocals came in when the intro drumming bit was still going on, and it didn't sound good. I think this change works out fine, because there's a little guitar riff going on that keeps the instrumental version of the song interesting.

The end result doesn't sound perfect by any means, but hopefully it's close enough for horseshoes. One can clearly hear the change in sound quality each time the vocals come in. But I feel it's better to have it like that than have the whole song in poor sound quality.

By the way, the unreleased version is longer than the others in part because it has a drum solo in the middle that lasts for about two minutes. I don't think it's a big loss missing that, since most people aren't fans of drum solos (including myself). In fact, I think the song works a lot better here at four minutes long. It could and should have been played on the radio.

I've put the song on a stray tracks album for the band. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-allman-brothers-band-stormy-monday.html

I really like the vocal version of this song. I could totally imagine it being a regular concert staple for the band. I am baffled why the vocal version has been left officially unreleased until now. Surely the professionals could do a good job (better than mine!) improving the sound quality of that version, if there's a problem with it. But I think it's much more likely that there's no problem if one works from the master recordings, and it's the usual bootleg copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy problem that created the poor sound. So I don't see any excuse.

As mentioned above, a "super deluxe" version of "Idlewild South" has been released in recent years and the vocal version wasn't included on that, A box set of Duane Allman's guitar playing, "Skydog," was also released in recent years, and it wasn't included on that either, even though it features a very nice Duane Allman guitar solo. So I think the odds are low that that version will ever be officially released.

It's very baffling that this song slipped through the cracks, especially since the Allman Brothers Band were not prolific songwriters. It's not like the lyrics are objectionable, or it sounds too much like some other song, or it's a poor performance, etc... And I don't think the song was ever played live, either with vocals or as an instrumental. But at least there's this.

I put this together while I was working on posting another album of Allman Brothers Band stray tracks soon. I imagine I'll include this edit on that once I have that ready, unless I get feedback that I screwed this up somehow.

Duane Allman - Dimples - Non-Album Tracks (1969)

Duane Allman... SINGS! Wait. What?!

This is a very strange album. Duane Allman is considered one of the greatest guitar players of all time, especially when it comes to slide guitar. But he's about as well known for his singing as Bob Dylan is known for his lead guitar playing, meaning not at all. And yet, in early 1969, shortly before the Allman Brothers Band (ABB) formed, Duane Allman attempted to record a solo album in which he would sing all the songs. This is my attempt to recreate that album.

Duane Allman was not a bad singer, mind you. It's just that his voice was merely serviceable, while his brother Gregg had a remarkably expressive and bluesy voice. So of course it made sense to have Gregg Allman sing everything when the two of them were in the ABB together. But in early 1969, Gregg was spending many months in Los Angeles and Duane was busy working as a studio musician in Alabama. Duane was so impressive that he was offered a chance to record a solo album.

He did some work on the album, but either never finished it or didn't bother to release it. (Presumably, when Gregg moved back to the South in mid-1969 and musically linked up with Duane, Duane's solo album became moot.) Officially, only three songs have been released from it: "Happily Married Man" (which he wrote), "Goin' Down Slow," and "No Money Down." I've included two more here, from bootleg: "Steal Away" and "Dimples."

I've included another, "Down Along the Cove" only as a bonus track, because it's an instrumental meant to highlight his guitar soloing, but his guitar is buried so low in the mix as to be nearly inaudible, so I find it a very frustrating listen.

On top of that, it's known he recorded the songs "Bad News" and "Neighbor, Neighbor," but recordings of those haven't even been bootlegged (if they still exist at all).

The five songs that actually come from his planned solo album only total 23 minutes in length, which is too short for me to call an album. So I've added in some more songs to flesh it out. Duane very rarely sang lead vocals with the ABB, but he did on occasion. I've included two of those: "Hey Joe" and "Dimples." (That's the second version of "Dimples" on this album, but they're different enough for me to include both, especially since the live version has a lot more of his guitar soloing.)

I've also added two more songs that are instrumentals prominently featuring Duane's guitar: "The Weight" and "Going Up the Country." Happily, both of these were also recorded in early 1969, so I think they fit in well.

Finally, as a bonus track, I've added in a practice version of Boz Scaggs singing "Loan Me a Dime" with Duane on lead guitar. If you haven't heard the officially released version of this on Scagg's 1969 album, stop what you're doing and give it a listen immediately. It's 12 minutes long, and the vast majority of that is some of the best guitar soloing of Duane's career. This version is only five minutes long, and it's a more acoustic version, with a lot less soloing. But it's still interesting, and I'm including it mainly because it's officially unreleased and very hard to find.

So this is a strange album, for sure. It has more of Duane singing than him playing guitar solos, which is really weird. Furthermore, a lot of what I put on this wouldn't have actually been on Duane's solo album, if it ever was completed. But still, I think it's an interesting part of ABB history, and it makes a good listen.

01 Dimples (Duane Allman)
02 Happily Married Man (Duane Allman)
03 The Weight [Instrumental] (King Curtis with Duane Allman)
04 Steal Away (Duane Allman)
05 Goin' Down Slow (Duane Allman)
06 No Money Down (Duane Allman)
07 Going Up the Country [Instrumental] (Duck & the Bear [Johnny Sandlin & Eddie Hinton with Duane Allman])
08 Hey Joe (Allman Brothers Band & the Second Coming)
09 Dimples (Allman Brothers Band)

Down Along the Cove [Instrumental] (Duane Allman)
Loan Me a Dime [Rehearsal Version] (Boz Scaggs)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123724/TAllmanBB_1969-1970_DuaneADimpls_atse.zip.html

I'm not sure where the photo comes from that I used for the album cover here. But good color photos of Duane are few and far between, and this is a very good one.

The Allman Brothers Band - One More Ride - Band Demos (1969-1970)

I've posted three albums of music by Allman Brothers Band (ABB) members before they officially became the ABB in mid-1969. Now I can more on to posting actual ABB music.

There seemingly are a million official live ABB albums and a billion live ABB bootlegs, but there's a relatively small amount of studio outtakes. So I'm surprised that I'm able to make this album. I'm also surprised that so many of the songs here are officially unreleased (and also rarely seen on bootlegs).

The first four songs on this album are 1969 band demos for the first ABB album, simply called "The Allman Brothers Band." The rest are band demos for the second album, "Idlewild South." Although it should be noted that the last two songs, "Statesboro Blues" and "One More Ride," didn't appear on that album.

These demos generally sound very good, to the point that it's hard to notice which three of the songs have been officially released. The demo for the song "Revival" didn't sound as good, plus that version is very similar to the released album version, so I've only included that as a bonus track. Another demo, "Leave My Blues at Home," sounded even worse, so I didn't even include that as a bonus track.

Generally speaking, the versions here are fairly close to the ones that made the albums. But sometimes there are important differences, and the solos are different. Of course, the ABB are renowned for their live performances, but I think it's worthwhile to hear how the studio versions of these songs came to be.

01 Don't Want You No More [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
02 It's Not My Cross to Bear (Allman Brothers Band)
03 Trouble No More (Allman Brothers Band)
04 Dreams (Allman Brothers Band)
05 Don't Keep Me Wondering (Allman Brothers Band)
06 Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band)
07 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
08 Hoochie Coochie Man (Allman Brothers Band)
09 Statesboro Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
10 One More Ride [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)

Revival (Allman Brothers Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17187623/TALLMANBB1969-1970OneMorRideBandDmos_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/75rMVCMk

I used a 1970 concert poster as the basis for the album cover. But I realized the photo used on the poster was exactly the same as the one on the "Idlewild South" album, so I replaced it with another photo of the band, from 1969. Over a year later, I got a good program for colorizing (Pixbim), so I colorized it.

UPDATE: On October 1, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.