The Allman Brothers Band - Cast Off All My Fears: The Formative Years, 1965-1967

I'm a big fan of the Allman Brothers Band, so I'm going to start posting some music from them. The band formed in 1969 and released their first album that year. Not a lot of people have paid much attention to the music brothers Gregg and Duane Allman did prior to that, but actually, there's a lot of good music from their formative years.

In fact, I've found so much good music from those years that I plan on posting three albums of it. This is the first and least impressive, since they got better as they went on. But still, even this music has its charms. No, it doesn't contain the long instrumental jams the band is most famous for. But Gregg Allman was an exceptional bluesy and soulful singer pretty much from the get-go, and that shows here. And Duane Allman was already a renowned guitarist even before the Allman Brothers Band formed. In fact, the band was pressured into that name in order to try to capitalize on his fame as a highly regarded session guitarist.

All through this album, you're not going to get much of Duane Allman's famous slide guitar soloing, unfortunately. The pressure at the time was to come up with a hit, so these are all short songs. Gregg Allman was an excellent songwriter, but he hadn't hit his groove yet, and nearly all of these songs are cover versions. But still, within the context of the time, one can already see why many in the music industry could sense that Gregg and Duane Allman were destined to be stars.

All of the songs here feature both Allman brothers. The Escorts evolved into the Allman Joys, which evolved into Hour Glass. In 1967, Hour Glass released their first album, simply called "Hour Glass." Unfortunately, they were pushed to play music that didn't really fit them in search of that elusive hit. But still, there are highlights, and I only picked the good songs. I especially like "Cast Off All My Fears," which is a Jackson Browne song, written when he was still a teenager.

To be honest, even though this is all good music, most of it is derivative, as the Allmans worked on establishing their own sound. So this isn't for everybody. They'll make a big musical leap with their music in 1968.

01 Turn On Your Love Light (Escorts)
02 No Name [Instrumental] (Escorts)
03 Spoonful (Allman Joys)
04 You Deserve Each Other (Allman Joys)
05 Gotta Get Away (Allman Joys)
06 Shapes of Things (Allman Joys)
07 Crossroads (Allman Joys)
08 Lost Woman (Allman Joys)
09 Cast Off All My Fears (Hour Glass)
10 Heartbeat (Hour Glass)
11 Nothing but Tears (Hour Glass)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123629/TAllmanBB_1965-1967_CstOffAllMyFears_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I tried to pick a photo that would show what Gregg and Duane Allman looked like in their early years. I used a publicity photo of the Allman Joys from 1966. The Allmans are the two blonds who are standing. Duane is the one holding the reddish guitar. This photo was black and white, but I colorized it.