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://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.
What an excellent find. Many thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAnother very sad day for classic rock music! Thanks for this memory.
ReplyDeleteI always liked that album too. So nice to hear from that period of time. Much appreciated.
ReplyDelete