"Gregg Allman: The Music of my Soul": https://greggallman.com/gregg-allman-the-music-of-my-soul-in-theaters-on-wednesday-june-17/ Everybody's dead except Jaimoe. Who actually comes alive in this flick in a way we've never seen before. Now the funny thing is I lived through the ascent and continuation of the Allman Brothers, but now they're in the rearview mirror, and without a champion, without songs that get endless repeats on the radio (other than the less than representative "Ramblin' Man"), I won't quite say they're a hidden land mine waiting to be discovered, but I don't hear young people talking about them. But they will. This is a business of statistics. How many hits in how many decades and all other kinds of hype, which is hogwash, because ultimately it comes down to the music. It's not your sales history that's remembered, but the music itself. And very little has staying power, but the Allmans are lying in wait like the bluesmen who inspired the English rock stars of the sixties and seventies. Anyway... The fact that everybody's dead makes this documentary a bit different from most, where the penumbra testifies. First and foremost, Phil Walden is gone. Now that guy deserves a documentary. A white man in a black business who not only broke acts from nowheresville Georgia (no one north of the Mason-Dixon Line had truly knew Macon), but bent the rules and the dollars along the way. We do get Jonny Podell, the agent. But Bill Graham can't tell us what he saw in the Allman Brothers to make them the closing act at the Fillmore East. It was a completely different era, and Gregg Allman was a cool, basically unknown, king. Scratch that, we knew him through his music. Sure, like Stevie Winwood, Gregg might have had those Black pipes, but his voice also possessed a soulful heartbreak and meaning that was evidenced in the records that's hard to find elsewhere, especially today. Please call home... Why dontcha do that. Now of course there would be no Allman Brothers without Duane, and the brothers' bonds as well as their differences are illuminated here. Gregg was the younger one, pushed aside at times. Just like Duane took Gregg's guitar and the rest is history. I did not know the brothers went to military school because their mother had to be in residence to get her college degree in accounting. Actually, I'm not sure that rings true, but the bottom line is she got her parchment while raising two boys, which is difficult. And she was their biggest supporter. And that counts. So they're playing in bands. Going nowhere. What I mean is today everybody starts playing and imagines a record deal, and fame and riches. Whereas when you formed a band in the sixties your only goal was to get gigs. And you were happy to do the covers of the day, they kept you from the factory. And believe me, experiencing this motley crew... They talk about techies and bankers being rock stars, nothing could be further from the truth. These were not educated people, they lived for the music, they followed the music, they did drugs, they got tattoos, broke the color line and... Ended up with this music. It didn't happen overnight. There was the failed journey to Los Angeles. And then Duane called Gregg to come back east, that he'd formed a band... And he was depending on Gregg to deliver the songs. And just like the Beatles on that rooftop, Gregg passed the audition. And Phil Walden signed them and they woodshedded in Macon while broke and ultimately crossed the country again and again converting people. It's not that different from today. The Allmans didn't build a fan base from records, but on the road. Over 300 days a year. And you get really tight doing that. Springsteen gave a performance. He made the records come alive. You saw him and you felt the electricity, you saw the Jersey roots. The Allmans didn't say much, they spoke through their music, which didn't demand attention so much as set your mind free, adrift, on an excursion. Bruce was foreground, and sometimes the Allmans were too, but in many ways they were background. What I mean is when you heard "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" you didn't stare at the stereo, until the guitars were twinning on stage you weren't really even looking at the players, but somewhere in the distance. This was all happening in the early seventies. But you don't see anyone trumpeting the Allmans today. Maybe because Gregg lived instead of died. I'm not making light of Duane's death, just saying that nothing burnishes your image like a tragic, early death, like in the case of Jim Morrison. No, after the drug bust and the testimony against Scooter Herring, it was a climb back to acceptance. There was the solo work, then the band got back together, then that ended and Gregg played alone until he was snuffed out. In other words, you could see Gregg Allman. The last time I did was at the Roxy. And he hadn't lost anything, and he wasn't going through the motions, he was delivering, because that's what he did, played. Tours were tedious, but after recovering for a few days, he always wanted to go back out. Maybe because the music both centered and fulfilled him, gave him something to live for. As for Cher... She tried to change him. And Gregg refused to be changed. Of course he's stumbling around inebriated, getting married again and again and fathering children, but at root it was always the music. So who was this guy? Well, the main point you take from the film is Gregg was shy. Which is the antithesis of rock frontmen. They're flamboyant, they want attention, whereas Gregg sat behind the organ and... Even the initial solo LP, "Laid Back," it had not only the definitive version of Jackson Browne's "These Days," but the slowed-down take of "Midnight Rider." Sure, Gregg could play with energy, but so much of what he did was about contemplation. He could speak through his music and... What you've got here is a long 2014 interview with Gregg. And he is worse for wear. As anybody is as the years pass. But Gregg had been on the road and lived hard and it takes a toll. And you've got testimony from Jackson Browne and some superfluous talking heads like Robert Hilburn, but once again, the words don't really matter, because the music speaks for itself. And we learn Gregg had a best friend, a shoe-shiner he met in Macon. What we're looking for is someone who knows us, who we can trust, who we've gone through the changes with. Those famous people in TMZ...they're not your heart. So most of the people who were there are gone, and this was the pre-video era, there's only so much footage... Documentaries in the future will be different, just a matter of collecting the crumbs from YouTube and social media and assembling them. Then again, there is no mystique. Even though available, not hidden, Gregg maintained his mystique. It wasn't quite charisma, but when you spoke with Gregg...you could feel the southern roots, you could see the miles, the experience, he was neither reluctant, nor in your face, he was calm, but he suffered no fools. So the best thing about this documentary is it exists. For young people to discover Gregg in the future. He may not have written a plethora of songs, but the ones he did... Yes, "Whipping Post" may be famous as an extended jam, but the words alone...there's a direct connection to the blues of the delta. And then there are tracks like "Come and Go Blues." I loved the original take on "Brothers and Sisters," but the alternate one on the 1989 boxed set "Dreams" just penetrates me a bit more... "People say that you're no good But I wouldn't cut you loose, baby, if I could" https://open.spotify.com/track/75yIsuTbyA9exV9suXYrWD?si=c2645a74a0704b38 You could be that good-looking, that famous, that wealthy, and still be on the losing side of a relationship. And then there's "Statesboro Blues," the "Fillmore East" opener, drop the needle on that one and it will wake you up in the morning, it will pop you right out of bed, get you hopping around, ready to eat up the day... When the band locked in, it was like a freight train, a monolith that could mow down anything in its path. And "Trouble No More"... And Gregg still had it at the end, do you know "Desdemona" from "Hittin' the Note"? This is not music you can shrug your shoulders at. It picks you up off the couch and gets you boogieing. And it dominated dorm rooms in the early seventies. And unlike some famous bands, the sound could be captured on wax and expanded into new territory on stage. You could never criticize and complain, it was always tight. And so one some level Gregg's a part of the firmament, and on another he's gone. And this film reinforces what we've lost. This isn't the sixties, this is the generation after, which tends not to get as much respect. This is not English, but positively American. "Well, I've got to run to keep from hiding And I'm bound to keep on riding" This wasn't some vision of an old time bandit leaving town on his horse, this was Gregg himself. If he stood still, there would be too many questions. So he just kept moving, taking to the road, making music. As he then sings, the road goes on forever. "But I'm not gonna let 'em catch me, no Not gonna let 'em catch the midnight rider" Watching this movie you realize we never did catch Gregg Allman, he was in plain sight, but the man himself was elusive, he spoke through his music, and that's what's left. And that's plenty. -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25
