Allman Brothers – Trouble No More

Gregg Allman sounded like an old man in his early twenties and when he WAS an older man. He could sing like he lived every bit of the blues he was singing about. This was the first song the Allman Brothers ever played in front of an audience.

It’s hard to believe that their first two albums didn’t go anywhere in the charts. The first two were made up of many of their classic songs. Their first album The Allman Brothers Band contained Whipping Post, Trouble No More, It’s Not My Cross To Bear, and one of their signature songs Dreams.

Their second album Idlewild South contained In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, Midnight Rider, and Hoochie Koochie Man. It took their third album At Fillmore East to kickstart their career to the top. Many of those songs on the first two albums would be classic now thanks to the live treatment they were given on the double live album.

After Duane was killed on a motorcycle on October 29, 1971 the band finished up the album that was started a few months before. Eat A Peach was released in 1972 with studio cuts and some live cuts that were left over from the At Fillmore East album including Trouble No More. The album was a massive hit and a perfect followup to At Fillmore East. The album had radio-friendly songs plus great live versions of songs they had been playing in their set.

This was a popular Muddy Waters song. It’s based on a 1935 song called “Someday Baby Blues” by a country-blues singer named Sleepy John Estes. Waters transformed the song with his Chicago blues style, adding a much more prominent guitar. On the Muddy recording….Little Walter played the harmonica and Jimmy Rogers played the guitar.

The Allman Brothers did their own interpretation of blues songs and usually with an extra charge. The first time they played the song was on May 11, 1969, when they played at Piedmont Park in Atlanta at a free festival sponsored by an underground newspaper… the paper gave them a glowing review and put them on the map outside of Macon.

On October 28, 2014, the band played their final show, the farewell concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City. Their final song was Trouble No More.

Trouble No More

Don’t care how long you gone
I don’t care how long you staying
But, good kind treatment
Gonna bring you home someday
But someday baby
You ain’t gonna trouble poor me anymore

You just keep on betting
That the dice won’t pass
Well you know, darling
You are living too fast
But someday, baby
You ain’t gonna trouble poor me anymore

I’m gonna tell everybody
In your neighborhood
That you’s a sweet little girl
But, you don’t mean me no good
But someday baby
You ain’t gonna trouble poor me anymore

Well, I know you’re leavin
Well, you call that gone
Well, without love
You can’t stay long
But someday baby
You ain’t gonna trouble poor me anymore

Well, goodbye baby
Come on, shake my hand
I don’t want no woman
You can have a man
But someday baby
You ain’t gonna trouble poor me anymore

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

15 thoughts on “Allman Brothers – Trouble No More”

  1. I saw them in concert here in Detroit years ago, and it was one of the most fun and craziest concerts I’ve ever been to. amazing musicians and the crowd absolutely loved every minute of it

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  3. that’s a good song, it’s kind of upbeat and not what I think of when I normally think ‘Allman Bros.’
    Speaking of them, I watched a documentary last night I think you’d really like – ‘Rumble’ on Netflix (?I think, so many streaming services). Basically it’s about how Native Indian music is under-recognized but I think you’d like it a lot- they talk to Derek Trucks a lot in it and it deals with a lot of the old Blues music you generally seem to like a lot. Turns out a lot of those old “Black” Delta bluesmen were as much Cherokee or Seminole as AFrican-American.

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    1. I guess not or they don’t want to say: sources from within the Sesame Street production team suggest that the identical names were coincidental.

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  5. “Trouble No More” is such a great tune. And, yep, it’s amazing the first two Allman albums initially were ignored. I’m glad they got the recognition they deserved with “At Fillmore East”, which perhaps is the best live album ever.

    Fortunately, I “discovered” the Allmans just in time to realize how great they were, so I went to see them in the summer of 20`14 in New Jersey on their final tour. That was a few months prior to their final curtain at the Beacon Theatre in NYC.

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    1. I’m happy you got to see them! I missed I don’t know how many times in the 90s…I could have seen Dickey Betts at that time with them.

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    1. Oh yes! That one is probably my favorite of all of their albums. Brothers and Sisters charted better the following year but Eat A Peach was the one for me.

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