Gregg Allman – These Days

Last week I had a UK-flavored week…this week I’m going to have a southern feel.

Right before recording the Allman’s Brothers and Sisters album…Gregg brought a song in for the Brothers and they rejected it because it didn’t fit as well with them. Gregg wanted to expand and use the folk and the California vibe that he had. He thought…I’ll just make my own album. The Allman Brothers fully supported him in this.

In the sixties, Gregg and Duane were in the band Hourglass… Gregg roomed with Jackson Browne for a while. Gregg has stated that he picked up a lot from Browne on songwriting.  They kept that relationship for the rest of their lives. Gregg did this song that was written by Browne. He slowed it down and added some more soul to it and Jackson ended up changing the way he did it to match this live. The song was the B side to the biggest hit on the album, Midnight Rider. Allman would continue to play this throughout his career.

Gregg Allman - Laid Back

This song was on Gregg’s first solo album Laid Back released in 1973. He recorded this album while recording the great Brothers and Sisters album with the Brothers. He was also battling addiction brought on by the loss of his brother Duane and the passing of bassist Berry Oakley.

The song has a history dating back to the 1960s. Nico of the Velvet Underground recorded it first in 1967. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band did it in 1968. According to Secondhandsongs the song has been covered 75 times!

Allman went on tour with Laid Back which included a string orchestra. The tour was a huge success and helped to chart the album at #13 on the Billboard Album Charts and #19 on the Canadian Charts.

Allman’s recording somewhat overshadowed Browne’s version and many have called Allman’s version the definitive version. Jackson Browne even alluded to that as well. Greg Allman and Jackson Browne covered it in 2014. Just my two cents…it’s hard to beat Allman’s voice and his soulful feel.

Jackson Browne: Gregg Allman was one of the most gifted singers of the last fifty years. We became friends in LA in the late sixties when he and Duane were in The Hourglass. He was a blues singer first, and he was so natural, and so soulful, that when he sang songs that were written in a major scale, he found all the most soulful and expressive passages through those changes. It was just how he heard it. That’s how it was with my song, These Days. He slowed it down, and felt it deeply, and he made that song twice as good as it was before he sang it. I got to speak with him in the week before he passed, and I got to tell him how much his music and his friendship has meant to me. He recently recorded one of my early songs, Song For Adam, and he and Don Was sent it to me to sing on, and I did. That song, the way he sang it and where he sang it from – at the end of his life – well, he completed that song, and gave it a resonance and a gravity that could only have been put there by him.

Jackson Browne Version

Allman and Browne…I kept the quick bio and interview with Don Was in at the beginning.

These Days

Well I’ve been out walkingI don’t do that much talking these daysThese days-These days I seem to think a lotAbout the things that I forgot to doAnd all the times I had the chance toI’ve stopped my ramblingI don’t do too much gambling these days, These days-These days I seem to think aboutHow all the changes came about my waysAnd I wonder if I’d see another highwayI had a loverI don’t think I’ll risk anotherThese days, these daysAnd if I seem to be afraidTo live the life that I have made in songIt’s just that I’ve been losing so longI’ve stopped my dreamingI won’t do too much schemingThese days, these daysThese days I sit on corner stonesAnd count the time in quarter tones to tenPlease don’t confront me with my failuresI had not forgotten them

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, 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. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

39 thoughts on “Gregg Allman – These Days”

  1. Well this has been an eye opener! This relationship is new to me. That song was written by Browne when he quite young yet it shows the weariness of age. Quite remarkable and well done on both versions. Man I feel like Ive been living under a rock!

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    1. When I read Gregg’s bio back in the teens…I was surprised by this relationship…because it just doesn’t fit in someways but it worked well. I didn’t know this song had been covered so many times.

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      2. Gregg also really liked Tim Buckley…he called Buckley and asked him to record a song together…Buckley was surprised but said yes. He died before it happened.
        So he had a folk leaning.

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      4. I know he did live…I’m thinking about recording though…he might have done a Dylan song on his last album Going Going Gone…I’m not sure.
        He did cover Rain by The Beatles earlier of all songs…he could surprise you.

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      6. Allman was an interesting guy. Before I read his book…I didn’t know as much about him obviously but I really got into his music after that.

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      8. Yea it’s a curse or blessing….I got to know about something…. Randy did you know this song at all? I was surprised to say the least at the amount of covers.

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  2. What a gem of a song. I can get weirdly emotional over Gregg Allman, and his death really got to me – can’t quite explain it. While I was reading your post, I was thinking about Gregg’s final album “Southern Blood”, which as Browne’s quote noted includes a rendition of one of his songs, “Song For Adam”. I love both the “Laid Back” and the “Southern Blood” albums.

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    1. I need to check more of the new one out…his bio really opened up the door to them for me. I get what you are saying…after him in his book talking about his brothers death…it hit me when he died.

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      1. I got “Southern Blood” on vinyl when it came out and literally started crying while I was listening to it – frankly, it borders on being bizarre. I had only “discovered” the Allmans some 3 years earlier – thank goodness in time to see them at least once during their final tour – literally a couple of months prior to their final curtain at the Beacon in New York!

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      3. It really is. Plus, realizing he recorded that album while knowing he was dying adds another layer of emotion to it. When he sings, “You and I both know/This river will surely flow to an end/Keep me in your heart/Keep your soul on the mend”, you know what he’s singing about. This stuff just completely overwhelmed me!

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      4. Yea…the same thing happened to me Christian on Warren Zevon’s “Keep Me in your Heart”….the very same thing you described.

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  6. ‘Midnight Rider’ I know, this one is new to me. Like others here, also didn’t know he & Jackson were friends. Small world musically, Mr Southern Rock about two degrees of separation from Linda Ronstadt or ol’ Neil (whom we’re told a southern man doesn’t around anyway!)

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    1. He was friends with Neil….they opened up for Buffalo Springfield…and he was friends with The Doors… I love reading about all of those connections. This song surprises me with 75 covers.

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  12. I absolutely love this song but had never heard it until Glen Campbell covered it on his brilliant 2008 Meet Glen Campbell career-revival album, so to me that is the definitive heart-rending version, it seems to have more pathos when an older singer covers it – though that said, I pretty much rate every cover version I’ve heard, Jennifer Warnes, Ian Mathews and Nico to name but 3.

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  13. I didn’t know about the friendship between Browne and Allman.

    First time I heard this song was Tom Rush.

    I heard the last two lines of the song to be “Please don’t remind me of my failures/I’ve not forgotten them.” Remind is a very different word from confront, and changes the tone considerably.

    Jackson Browne trivia? He was a member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band once upon a time, before Buy For Me The Rain.

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