Tag: Duane Allman

Allman Brothers – Dreams

According to Gregg, this was written in Los Angeles after the breakup of Hourglass, the band he and his brother Duane had there. They opened up for acts such as Buffalo Springfield and The Doors. They were then forced by the record company to play more pop-style music so Duane quit and headed back home to Macon Georgia.

Gregg stayed behind to fulfill the contract and a little later Duane called him up to come to Macon and try out for a new band he put together. Gregg traveled to Macon and sat behind the keyboard and played them his songs. This song won them over and they soon became the Allman Brothers.

This was on their first album The Allman Brother’s Band and it peaked at #188.

Gregg’s autobiography on first playing with the Brothers: They asked me if I had any songs with me, and I told them I had twenty-two, so they told me to play them. I’d get through with one, and they’d ask me, “What else you got?” I’d play ’em another one and they were like, “That was kinda neat, a little potential; what else you got?”

After twenty of them, I’m going, “Oh fuck, I might be without a job here in a minute.” I had two songs left—“Not My Cross to Bear” and “Dreams.” I showed them “Dreams” first, and let me tell you, they joined right in. We proceeded to sit down, learn that song the same way you hear it today, and I was in, brother. They loved it. I bet we played that thing eleven times in a row, and the more we played it, the better it got.

From Songfacts

Gregg Allman wrote this sorrowful song about unrealized dreams when he was living in Los Angeles. He left Georgia to get his music career going there, and wrote a bunch of songs before returning and forming The Allman Brothers Band with his brother Duane. This was the song that won over his bandmates. Allman wrote in his 2012 biography: “I showed them ‘Dreams,’ and let me tell you, they joined right in. We learned that song the way you hear it today, and I was in, brother.”

Listen to the guitar part – you’ll hear Duane Allman switch to bottleneck guitar midway through the song.

“Dreams” was used as the title of The Allman Brothers 1989 5-album boxed set. An unreleased studio version of this song was used on it.

Molly Hatchet released a version of this in 1978. 

This is one of the few songs Gregg Allman wrote on the Hammond B-3 organ.

Here is a live version at the Fillmore BUT someone didn’t plug the input in Gregg’s mic until a few minutes.

 

Dreams

Just one more mornin’
I had to wake up with the blues
Pulled myself out of bed, yeah
Put on my walkin’ shoes
And went up on the mountain
To see what I could see
The whole world was fallin’, right down in front of me

‘Cause I’ve a hunger for the dreams I’ll never see, yeah, baby
Ah, help me baby, or this will surely be the end of me, yeah

Pull myself together
Put on a new face
Climb down off the hilltop, baby
Get back in the race

‘Cause I’ve a hunger for dreams I’ll never see, yeah, babe
Lord, help me baby, or, this will surely be the end of me, yeah

Pull myself together
Put on a new face
Climb down off the hilltop, baby
And get back in the race

‘Cause I’ve a hunger for the dreams I’ll never see, yeah, baby
Ah, ah, help me baby, or this will surely be the end of me, yeah, ah
Yeah, yeah, yeah

Allman Brothers – Statesboro Blues

This song is what got me into the Allmans. Duane’s slide in the intro is all I needed to hear. The song was written by Blind Willie McTell who recorded it in 1928.

The Allman’s released it in 1971 on the Fillmore East Album.

From Gregg’s book…In around1967-68 Gregg Allman had upset his brother Duane and then Duane caught a cold or flu.

Gregg brought Duane a Taj Mahal album that included this song…this was before the Allman Brothters was formed. He bought Duane some Coricidin medicine for his cold and Duane had never played slide before…he took the medicine out of the bottle and used it for a slide…the rest is history.

Gregg Allman: So he kissed me on the cheek, and he said, “Man, that record you brought me is out of sight. There’s a guy called Jesse Ed Davis on there, this Indian dude, and he plays guitar with a damn wine bottle. Dig this.”
And then I looked on the table and all these little red pills, the Coricidin pills, were on the table. He had washed the label off that pill bottle, poured all the pills out. He put on that Taj Mahal record, with Jesse Ed Davis playing slide on “Statesboro Blues,” and starting playing along with it. When I’d left those pills by his door, he hadn’t known how to play slide. From the moment that Duane put that Coricidin bottle on his ring finger, he was just a natural.
Looking back on it, I think that learning to play slide was a changing moment in his life, because it was like he was back in his childhood—or maybe not his childhood, because it never seemed to me like Duane was a child, so it was more like going back to his first days of playing the guitar. He took to the slide instantly, and mastered it very quickly. He practiced for hours and hours at a time, playing that thing with a passion—just like he did when he first learned to play the guitar.

From Songfacts

This was played in sets by Hour Glass, one of the first bands Duane and Gregg Allman formed.

The band performed this at Duane Allman’s funeral, with Dickey Betts playing Duane’s guitar.

After Duane’s death, Betts played the slide guitar on this at concerts. He was reluctant to do so because he did not want to compete with Allman’s legend.

A previously unreleased studio version appears on their 1989 5-disk box set Dreams.

At the end of Duane Allman’s guitar solo, he hit an off-key note that his brother Gregg called the “note from hell.” The song made the album warts and all, as these things happen during live performances.

Statesboro Blues

Wake up momma, turn your lamp down low
Wake up momma, turn your lamp down low
You got no nerve baby, to turn Uncle John from your door

I woke up this morning, I had them Statesboro Blues
I woke up this morning, had them Statesboro Blues
Well, I looked over in the corner, and Grandpa seemed to have them too

Well my momma died and left me
My poppa died and left me
I ain’t good looking baby
Want someone sweet and kind

I’m goin’ to the country, baby do you want to go?
But if you can’t make it baby, your sister Lucille said she wanna go

I love that woman, better than any woman I’ve ever seen
Well, I love that woman, better than any woman I’ve ever seen
Well, now, she treat me like a king, yeah, yeah, yeah
I treat her like a doggone queen

Wake up momma, turn your lamp down low
Wake up momma, turn your lamp down low
You got no nerve baby, to turn Uncle John from your door

 

My Cross To Bear

I was never a huge Allman Brothers Band fan. I always respected them and I liked their radio songs and heard enough of Duane Allman to know he was a great slide guitar player. I also knew Gregg could make any song his song because of his vocals. I never really wanted to know more about them.

A friend of mine recommended Gregg Allman’s autobiography My Cross To Bear. I have a 72-mile round trip car ride to work every day so I downloaded the audio version. I took a  chance on this one a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed it.  I also downloaded the E-book after I finished it.

The Allman Brothers have always been known as the Godfathers of Southern Rock. I never considered them Southern Rock…like Gregg himself said… they were a blues band with some jazz thrown in and they were from the south.

The audiobook is narrated by Will Patton who does a great job of channeling Gregg.

It is like having Gregg over on your back porch telling you these great stories. He is very down to earth and does not try to make his mistakes sound like someone else’s fault. If you want to know about Duane Allman get this book. He is honest about his brother…warts and all. He doesn’t try to whitewash himself either.

He starts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction where he was sick, miserable, and bloated because of his drinking problem…from there he starts going back through his personal history and the many ups and downs of the Allman Brothers. He covers the bands that Duane and he formed…The Escorts, The Allman Joys (which I would have kept that name) and Hourglass.

Hourglass made a couple of albums of original material and covers but the record company made them “pop” everything up. They would not let them play with an edge. The Escorts and Allman Joys were cover bands… very good cover bands.

After reading the book I have started to listen to the Allman Brothers more. He gives you some funny stories and you see how close that band was in the early days before Duane and Berry Oakley died. He mentions his struggles with Dickey Betts, alcohol, drugs and wives. You also read about a “foot shooting” party…

He also talks about being on stage noticing Eric Clapton among the audience. That led to the Layla sessions. Eric was a big fan of Duane’s slide playing.

You learn some history about a cover band’s travels, trials, and tribulations in the mid-1960s…youtube has a few crude recordings of the Allman Joys live in the mid-60s. Below is The Allman Joys version of Help. I would have never thought it was Gregg Allman singing.

If you are a music fan you will probably enjoy this book.

Help by the Allman Joys in 1966 is the opening song.