This was for Dave’s Turntable Talk, and he wanted us to pick either an artist, or an album, or even one song that has risen steadily in our estimation through the years. I picked two…because they are similar and both happened at the same time with me.
I’m cheating a bit, but I got permission from the principal. I simply could not pick between the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers. I always liked them both, but didn’t really LIKE them until the teens, around the same time. Thanks, Dave, for another intriguing question.
In the 1980s, I had a greatest hits package by both bands, and I thought I was doing fine. One day, I needed to pick a book from Audible, and I happened to pick Gregg Allman’s book The Cross I Bear, which I would put up there with the Keith Richards book Life. I started to get into the book, and then I started to listen to the music, and I was blown away. In that book, he talked about The Grateful Dead, and I soon got Dead’s drummer Bill Kreutzmann’s book Deal about his life, and the same thing happened.
This is how a young Max got into music in the first place: by getting Beatles books and going from there. In those books, the author would mention other artists, and I would have to check them out. Out of that, I got the Who, Kinks, Stones, and the rest.
Both of these bands seem to be related to each other. Two jam bands, one from the West Coast and their southern brother in Macon, Georgia. Both were led by a strong lead guitarist and two drummers. They did have separate styles, but live, you could expect a different concert night to night. Both of them treated their road crew much better than other bands. They considered them just as important as the band itself.
Both bands pulled from American styles: blues, country, folk, and jazz. The Dead leaned into folk, bluegrass, and psychedelic experimentation, while the Allmans drew more heavily from Delta blues and Southern soul. But in both cases, their sound was a gumbo rather than a single style.
As I got into them, what grabbed me about the Grateful Dead were the lyrics that Hunter and Garcia wrote and the beautiful melodies they wrote. With the Allmans, it was that driving music. I always thought they were more intense than the Dead. Their songs were not as deep, but I loved the music. I instantly fell for both bands. I threw away the greatest hits packages and started to explore more of their albums, and I’m better for it.
It’s a shame we didn’t have more Allmans with Duane and more Dead with Pigpen. Those two losses changed the dynamics of both bands. Both of these bands had talent to burn, and the Allmans put that to the test. After losing Duane, they lost their melodic bass player, Berry Oakley, a year after Duane’s passing.
If I had to pick my favorite album by both bands, it would be Eat A Peach by the Allmans and American Beauty by the Grateful Dead, although Wake of the Flood would be a close second. Without them, there’s no Phish, Widespread Panic, or modern jam band scene. Both are considered the patron saints of improvisational rock, each with its own branch on the family tree.
They did share a stage at the Fillmore East in 1970 with Duane and Pigpen. They also played massive shows together at Watkins Glen and at RFK Stadium, both in 1973.
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