Some rock groups carry on for too long – until after they’ve lost their spark, after they’ve already done a farewell tour, or after all the original members have jumped ship. Not the Allman Brothers Band, whose players walked off the stage for the last time 10 years ago with their performing skills at a peak and three key co-founders still in the lineup.
Granted, the Allmans’ most striking compositions first surfaced way back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a fact that the band tacitly acknowledged by focusing their goodbye concert on material from that period. But that blistering, three-and-a-half-hour performance demonstrated that the group could still kick up a storm onstage in 2014. If you weren’t lucky enough to be in the audience, the good news is that, almost exactly 10 years later, the show is being released digitally and as a three-CD set called Final Concert 10-28-14.
That gig, which ended a 45-year career that included a few breakups, took place at New York’s Beacon Theatre. It was the last night of a six-night stand at the facility, which also served as the venue for a live album from 2000 called Peakin’ at the Beacon. The theatre had been the site of annual concerts by the group, which reportedly gave more performances there than anywhere else.
On stage for this final show were founders Gregg Allman (piano, organ, acoustic guitar, vocals), Johnny “Jaimoe” Johanson (drums), and Butch Trucks (drums, tympani), along with guitarist Warren Haynes, who joined the group in 1989; guitarist Derek Trucks, Butch’s nephew, who signed on in 1999; percussionist and vocalist Marc Quinones, who came aboard in 1991; and bassist and vocalist Oteil Burbridge, who spent 17 years with the Allman Brothers Band, including eight as a member. Not present from the original lineup were Duane Allman, who died in 1971, and Dickey Betts, who was kicked out of the group in 2000. But Haynes and Derek Trucks did an excellent job of filling the guitar hole left by their absence. (Also missing was bassist Berry Oakley, who died in 1972.)
The album of the concert offers a generous sampler of the innovative, jazz-influenced music that had made the Allmans the kings of Southern rock. The band performs all but one track from its eponymous 1969 debut LP, including Gregg Allman’s “It’s Not My Cross to Bear,” “Black-Hearted Woman,” “Dreams,” and “Whipping Post”; the Spencer Davis co-authored “Don’t Want You No More”; and Muddy Waters’s “Trouble No More.” The latter track, which follows a few heartfelt goodbye speeches, closes the concert after Gregg announces that “we’re going to bookend the Allman Brothers Band – end it with the song we started with.”
Also on the program is a big chunk of 1970’s Idlewild South: Betts’s “Revival” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” plus Gregg’s “Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’” and “Midnight Rider.” From 1971’s At Fillmore East come Blind Willie McTell’s “Statesboro Blues”; “You Don’t Love Me,” incorporating a cover of “Soul Serenade”; and “Hot ’Lanta.” In addition, the band delivers the lion’s share of 1972’s Eat a Peach, including “Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More,” Gregg’s tribute to his lost brother; “Melissa,” which Gregg co-authored; the group’s thrilling multipart “Mountain Jam,” which features nods to Donovan’s “There Is a Mountain”; Elmore James’s “One Way Out”; Betts’s “Blue Sky”; and Duane’s instrumental “Little Martha.”
As if all that weren’t enough, the show additionally offers Betts’s “Southbound” from 1973’s Brothers and Sisters, as well as the band’s “JaMaBuBu” and “The High Cost of Living Low.” (The latter, from 2003’s Hittin’ the Note, is the set’s only relatively recent composition.) There are also covers of Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Good Morning, Little School Girl,” Elmore James’s “The Sky Is Crying,” and the traditional “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” which the group performed at Duane’s funeral.
As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. And as this high-octane concert will remind you, the Allman Brothers Band was a very good thing.
Also Noteworthy
Various artists, Can’t Steal My Fire: The Songs of David Olney. Great albums require both great material and great performances, and you’ll find generous amounts of each on Can’t Steal My Fire, a tribute to folk singer/songwriter David Olney, who died onstage in 2020 of an apparent heart attack. Though Olney’s more than two dozen studio and live albums failed to attract a wide audience, they won him the admiration of many of his musical contemporaries. Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt are among those who have covered his literate, poetic material or shared writing credits with him. So is Steve Earle, who says he became “positively evangelical” about Olney’s songs and “preached the gospel to anyone who would listen.”
Earle’s terrific version of “Sister Angelina” is among the highlights of this CD’s program, which consists of numbers written or in a few cases co-written by Olney. Other standouts include readings of “Deeper Well” by Lucinda Williams, “If It Wasn’t for the Wind” by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, “That’s My Story” by Greg Brown, and “She’s Alone Tonight” by Janis Ian. The album, which offers 16 newly recorded studio performances, ends with a previously unreleased live cover of Olney’s “Illegal Cargo” by the late Townes Van Zandt.
Renaissance, Scheherazade and Other Stories (expanded edition). Originally issued in 1975, Scheherazade and Other Stories is considered a high point in the career of the British progressive rock outfit Renaissance. The band, which formed in 1969 and remains active today, is known for its expansive, classically influenced music and the work of Annie Haslam, who joined the lineup in the early 1970s and whose three-octave vocals became a key element in Renaissance’s sound.
This expanded edition of the group’s sixth studio album includes three discs. The first contains a remaster of the original album, which finds the group backed by the London Symphony Orchestra and is highlighted by the four-part, nearly 25-minute “Song of Scheherazade.” A second CD offers six performances from a well-executed 1976 concert, among them “Song of Scheherazade” and “Ashes Are Burning,” the ambitious and lengthy title cut from a 1973 LP. However, the cream of the crop for fans will be found on Disc Three, a DVD whose most notable feature is a 5.1 surround-sound mix of the original album.
Frank Sinatra, L.A. Is My Lady (Deluxe Edition). Frank Sinatra’s final solo album, which first appeared in 1984, is back in a remastered 40th anniversary edition. Bonus tracks, three of which were previously unreleased, include four alternate renditions of songs from the LP plus two versions of “Body and Soul,” an outtake from the sessions. The album marked Sinatra’s first collaboration in two decades with famed producer Quincy Jones, who passed away nine days after this reissue’s release.
The original record, which garnered relatively weak reviews and sales, has its shortcomings. The title cut, a sort of West Coast companion piece to Sinatra’s well-known reading of “Theme from New York, New York,” is forgettable; and several other numbers, such as “The Best of Everything,” employ grandiose arrangements, weak lyrics, or both. However, Sinatra is in fine voice throughout, and fans of Ol’ Blue Eyes will find some must-haves here, including a swinging “Mack the Knife” and the aforementioned “Body and Soul,” which is well orchestrated and evocatively delivered.
The W Lovers, For a Day or a Lifetime. The W in this band’s name presumably stands for the surname of Fleur and Wesley Wood, the Seattle-based husband-and-wife duo who recorded and produced this self-penned acoustic third album in their home studio.
For a Day or a Lifetime is an artfully crafted and effusive folk/Americana record. Its 11 songs are lilting, solidly constructed, beautifully sung, and loaded with to-die-for harmony work. Sometimes wistful, sometimes uplifting, the material addresses big issues – love, the passage of time, and the need to slow down and embrace life’s small pleasures.
“Deadly” Headley Bennett, 35 Years from Alpha. Jamaican alto saxophonist “Deadly” Headley Bennett, who died in 2016, played on countless ska and reggae LPs, including Bob Marley’s first recordings and albums by Alton Ellis and Delroy Wilson. However, he released only one solo set, 1982’s 35 Years from Alpha, which has been reissued before and is out again, this time with two excellent bonus tracks. Britain’s Adrian Sherwood, who has worked with such artists as Sinead O’Connor and Lee “Scratch” Perry, produced the music, most of which Bennett wrote or co-wrote.
The largely instrumental 35 Years from Alpha may make you wonder why Bennett didn’t put more emphasis on a solo career. It features backup from A-list Jamaican artists, including Bim Sherman, who provides vocals on three tracks, and drummer Style Scott. Bennett’s soaring, distinctive sax lines dominate the rhythmic, jazz-influenced music, which flows beautifully from first track to last.
Kelly Willis, What I Deserve (25th Anniversary Edition). Alt-country singer/songwriter Kelly Willis, whose most recent project was the terrific Wonder Women of Country (with Melissa Carper and Brennen Leigh), has been making first-rate records for years. One standout is 1999’s What I Deserve, which has now been reissued with a bonus: live versions of five of the album’s 13 tracks.
It’s a consistently strong CD, thanks largely to Willis’s nuanced, personality-drenched vocals. Another plus is the top-notch material, which includes three songs Willis co-wrote with the Jayhawks’ Gary Louris plus numbers by the Replacements’ Paul Westerberg, Australia’s underappreciated (in the U.S., at least) Paul Kelly, Willis’s ex-husband Bruce Robison, and the late, great Nick Drake.
Beth Lee, Hardly Matters. Fans of 1960s “girl groups” and power pop as well as Blondie and the Go-Gos will likely savor this follow-up to 2020’s Waiting on You Tonight. Working again with producer and drummer Vicente Rodriguez and guitarist James DePrato, Lee serves up 11 catchy, radio-friendly tracks that will have you cranking up the volume and singing along.
The Austin, Texas–based Lee says the title track “expresses my frustration trying to succeed in an oversaturated music town and that “Only You” is “about true love.” But as on her last album, Lee – who used to be in a band called the Breakups – mostly sings about failed relationships and encounters with old flames. That may sound bleak, but these well-hooked songs are consistently upbeat and infectious.
Jeff Burger’s website, byjeffburger.com, contains five decades’ worth of music reviews, interviews, and commentary. His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters.
