1946 Peter Green*
1963 John Clifton*
1971 Duane Allman+
1974 Eric Gales*
2008 Mae Mercer+
1963 John Clifton*
1971 Duane Allman+
1974 Eric Gales*
2008 Mae Mercer+
Happy Birthday
Eric Gales *29.10.1974
Eric Gales wuchs in einer Musikerfamilie mit 4 Brüdern auf. Zwei von Ihnen spielten die Gitarre genau wie er aufgrund von Linkshändigkeit, verkehrt herum; nämlich Erics Bruder Eugene Gales, der auch Bassist in der Eric Gales Band war, und sein Bruder Little Jimmy King, der ein erfolgreicher Blueskünstler war bis zu seinem verfrühtem Tod. Eric brachte im Alter von 16 seine erste Platte bei Elektra Records heraus – welche ein großer Überraschungserfolg bei den Medien und den Musikfans in der ganzen Welt war. Bei einer Umfrage des Guitar World Magazine’s Reader erhielt Eric 1991 den Titel “Best New Talent”. Nachdem er eine weitere Platte bei Elektra aufgenommen hatte, spielten die 3 Brüder 1996 zusammen The Gales Bros. “Left Hand Brand” für das „House of Blues label“ ein.
Es kam nicht selten vor, dass Künstler wie Carlos Santana, Eric Johnson, Keith Richards, B. B. King und Eric Clapton seinen Konzerten auftauchten um mitzuerleben, wie Eric das Publikum mit seinem Gott-gegebenen Talent zur Ekstase brachte. Das neue Jahrtausend brachte neue Angebote für Eric und er so nahm ihn Nightbird Records unter Vertrag, die eng verbunden waren mit den Hendrix-Erben und die Vermarktung lief über MCA/Universal. Unter diesem Vertrag nahm Eric 2001 das von Kritikern gefeierte Album “That’s What I Am” auf und ging dann schließlich auf Tour, wo er Fans auf der ganzen Welt begeisterte mit seiner faszinierend ungewöhnlichen Art, Gitarre zu spielen.
2006 nahm Eric die von Kritikern umjubelte CD “Crystal Vision” bei Shrapnel Records auf und setzte damit Maßstäbe für die fantastische, 2007 nachfolgende CD “The Psychedelic Underground” (Blues Bureau Division). 2010 landete Eric einen weiteren Treffer mit seinem unglaublich erfolgreichem Album “Relentless”. 2013 veröffentlichten Eric, Doug Pinnick (King’s X) und Thomas Pridgen (ehemals The Mars Volta) die von Kritikern gefeierte Platte “PGP” bei Magna Carta Records. Im selben Jahr brachte Eric sein erstes Instrumentalalbum “Ghost Notes” unter dem neuen Bandnamen “The Eric Gales Trio” heraus.
Aufgrund der Tatsache, dass Eric ein linkshändig spielender Gitarrist mit außerordentlichem Talent, einer ausdrucksvollen Singstimme und zudem auch afro-amerikanischer Abstammung ist, drängt sich der Vergleich mit Hendrix für viele geradezu auf, aber Eric hat eine einzigartigen Blues/Rock-Sound-Mix erfunden, der genauso einzigartig wie Albert Kings und Eric Johnsons ist. Mit seinem besonderen Stilmix ist Eric Gales anderen Künstlern seines Genres haushoch überlegen.
http://www.quasimodo.de/index.php?id=114&L=0&tx_cal_controller[getdate]=20151107&tx_cal_controller[view]=event&tx_cal_controller[type]=tx_cal_phpicalendar&tx_cal_controller[uid]=19666&tx_cal_controller[lastview]=view-list|page_id-201&cHash=11c3412b12
Eric Gales (aka Raw Dawg) (born October 29, 1974, Memphis, Tennessee) is an American blues-rock guitarist, originally hailed as a child prodigy. As of 2011 Gales has recorded ten albums on major record labels, and has done session and tribute work. He has also contributed vocals on several records by the Memphis rap groups, Prophet Posse and Three 6 Mafia.
Gales picked up the guitar at age four. His older siblings, Eugene and Manuel (Little Jimmy King), took to teaching him many songs and licks at a young age, in the style of Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, B.B. King and others. In 1985, the young Gales began to play at blues competitions with his brother Eugene backing him on bass. Although Gales plays a right-handed guitar "upside-down" (with the E-bass string on the bottom), he is not naturally left-handed; he was taught by his brother who is left-handed and never second-guessed the untraditional technique.[1]
In late 1990, Eric and Eugene Gales signed with Elektra Records, and together with drummer Hubert Crawford released 1991's The Eric Gales Band and 1993's Picture of a Thousand Faces. Guitar World magazine's Reader's Poll named Eric as "Best New Talent", in 1991. During this time he scored two rock radio hits, "Sign of the Storm" (#9 U.S. Mainstream Rock) and "Paralyzed" (#31 U.S. Mainstream Rock)[2] and had spots on television programs such as The Arsenio Hall Show.
In 1994, Gales performed with Carlos Santana at Woodstock '94.[3] In 1995, Eric Gales teamed up with both of his brothers to record an album under the band name of The Gales Brothers. Left Hand Brand was released in 1996.[4] 2001 saw Gales return with his album That's What I Am on MCA Records.
Gales has released the albums Crystal Vision, The Psychedelic Underground,The Story of my Life and Layin' Down the Blues on the Shrapnel Records label. Relentless (2010) was followed by Transformation (2011) and Live (2012).
He maintains a strong friendship with record producer Mike Varney. Gales has two daughters, Jasmine Gales (born 1992) and step daughter LaAsia Chandler (born 1996) and is married to LaDonna Gales from Greensboro, North Carolina.
In 2004, he contributed a cover of "May This Be Love" to the album Power of Soul: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix. In 2008, he, along with other guitarists, participated in the touring tribute to Jimi Hendrix, Experience Hendrix. the touring group of musicians included Billy Cox, Eric Johnson, Chris Layton, Doyle Bramhall II, Brad Whitford, and was the last tour that Mitch Mitchell played on.
In the winter of 2010, Gales returned to the touring circuit in Europe with TM Stevens on bass guitar and Keith LeBlanc on drums. The tour was billed as VooDoo Chile and featured works of Jimi Hendrix as well as original material from both Gales and Stevens.
In February 2013, Magna Carta released the Mike Varney produced Pinnick Gales Pridgen, featuring Gales on guitar and vocals, dUg Pinnick on bass and vocals, and Thomas Pridgen on drums. The 13 track album featured one cover song, "Sunshine of Your Love", originally by Cream, one short instrumental based on Ludwig van Beethoven's "Für Elise" (German: [fyːʁ eːˈliːzə] ( listen), English: "For Elise"), and the remaining songs written by some combination of Pinnick, Gales, Pridgen and Varney.
Dunlop Sessions: Eric Gales
Peter Green *29.10.1946
Die frühen Jahre
Peter Green stand schon früh unter dem Einfluss von Musikern wie Buddy Guy, B. B. King, Freddie King, Otis Rush und Muddy Waters sowie traditioneller jüdischer Musik.
Seinen ersten professionellen Auftritt hatte er 1966 als Bassist bei Peter B's, deren Schlagzeuger Mick Fleetwood war. Peter Green war ein großer Fan von Eric Clapton und nutzte die Chance, als dessen Ersatzmann bei John Mayalls Bluesbreakers einzusteigen. Clapton hatte die Bluesbreakers verlassen, um einen längeren Aufenthalt in Griechenland zu verbringen. Mit in der Band waren John McVie als Bassist und Mick Fleetwood als Schlagzeuger. Peter Green fügte sich gut in die Gruppe ein und war enttäuscht, als nach ein paar Auftritten Clapton zurückkehrte und er die Band wieder verlassen musste.
Aber sechs Monate später verließ Clapton die Band definitiv, um Cream zu gründen. John Mayall stellte Green als Claptons Nachfolger ein. Anfangs standen manche Fans Green ablehnend gegenüber. Als die Band ohne Clapton im Studio erschien, um ihr Album A Hard Road aufzunehmen, war selbst ihr Produzent Mike Vernon skeptisch. Aber bald hatte Peter Greens Spiel ihn überzeugt. Mit seinem bemerkenswerten Instrumental The Supernatural zeigte Green den für ihn später typischen Stil, der an B. B. King erinnerte.
Seine Zeit mit Fleetwood Mac
1967 gründete Peter Green zusammen mit John McVie und Mick Fleetwood Fleetwood Mac. Nun begann Peter Greens erfolgreichste Zeit mit den Alben Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, Mr. Wonderful, English Rose und Then Play On und Stücken wie Albatross, Need Your Love So Bad, Man of the World, Oh Well sowie Black Magic Woman, das später ein Welthit für Carlos Santana wurde. Mit den genannten Singles nahmen aber auch Fleetwood Mac selbst wiederholt Top-Positionen in den europäischen Hitparaden ein.
Doch bald hatte Peter Green Schwierigkeiten mit seiner Berühmtheit, dem Musikbusiness und mit psychedelischen Drogen wie LSD und Meskalin. Zudem wurde er religiös und trat mit einem riesigen Kruzifix und weiten Kutten bekleidet auf. Nach einem Albtraum war er überzeugt, „Geld sei schlecht und habe einen verderblichen Einfluss“, weshalb er den Großteil seiner Tantiemen an Wohltätigkeitsorganisationen (wie „War on Want“) spendete, was er auch von seinen Bandkollegen verlangte.
Im Rahmen einer Europatournee machten Fleetwood Mac am 22. und 23. März 1970 in München Station, wo sie zwei Konzerte im Circus Krone und einen Gig im Deutschen Museum spielten. Damals wurde Peter Green von den Münchner „Highfish“-Kommunarden Uschi Obermaier und Rainer Langhans in das Schloss der Landkommune bei Landshut eingeladen.[1] Laut einer langlebigen Legende habe Green dort einen LSD-Trip zu viel konsumiert, der seine Psyche bleibend verändert haben soll. Im Gegensatz zu Peter Greens Biografen Martin Celmins sind die Bandmitglieder und die Crew von Fleetwood Mac (Band-Manager, Road-Manager, Roadie) bis heute überzeugt, dass Green vor allem durch den Münchner LSD-Trip ein anderer Mensch geworden ist. Selbst Green erklärte später „I went on a trip, and never came back“ („Ich machte einen Trip und kam nie mehr zurück“).
Allerdings gab es schon vor der Europatournee zunehmende Spannungen zwischen Green und seinen Bandkollegen. Der Bruch war so oder so unvermeidbar, die Begegnung mit der Münchner Kommune hat allenfalls als Katalysator gewirkt. Im Gegensatz zu seinen Bandkollegen wollte Green die gemeinsamen Gewinne zu wohltätigen Zwecken spenden; musikalisch wollte er sich gemeinsam mit seiner Band in eine neue Richtung (endlose Jam-Sessions und Improvisationen) weiter entwickeln.
Nach dem Ende der Europatournee verließ Green seine Band. Er nahm das Solo-Album The End of the Game auf, das vorwiegend aus Improvisationen bestand. Im Folgejahr erschienen noch zwei Singles (Heavy Heart/No Way Out sowie Beasts of Burden/Uganda Woman), die heute gesuchte Raritäten sind. Green beteiligte sich bis 1971 noch an einigen Aufnahmen befreundeter Musiker wie Peter Bardens und B. B. King, zog sich anschließend aber für mehrere Jahre völlig aus dem Musikgeschäft zurück.
Aufgrund der zahlreichen Alben, die Peter Green bis 1970/71 mit John Mayall, Fleetwood Mac und namhaften Bluesgrößen wie Duster Bennett, Eddie Boyd, Paul Butterfield, B. B. King, Memphis Slim und Otis Spann eingespielt hat, wird er gerne als der „beste weiße Blues-Gitarrist“ bezeichnet und von Fans, Freunden und ehemaligen Bandkollegen „The Green God“ genannt.
Die folgenden Jahre bis heute
Viele Berichte über Peter Greens folgende Jahre sind widersprüchlich. Er selbst hatte erklärt, bewusst einen materiell einfachen und bescheidenen Lebensstil zu pflegen. In den 1970er Jahren arbeitete er unter anderem als Friedhofsgärtner und lebte zeitweise in Israel in einem Kibbuz. Nach einem Vorfall, bei dem er seinem ehemaligen Manager telefonisch mit Waffengewalt gedroht haben soll, weil dieser trotz anderslautender Anweisungen die eingehenden Tantiemen an Green statt an „War on Want“ zahlte, wurde Green längere Zeit in eine psychiatrische Klinik eingewiesen.
Nach seiner Entlassung überredeten ihn Freunde und Verwandte, zur Musik zurückzukehren. Das 1979 veröffentlichte Album In The Skies wurde ein überraschender Erfolg und verkaufte sich allein in Westdeutschland über 200.000 Mal. Es folgten einige durchaus beachtete Alben. Nach White Skies ging Green mit einer neu geformten Gruppe gleichen Namens auf Tournee, wirkte laut der Süddeutschen Zeitung aber auf der Bühne verloren, „lustlos und uninteressiert“.
Bis 2004 war Green immer wieder mit der Peter Green Splinter Group auf Tour. Danach trennte er sich von der Splintergroup und übersiedelte nach Schweden. Er versicherte öffentlich, weiterhin musikalisch aktiv zu bleiben. Er habe sein Drogenproblem erkannt und arbeite daran. Auf dem Album Time Traders singt er in dem Lied Downsize Blues (Repossess My Body): „I'm gonna repossess my body from the demons / exorcise my soul / gonna change those clothes in my old wardrobe / they ain't gonna fit me anymore“, auf deutsch etwa: „Ich werde mich wieder von den Geistern lösen / meine Seele reinigen / ich werde diese Kleider in meiner alten Garderobe wechseln / sie werden mir nicht mehr passen“.
Im Frühjahr 2009 ging Peter Green wieder auf Tour. Er gab auch einige Konzerte in Deutschland als Peter Green and Friends.
Einflüsse auf andere Bands
Peter Green entwickelte seine von Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Freddie King und Eric Clapton beeinflusste Art Gitarre zu spielen zu einem eigenständigen Gitarrenstil und -Sound, der von Gitarristen „greeny“ genannt wird. Carlos Santana machte 1970 Greens Black Magic Woman durch eine Coverversion zum Welthit und selbst Weltkarriere. 1979 coverte die Heavy-Metal-Band Judas Priest Peter Greens Lied The Green Manalishi (With The Two Pronged Crown). 1995 widmete der Rock- und Blues-Gitarrist Gary Moore seinem Vorbild Peter Green das Tribute-Album Blues for Greeny.
Das Magazin Guitar World veröffentlichte 2011 den Artikel 30 on 30: The greatest guitarists picked by the greatest guitarists in dem Rich Robinson Peter Green als ausgezeichneten Bluesgitarristen nannte.[2]
Peter Green als Romanfigur
Der britische Autor und frühere „Strangeways”-Musiker Ada (Adrian) Wilson lässt in seinem Roman „Red Army Faction Blues” (2012) den als V-Mann und Agent Provocateur des Berliner Verfassungsschutzes bekannten „S-Bahn-Peter”, Peter Urbach, bei der oben erwähnten Münchener HighFish-Kommune mit Peter Green zusammentreffen. Zwanzig Jahre später will die fiktionale Romanfigur Urbach herausfinden, was damals mit Greenie geschehen ist, dass er sich als Folge des Kommunenbesuches verändert und aus dem öffentlichen Leben zurückgezogen hat.[3]
The Peter Green Les Paul
Gary Moore war jahrelang der Eigentümer von Peter Greens legendärer Gibson Les Paul, deren Hals-Tonabnehmer-Magnet bei einem Service oder werkseitig irrtümlich verkehrt herum und damit mit umgekehrter Polarität wieder in den Tonabnehmer eingebaut wurde, was ihren charakteristischen Out-of-Phase-Klang bedingte. Zudem wurde der Tonabnehmer verkehrt, d.h. mit den Schrauben Richtung Steg, eingebaut, was allein aber noch keinen Einfluss auf den Gitarrenklang hat.
Als die Gitarrenfirma Gibson gemeinsam mit Peter Green ein Signature-Modell seiner Les Paul in Serie fertigen wollte, lehnte Green das Angebot ab. Die Tatsache, dass es inzwischen dennoch auch einen offiziellen Nachbau von Greens Les Paul gibt, ist dem Gitarren-Sammler Melvyn Franks zu verdanken, der Greens legendäre Gitarre von Gary Moore ersteigert hatte und anschließend der Firma Gibson zur Verfügung gestellt hat, um davon ein Signature-Modell herzustellen, das zwar nicht Greens Namen trägt, aber doch ein Imitat seiner Les Paul ist. Das Modell wird seit Anfang 2010 von Gibson unter dem Namen "Gibson Collector's Choice #1 1959 Les Paul Standard Gary Moore" vertrieben. [4]
Schon Ende 2006 hat der Gitarren-Designer Trevor Wilkinson mit der Vintage V100MRPGM Lemon Drop ein preiswertes Modell entwickelt und auf den Markt gebracht, das Peter Greens legendäre Gibson Les Paul nachahmt.
Videodokumentationen zu Peter Green
Außer der knapp 40 Minuten dauernden, diverse Fernsehauftritte vereinenden DVD „Fleetwood Mac – The Early Years“ gibt es folgende DVD-Dokumentationen, die sich ausführlich Peter Greens Leben und Werk widmen:
The Mick Fleetwood Story
Die im Jahr 2003 veröffentlichte DVD „The Mick Fleetwood Story“ porträtiert nicht nur den Mitbegründer und Schlagzeuger von Fleetwood Mac, Mick Fleetwood. Die DVD zeichnet vielmehr die Geschichte von Fleetwood Mac nach und bietet neben persönlichen Einblicken und Eindrücken von Mick Fleetwood auch Interviews mit bekannten Rock- und Blues-Musikern, die gemeinsam mit ihm Bühne und Studio geteilt haben. Einige Konzertmitschnitte zeigen den frühen Peter Green, dem ein eigenes Kapitel gewidmet ist. Dabei beklagen Greens Bandkollegen, dass sich Peter Green nie wieder von jenem verheerenden LSD-Trip erholt habe, den er laut ihrer Ansicht in der Münchner Highfish-Kommune verabreicht bekommen habe.
An Evening with Peter Green
Welche bleibende Zerstörung die psychedelischen Drogen und in der Folge gewiss auch die psychiatrische Behandlung (Psychopharmaka, Elektroschocktherapie) bei Green angerichtet haben, zeigt unter anderem jenes 2003 gefilmte Interview mit Peter Green (und Nigel Watson), das als Zugabe auf der Splinter Group-Konzert-DVD „An Evening with Peter Green“ zu sehen ist (2003).
Man of the World. The Peter Green Story
Anlässlich des 40-jährigen Bestehens von Fleetwood Mac ist im Jahr 2007 die DVD-Dokumentation „Man of the World. The Peter Green Story“ erschienen. Sie behandelt anhand seltener Archivaufnahmen von Live- und Studioauftritten sowie zahlreicher Interviews Peter Greens Leben und Werk. Der zeitliche Schwerpunkt liegt auf jener Zeit, als Green Leadgitarrist bei John Mayalls Bluesbreakers sowie später Chef der britischen Bluesband Fleetwood Mac war. In der Bonustrack genannten Zugabe präsentiert Peter Green seine wertvolle Gitarrensammlung.
Peter Green (born Peter Allen Greenbaum; 29 October 1946)[1] is a British blues rock guitarist and the founder of the band Fleetwood Mac. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 for his work with the group, Green's songs such as "Albatross", "Black Magic Woman", "Oh Well" and "Man of the World" have been recorded by artists such as Santana, Aerosmith, Status Quo,[2] Black Crowes, Midge Ure,[3] Tom Petty,[4] Judas Priest[5] and Gary Moore, who recorded Blues for Greeny, a covers album of Green's compositions.
A major figure and bandleader in the "second great epoch"[6] of the British blues movement, Green inspired B.B. King to say, "He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats."[7][8] Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page have both lauded his guitar playing.[9] Green's playing was noted for its idiomatic string bending and vibrato[6] and economy[10] of style.
He was ranked 38th in Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".[11] His tone on the Bluesbreakers instrumental "The Supernatural" was rated as one of the 50 greatest of all time by Guitar Player.[12] In June 1996 Green was voted the third-best guitarist of all time in Mojo magazine.[13][14]
Career
Early years
Green was born in Bethnal Green, London. He first played in a band called Bobby Dennis and the Dominoes, which performed pop chart covers and rock 'n' roll standards, including Shadows covers. He later stated that Hank Marvin was his guitar hero and he played the Shadows song Midnight on the 1996 tribute album "Twang." He went on to join rhythm and blues outfit the Muskrats, then a band called The Tridents in which he played bass. In 1966, Green played lead guitar in Peter Bardens' band "Peter B's Looners", where he met drummer Mick Fleetwood. It was with Peter B's Looners that he made his recording début with the single "If You Wanna Be Happy" with "Jodrell Blues" as a B-side.[15] His recording of "If You Wanna Be Happy" was an instrumental cover of a song by Jimmy Soul.[16]
John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
After three months with Bardens' group, Green had the opportunity to fill in for Eric Clapton in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers for three concerts. Soon after, when Clapton left the Bluesbreakers, he became a full-time member of Mayall's band.[6]
Mike Vernon, a producer at Decca, recalls Green's début with the Bluesbreakers:
“ As the band walked in the studio I noticed an amplifier which I never saw before, so I said to John Mayall, "Where's Eric Clapton?" Mayall answered, "He's not with us anymore, he left us a few weeks ago." I was in a shock of state [sic] but Mayall said, "Don't worry, we got someone better." I said, "Wait a minute, hang on a second, this is ridiculous. You've got someone better?? Than Eric Clapton??" John said, "He might not be better now, but you wait, in a couple of years he's going to be the best. Then he introduced me to Peter Green".[16]”
Green made his recording debut in 1966 with the Bluesbreakers on the album A Hard Road (1967),[17] which featured two of his own compositions, "The Same Way" and "The Supernatural". The latter was one of Green's first instrumentals, which would soon become a trademark. So proficient was he that his musician friends bestowed upon him the nickname "The Green God".[18]
In 1967, Green decided to form his own blues band and left the Bluesbreakers.[6]
Fleetwood Mac
Green's new band, with ex-Bluesbreaker Mick Fleetwood on drums and Jeremy Spencer on guitar, was initially called "Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac featuring Jeremy Spencer". Bob Brunning was temporarily employed on bass guitar, as Green's first choice Bluesbreakers' bassist John McVie was not yet ready to join the band.[19] Within a month they played at the Windsor National Jazz and Blues Festival in August 1967 and were quickly signed to Mike Vernon's Blue Horizon label.[citation needed] Their repertoire consisted mainly of blues covers and originals, mostly written by Green but some by slide guitarist Spencer. The band's first single, "I Believe My Time Ain't Long" with "Rambling Pony" as a B-side, did not chart but their eponymous debut album made a significant impression, remaining in the British charts for over a year. By September 1967, John McVie had replaced Brunning.
Although classic blues covers and blues-styled originals remained prominent in the band's repertoire through this period, Green rapidly blossomed as a writer and contributed many successful original compositions from 1968 onwards. The songs chosen for single release showed Green's style gradually moving away from the group's blues roots into new musical territory. Their second studio album Mr. Wonderful was released in 1968 and continued the formula of the first album. In the same year they scored a hit with Green's "Black Magic Woman" (later covered more successfully by Santana), followed by the guitar instrumental "Albatross" (1969), which reached number one in the British singles charts. More hits written by Green followed, including "Oh Well", "Man of the World" (both 1969) and the ominous "The Green Manalishi" (1970).[16] The double album Blues Jam in Chicago (1969)[20] was recorded at the Chess Records Ter-Mar Studio in Chicago. There, under the joint supervision of Vernon and Marshall Chess, they recorded with some of their American blues heroes including Otis Spann, Big Walter Horton, Willie Dixon, J.T. Brown and Buddy Guy.
In 1969, after signing to Immediate Records for one single (prior to that label's collapse) the group signed with Warner Bros. Records' Reprise Records label and recorded their fourth studio album Then Play On, prominently featuring the group's new third guitarist Danny Kirwan. Green had first seen Kirwan in 1967, playing with his blues trio Boilerhouse, with Trevor Stevens on bass and Dave Terrey on drums.[21] Green was impressed with Kirwan's playing and used the band as a support act for Fleetwood Mac, before finally recruiting Kirwan to his own band. Spencer, however, made virtually no contribution to Then Play On, owing to his reported refusal to play on any of Green's original material.[citation needed]
Beginning with "Man of the World"'s melancholy lyric, Green's bandmates began to notice changes in his state of mind. He was taking large doses of LSD, grew a beard and began to wear robes and a crucifix. Mick Fleetwood recalls Green becoming concerned about wealth: "I had conversations with Peter Green around that time and he was obsessive about us not making money, wanting us to give it all away. And I'd say, 'Well you can do it, I don't wanna do that, and that doesn't make me a bad person".[16]
While touring Europe in late March 1970, Green took LSD at a party at a commune in Munich, an incident cited by Fleetwood Mac manager Clifford Davis as the crucial point in his mental decline.[22] Communard Rainer Langhans mentions in his autobiography that he and Uschi Obermaier met Green in Munich, where they invited him to their Highfisch-Kommune. Their real intention was to persuade Green to help arrange for Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones to perform as headline acts at a Woodstock-styled festival in Bavaria.[citation needed] Fleetwood Mac roadie Dinky Dawson remembers that Green went to the party with another roadie, Dennis Keane, and that when Keane returned to the band's hotel to explain that Green would not leave the commune, Keane, Dawson and Mick Fleetwood travelled there to fetch Green.[23] By contrast, Green stated that he had fond memories of jamming at the commune when speaking in 2009: "I had a good play there, it was great, someone recorded it, they gave me a tape. There were people playing along, a few of us just fooling around and it was... yeah it was great." He told Jeremy Spencer at the time "That's the most spiritual music I've ever recorded in my life." After a final performance on 20 May 1970, Green left Fleetwood Mac.[24]
Post-Fleetwood Mac
In late June 1970, Green appeared at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music with John Mayall, Rod Mayall (organ) and Larry Taylor (bass). Also soon after leaving Fleetwood Mac, he accompanied former bandmate Peter Bardens (Peter B's Looners) on Bardens' solo LP The Answer, offering up some fine lead guitar to several tracks. In that same year he recorded a jam session entitled The End of the Game. In 1971 he had a brief reunion with Fleetwood Mac, helping them to complete a US tour after guitarist Jeremy Spencer had left the group, under the pseudonym Peter Blue.[25] He recorded two tracks for the album Juju with Bobby Tench's band Gass;[26] a solo single and another with Nigel Watson, sessions with B. B. King in London in 1972 and an uncredited appearance on Fleetwood Mac's Penguin LP in 1973, on the song "Night Watch". Green's mental illness and drug use had become entrenched at this time and he faded into professional obscurity.[16]
During the past couple of years, there have been rumours of a reunion of the early line-up of Fleetwood Mac, involving Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer. The two guitarists and vocalists apparently remain unconvinced of the merits of such a project,[27] but in April 2006, during a question-and-answer session on the Penguin Fleetwood Mac fan website, bassist John McVie said of the reunion idea:
"If we could get Peter and Jeremy to do it, I'd probably, maybe, do it. I know Mick would do it in a flash. Unfortunately, I don't think there's much chance of Danny doing it. Bless his heart."[28]
Illness and first re-emergence
Green was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent time in psychiatric hospitals undergoing electroconvulsive therapy during the mid-1970s. Many sources attest to his lethargic, trancelike state during this period.[29] In 1977, he was arrested for threatening his accountant Clifford Davis with a shotgun. The exact circumstances are the subject of much speculation, the most popular being that Green wanted Davis to stop sending money to him. In the 2011 BBC documentary "Peter Green: Man Of The World",[30] he stated that at the time he had just returned from Canada needing money and that, during a telephone conversation with his accounts manager, he alluded to the fact that he had brought back a gun from his travels. His accounts manager promptly called the police who surrounded Green's house.[31] After this incident he was sent to a psychiatric institution in London.[citation needed]
Green performing on 30 May 1983
In 1979 Green began to re-emerge professionally. With the help of his brother Michael he was signed to Peter Vernon-Kell's PVK label, and produced a string of solo albums starting with 1979's In the Skies. He also made an uncredited appearance on Fleetwood Mac's double album Tusk, on the song "Brown Eyes", released the same year.[citation needed]
In 1981, he contributed to "Rattlesnake Shake" and "Super Brains" on Mick Fleetwood's solo album The Visitor. He recorded various sessions with a number of other musicians notably the Katmandu album A Case for the Blues with Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry, Vincent Crane from The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Len Surtees of The Nashville Teens. Despite attempts by Gibson Guitar Corporation to start talks about producing a "Peter Green signature Les Paul" guitar, Green's instrument of choice at this time was a Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion.[32] In 1986 Peter and his brother Micky contributed to the album A Touch of Sunburn by Lawrie 'The Raven' Gaines (under the group name 'The Enemy Within').[33] This album has been re-issued many times under such titles as "Post Modern Blues" and "Peter Green and Mick Green – Two Greens Make a Blues", often crediting Pirates guitarist Mick Green.
Peter Green Splinter Group
Green formed the Peter Green Splinter Group in the late 1990s, with the assistance of Nigel Watson and Cozy Powell. The Splinter Group released nine albums between 1997 and 2004.
Early in 2004, a tour was cancelled and the recording of a new studio album stopped when Green left the band and moved to Sweden.[34] Shortly afterwards he joined The British Blues All Stars, for a tour scheduled for the next year. However, this tour was cancelled after the death of saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith. At the time, Green stated that the medication he was taking to treat his psychological problems was making it hard for him to concentrate and sapped his desire to play guitar.
In February 2009 he began playing and touring again, this time as Peter Green and Friends. In May 2009 he was the subject for the BBC Four documentary "Peter Green: Man of the World", produced by Henry Hadaway. Green and the band subsequently played a tour of Ireland, Germany and England. They went on to play several dates in Australia during March 2010, including the Byron Bay Bluesfest. The band were supported by singer-songwriter Garron Frith on their UK tour dates during May 2010.
Playing style and song writing
Green has been praised for his swinging shuffle grooves and soulful phrases and favoured the minor mode and its darker blues implications.[6] His distinct tone can be heard on "The Super-Natural", an instrumental written by Green for John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers' 1967 album A Hard Road. This song demonstrates Green's control of harmonic feedback.[6] The sound is characterized by a shivering vibrato, clean cutting tones and a series of ten-second sustained notes. These tones were achieved by Green controlling feedback on a Les Paul guitar.[12] Perhaps the best example of Green's economy and sense of proportion – alongside an exquisite tone – is found on John Mayall's recording of the Elmore James classic 'It Hurts Me Too'.
Green remains ambivalent about his songwriting success and more recently stated to Guitar Player magazine:
“ Oh, I was never really a songwriter. I was very lucky to get those hits. I shouldn't have been distracted from my fascination with the blues... I have been known to come up with the odd bit, but I'm not all that wild about the big composer credit ”
Equipment
Early in his career he played a Harmony Meteor, a cheap hollow-body guitar, but quickly started playing a Gibson Les Paul with The Bluesbreakers, a guitar which was often referred to as his "magic guitar". In 2000 he told Guitar Player magazine: "I never had a magic one. Mine wasn't magic...It just barely worked."[citation needed] In part, his unique tone derived from the neck pickup having been installed with the magnet in reverse at the factory, resulting in an out of phase sound.[citation needed] On stage with Fleetwood Mac, he used a Fender amplifier with a spring reverb effect.[citation needed] Though he played other guitars, he is best known for deriving a unique tone from his 1959 Gibson Les Paul.[8][35]
In the early 1970s he sold his signature 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar to Northern Irish guitarist Gary Moore.[18]
In the 1990s he played a 1960s Fender Stratocaster and his Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion, using Fender Blues DeVille and Vox AC30 amplifiers.[6]
In 2000s he began to play his ebony coloured Gibson Les Paul guitar again. Green signed and sold this guitar, which had been customised to sound similar to his "Green Burst Les Paul", which is now owned by Metallica's lead guitarist Kirk Hammet.
In more recent years Green reverted to playing his Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion guitar.[32]
Influence
Many rock guitarists have cited Peter Green as an influence, most notably Gary Moore,[36] Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry,[37] Steve Hackett and Wishbone Ash guitarist Andy Powell.[38] Green was The Black Crowes' Rich Robinson's pick in Guitar World's "30 on 30: The Greatest Guitarists Picked by the Greatest Guitarists" (2010). In the same article Robinson cites Jimmy Page, with whom the Crowes toured: "...he told us so many Peter Green stories. It was clear that Jimmy loves the man’s talent".[9]
In an interview with Dan Forte from Guitar World magazine, which was reprinted in Guitar Legends in 1993, Eric Clapton acknowledged Green's skills as a guitar player when recalling a chance meeting with him in the mid-1980s:
“ I met him on the street not more than a year ago, and to me he's a great guy, and he was just the same. He didn't look particularly healthy, and he seemed like he was kind of pissed off in general, but that's quite a healthy attitude to have, in some respects. It's not as if he was indifferent. So I would never completely give up on the guy. ”
[citation needed]. In the same interview Clapton stated "He is one of the best. It's all there".
In an interview with Guitar Player in 2000, Green acknowledged Clapton's influence, stating:
“ I followed him to John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. I loved his playing. At the time he did everything on a Telecaster, it sounded absolutely fabulous. ”
Personal life
Green was born into a Jewish family,[39] the youngest of Joe and Ann Greenbaum's four children. His brother Michael taught him his first guitar chords and by age of eleven, Peter was teaching himself and began playing professionally by age fifteen.
Enduring periods of mental illness and destitution throughout the 1970s and 1980s he moved in with his eldest brother Len and his wife Gloria, and his mother in their house in Great Yarmouth, where a process of recovery began.[16][40]
He married Jane Samuels in January 1978; the couple divorced in 1979. They have a daughter, Rosebud Samuels-Greenbaum (born 1978).
peter green's fleetwood mac - need your love so bad
John Clifton *29.10.1963
John Clifton from Fresno California is a blues harmonica player, guitarist, and vocalist with remarkable style and originality. He is a veteran of the west coast blues scene having traveled worldwide performing since the late1980’s.
He is best known for his work with the Central California blues group The MoFo Party Band. He formed with his brother in 1989. They've played many festivals and clubs all over the USA, Europe and South pacific regions.
John Clifton as a solo artist has performed notable shows with The Mark Hummell Harmonica Blowout that featured Huey Lewis, John Mayall, James Cotton and Other greats, The Austrian Boogie Festival in Vienna Austria, Blues Express Festival in Poland, and Blues Night in Fredrikshaven Denmark.
He is a producer and songwriter; many of his original compositions get regular worldwide radio airplay. As a record producer he has award winning recordings such as The Boogie Boy’s from Poland’s 2012 “Made in Cali” won Polish Blues Top Award for "Album of the Year"(featuring 3 of John’s original songs).
John Clifton is a consummate performer with a love for the stage, he is energetic and entertaining and a veteran at his craft. an avid record collector music historian and story teller,
John has a new CD release that will make it's official debut October 16th 2015 on Rip Cat Records. The CD titled "Let Yourself Go" is 13 hard hitting songs. John explores different styles of blues soul and 50's r&b. 6 tunes written by John and 7 of his favorite obscure songs makes this a potpourri of the sound in John's mind. There are some great gusts including Rusty Zinn, Kid Ramos, Bob Welsh Roger Perry and many others. This CD is a true gem, keep an eye out for it..
http://www.johncliftonmusic.com/He is best known for his work with the Central California blues group The MoFo Party Band. He formed with his brother in 1989. They've played many festivals and clubs all over the USA, Europe and South pacific regions.
John Clifton as a solo artist has performed notable shows with The Mark Hummell Harmonica Blowout that featured Huey Lewis, John Mayall, James Cotton and Other greats, The Austrian Boogie Festival in Vienna Austria, Blues Express Festival in Poland, and Blues Night in Fredrikshaven Denmark.
He is a producer and songwriter; many of his original compositions get regular worldwide radio airplay. As a record producer he has award winning recordings such as The Boogie Boy’s from Poland’s 2012 “Made in Cali” won Polish Blues Top Award for "Album of the Year"(featuring 3 of John’s original songs).
John Clifton is a consummate performer with a love for the stage, he is energetic and entertaining and a veteran at his craft. an avid record collector music historian and story teller,
John has a new CD release that will make it's official debut October 16th 2015 on Rip Cat Records. The CD titled "Let Yourself Go" is 13 hard hitting songs. John explores different styles of blues soul and 50's r&b. 6 tunes written by John and 7 of his favorite obscure songs makes this a potpourri of the sound in John's mind. There are some great gusts including Rusty Zinn, Kid Ramos, Bob Welsh Roger Perry and many others. This CD is a true gem, keep an eye out for it..
John Clifton & Boogie Boys Quartett #1 - 25.Bluesfest Eutin 2014
R.I.P.
Duane Allman +29.10.1971
Von Ed Berman - Duane Allman - Fillmore East - 6/26/71, CC BY 2.0,
Howard Duane Allman (* 20. November 1946 in Nashville, Tennessee; † 29. Oktober 1971 in Macon, Georgia) gilt als Slide-Gitarren-Legende und als einer der besten Rock- und Blues-Gitarristen aller Zeiten. Auf der Liste der 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time der amerikanischen Musikzeitschrift Rolling Stone findet sich Allman auf Rang 9 hinter Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, B.B. King, Chuck Berry und Eddie Van Halen.
Nachdem Duane Allman im Alter von etwa 14 Jahren von seinem Bruder Gregg die ersten Gitarrengriffe gelernt hatte, spielten die Brüder zusammen in verschiedenen Gruppen, wobei Duane seinen Bruder, was das Können auf der Gitarre anbelangt, schon bald übertraf. Dieser wechselte dann auch im Lauf der Zeit zu Orgel und Klavier über; später, bei den Allman Brothers, sollte er auch das Gros der Stücke für die Gruppe komponieren.
1965 gründeten die Allman-Brüder die Band Allman Joys; 1967 folgte Hour Glass. Diese Band nahm während eines Kalifornien-Aufenthaltes auch zwei später auf Doppel-LP veröffentlichte Alben auf.
1969 spielte Duane, der inzwischen nach Florida gegangen war, zwischen Sessions als Studio-Musiker für die Fame-Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama (u. a. für Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett und King Curtis) mit dem Schlagzeuger Butch Trucks, der Band des Gitarristen Dickey Betts und dem Schlagzeuger Jai Johanny „Jaimoe“ Johanson, und ihm wurde schnell klar, dass dies genau das war, was alle Beteiligten machen wollten. Nach einer Jam-Session im Green House und dem Hinzukommen von Duanes Bruder Gregg aus Kalifornien war die Allman Brothers Band komplett. Neben Duane [lead-g, slide-g, voc] und Gregg Allman [lead-voc, org, p] bestand die Band aus Dickey Betts [lead-g, slide-g, voc], Berry Oakley [el-b, voc] sowie den beiden Schlagzeugern Jai Johanny Johanson [dr, congas, perc] und Butch Trucks [dr, tympani]. Auch war es Duane, der Don Felder, dem späteren Gitarristen der Eagles, die Slide-Gitarre näher brachte.
Duane Allman nahm zusammen mit der Ur-Besetzung der Allman Brothers Band insgesamt vier Alben – davon zwei Doppelalben – auf. Neben den Alben der Allman Brothers Band wirkte er auch auf dem Layla-Album von Eric Clapton/Derek & The Dominos mit.
Duane Allman verunglückte am 29. Oktober 1971 bei einem Motorradunfall in Macon tödlich, als er einem plötzlich ausscherenden Lastwagen ausweichen wollte. Posthum wurde das zu seinen Lebzeiten begonnene Doppelalbum Eat a Peach vom Rest der Band fertiggestellt und veröffentlicht.
Ein Jahr nach Duanes Tod verunglückte der Bassist der Gruppe, Berry Oakley, ebenfalls mit dem Motorrad an fast derselben Stelle wie Duane tödlich. Bis zum heutigen Tag besteht die Allman Brothers Band – unterbrochen von mehr oder weniger langen Pausen – nach wie vor.
Technisches
Die Gitarren, die Duane Allman spielte, waren zu Zeiten der Allman Brothers Band entweder eine 1957er Gibson Les Paul Goldtop, eine 59er Gibson Les Paul Darkburst oder eine 68er Gibson SG Standard.[2] Für die Aufnahme des allerersten Allman-Brothers-Albums The Allman Brothers Band verwendete er eine Gibson ES-345. Als Verstärker benutzte er hauptsächlich einen 50-Watt Marshall Bass Head, als Slide ein Coricidinfläschchen.
Howard Duane Allman (November 20, 1946 – October 29, 1971) was an American guitarist, session musician, co-founder and leader of The Allman Brothers Band until his death in a motorcycle accident in 1971 at the age of 24.
The Allman Brothers Band was formed in 1969 and based in the Southeastern United States. In the early 1970s, the band had major success. Allman is best remembered for his brief but influential tenure in the band and in particular for his expressive slide guitar playing and inventive improvisational skills.[1] In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Allman at #2 in their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, second only to Jimi Hendrix and in 2011 he was ranked #9.[2] His tone (achieved with a Gibson Les Paul and two 50-watt bass Marshall amplifiers) was named one of the greatest guitar tones of all time by Guitar Player.[3]
A sought-after session musician both before and during his tenure with the band, Duane Allman performed with such established stars as King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Herbie Mann. He also contributed heavily to the 1970 album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos.
Duane Allman's skills as a guitarist were complemented by personal qualities such as his intensity, drive and ability to draw the best out of others in making music.[4] He is still referred to by his nickname "Skydog".[5]
Early years
Duane Allman was born on November 20, 1946 in Nashville, Tennessee. He was the eldest son of Willis Allman, a World War II non-commissioned officer turned recruiting officer in the United States Army,[6] and Geraldine (née Robbins). His younger brother Gregg Allman was born in late 1947.
While the family was living near Norfolk, Virginia, his father was murdered by a shell-shocked veteran he and a friend met in a bar and had given a ride to.[6][7] In order to retrain as an accountant, Geraldine "Mama A" Allman sent Duane and Gregg to Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee, which they both disliked intensely.[8] In 1957, the family moved to Daytona Beach, Florida where the boys attended Seabreeze High School.
The boys returned to Nashville to spend summers with their grandmother, where Gregg learned guitar basics from a neighbor. In 1960, Gregg had saved enough money to buy his first guitar, a Japanese-made Teisco Silvertone while Duane acquired a Harley 165 motorbike. Duane began to take an interest in the guitar, leading to fights over it, and eventually their mother bought Duane a Gibson Les Paul Junior.[9]
It was also in Nashville that the boys became musically inspired by a rhythm and blues concert where they saw blues guitar legend B. B. King perform. Apparently, Duane turned to Gregg and said, "We got to get into this."[9] Duane learned to play very quickly and soon became the better guitarist of the two.
Allman Joys and Hour Glass
The two Allman brothers started playing publicly in 1961, joining or forming a number of small, local groups. Shortly thereafter, Duane quit high school to stay home during the day and focus on his guitar playing. Their band the Escorts opened for The Beach Boys in 1965 but disbanded and eventually became the Allman Joys. After Gregg graduated from Seabreeze High School in 1965, the Allman Joys went on the road, performing throughout the Southeast and eventually being based in Nashville and St. Louis, Missouri.
The Allman Joys morphed into another not-completely-successful band, The Hour Glass, which moved to Los Angeles in early 1967. There the Hour Glass produced two albums that left the band unsatisfied. Liberty, their record company, tried to market them as a pop band, completely ignoring the band's desire to play more blues-oriented material.
In 1968, Gregg Allman went to visit Duane on his 22nd birthday. Duane was laid up in bed, nursing an injured left elbow suffered from a fall from a horse. Gregg brought along a bottle of Coricidin pills for his fever and the debut album by Taj Mahal as a gift. He left it on the front porch and rang the bell, as Duane was angry with him for the injury. "About two hours after I left, my phone rang," Gregg states. "Baby brother, baby brother, get over here now!" When Gregg got there, he found that Duane had poured the pills out of the bottle, washed off the label and was using it as a slide to play "Statesboro Blues", an old Blind Willie McTell song covered on the Taj Mahal album, with blazing slide guitar work by Jesse Ed Davis. "Duane had never played slide before," says Gregg, "he just picked it up and started burnin'. He was a natural." (-quoted from:Muscle Shoals (film)). The song would go on to become a part of the Allman Brothers Band's repertoire, and Duane's slide guitar became crucial to their sound.
The Hour Glass broke up in early 1968, and Duane and Gregg Allman went back to Florida, where they played on demo sessions with The 31st of February, a folk rock outfit whose drummer was Butch Trucks. Gregg returned to California to fulfill Hour Glass obligations, while Duane jammed around Florida for months but didn't get another band going.
Session musician
Allman's playing on the two Hour Glass albums and an Hour Glass session in early 1968 at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama had caught the ear of Rick Hall, owner of FAME. In November 1968 Hall hired Allman to play on an album with Wilson Pickett. Allman's work on that album, Hey Jude (1968), got him hired as a full-time session musician at Muscle Shoals and brought him to the attention of a number of other musicians, such as Eric Clapton, who later said, "I remember hearing Wilson Pickett's 'Hey Jude' and just being astounded by the lead break at the end. I had to know who that was immediately—right now."
Allman's performance on "Hey Jude" blew away Atlantic Records producer and executive Jerry Wexler when Hall played it over the phone for him. Wexler immediately bought Allman's recording contract from Hall and wanted to use him on sessions with all sorts of Atlantic R&B artists. While at Muscle Shoals, Allman was featured on releases by a number of artists, including Clarence Carter, King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, Laura Nyro, Wilson Pickett, Otis Rush, Percy Sledge, Johnny Jenkins, Boz Scaggs, Delaney & Bonnie, Doris Duke and jazz flautist Herbie Mann. For his first sessions with Franklin, Allman traveled to New York, where in January 1969 he went as an audience member to the Fillmore East to see Johnny Winter and told fellow Shoals guitarist Jimmy Johnson that in a year he'd be on that stage. That December, the Allman Brothers Band indeed played the Fillmore.[10]
Formation of The Allman Brothers Band
The limits of full-time session playing frustrated Allman. The few months in Muscle Shoals were by no means a waste, however; besides meeting the great artists and other industry professionals with whom he was working, Allman had rented a small, secluded cabin on a lake and spent many solitary hours there refining his playing. Perhaps most significantly, Allman got together with R&B and jazz drummer Jaimoe Johanson, who came to meet Allman at the urging of Otis Redding's manager, Phil Walden, who by now was managing Allman and wanted to build a three-piece band around him. Allman and Jaimoe got Chicago-born bassist Berry Oakley to come up from Florida and jam as a trio, but Berry was committed to his rock band with guitarist Dickey Betts, the Second Coming, and returned south.
Getting fed up with Muscle Shoals, in March Allman took Jaimoe with him back to Jacksonville, Florida, where they moved in with Butch Trucks. Soon a jam session of these three plus Betts, Oakley, and Reese Wynans took place and forged what all present recognized as a natural, or even magical, bond.CITATION NEEDED With the addition of brother Gregg, called back from Los Angeles to sing and replace Wynans on keyboards, at the end of March 1969, the Allman Brothers Band was formed. (Wynans became well known over a decade later as organist with Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble.) After a bit of rehearsing and gigging, the sextet moved to Macon, Georgia, in April to be near Walden and his Capricorn Sound Studios. While living in Macon, Allman met Donna Roosman, who bore his only child, Galadrielle. Despite their child, the relationship quickly ended.
Success: Layla, At Fillmore East
The Allman Brothers Band went on to become one of the most influential rock groups of the 1970s, described by Rolling Stone's George Kimball in 1971 as "the best damn rock and roll band this country has produced in the past five years."[11] After months of nonstop rehearsing and gigging, including free shows in Macon's Central City Park and Atlanta's Piedmont Park, the group was ready to settle on the Allman Brothers Band name, and to record. Their debut album, The Allman Brothers Band, was recorded in New York in September 1969 and released a few months later. In the midst of intense touring, work began in Macon and Miami (Atlantic South – Criteria Studios), and a little bit in New York, on the band's second album, Idlewild South. Produced mostly by Tom Dowd, Idlewild South was released in August 1970 and broke new ground for them by quickly hitting the Billboard charts.
A group date in Miami, also that August, gave Allman the chance to participate in Eric Clapton's Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. Clapton had long wanted to meet Allman; when he heard that the Allman Brothers were due to play in Miami, where he had just started work on Layla with producer Tom Dowd, he insisted on going to see their concert, where he met Allman. At one point, Allman approached Clapton, fully admiring his ability to play guitar as much as Clapton admired his, and cautiously asked Clapton if he could come by the studio to watch. Clapton eagerly agreed, since he knew that his masterful playing combined with Allman's would be greater than the sum of its parts. After the show the two bands—the Allman Brothers Band and Derek and the Dominos—returned to Criteria, where Allman and Clapton quickly formed a deep rapport during an all-night jam session.[12] Allman wound up participating on most of the album's tracks, contributing some of his best-known work. Allman never left the Allman Brothers Band, though, despite being offered a permanent position with Clapton. Allman never toured with Derek and the Dominos, but he did make three appearances with them on December 1, 1970 at the Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa (Soulmates LP) and the following day at Onondaga County War Memorial in Syracuse, NY, and one appearance (or possibly just Delaney Bramlett or both Allman and Delaney) November 20, 1970[13] at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, California.
In an interview, Allman told listeners how to tell who played what: Eric played the Fender parts and Duane played the Gibson parts. He continued by nonchalantly noting that the Fender had a sparklier sound, while the Gibson produced more of a "full-tilt screech".[14] Clapton wrote later in his autobiography that he and Allman were inseparable during the sessions in Florida; he talked about Allman as the "musical brother I'd never had but wished I did."[15]
The Allman Brothers went on to record At Fillmore East in March 1971. Meanwhile, Allman continued contributing session work to other artists' albums whenever he could. According to Skydog: the Duane Allman Story, Allman was in the habit of spontaneously dropping in at recording sessions and contributing to whatever was being taped that day. He received cash payments but no recording credits, making it virtually impossible to compile a complete discography of his works.
Allman was well known for his melodic, extended and attention-holding guitar solos. During this period two of his stated influences were Miles Davis and John Coltrane, having listened extensively to Kind of Blue for two years.[14][16]
As Allman's distinctive electric bottleneck steel sound began to mature, it evolved in time into the musical voice of what would come to be known as Southern Rock, being picked up and redefined in their own styles by slide guitarists that included bandmate Dickey Betts (after Allman's death), Rory Gallagher, Derek Trucks and Gary Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Death
Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident only months after the release and initial success of At Fillmore East.[17] On October 29, 1971, in the western part of Macon, Georgia, during a band break from touring and recording, Allman was riding his motorcycle at a high speed on Hillcrest Avenue as he approached Bartlett Street, when a flatbed truck carrying a lumber crane stopped suddenly in the intersection, forcing Allman to swerve his Harley-Davidson Sportster motorcycle sharply to the left to avoid a collision. As he was doing so, he struck either the back of the truck or the ball on the lumber crane and was immediately thrown from the motorcycle. The motorcycle bounced into the air, landed on Allman and skidded another 90 feet with Allman pinned underneath, crushing his internal organs. Though he was alive when he arrived at the hospital, despite immediate emergency surgery, he died several hours later from massive internal injuries.
Memorial
Duane Allman's funeral service was held Monday, November 1, 1971 at Snow's Memorial Chapel. In the chapel packed with family and friends, many of the musicians who had been part of Duane's life were in attendance to mourn his death. Record producer Jerry Wexler gave the eulogy for Duane. His moving portrayal of Duane's uncompromising dedication to Southern gospel, country and blues music and the place he attained alongside the great black musicians and blues singers from the South captured the magnitude of his musical achievements.[18]
After Allman's funeral and some weeks of mourning, the five surviving members of the Allman Brothers Band carried on, resuming live performances and finishing the recording work interrupted by Allman's death. They named their next album Eat a Peach for Allman's response to an interviewer's question: "How are you helping the revolution?" Allman replied: "There ain't no revolution, only evolution, but every time I'm in Georgia I 'eat a peach' for peace." Released in February 1972, this double album contains a side of live and studio tracks with Allman, two sides of "Mountain Jam", recorded with Allman at the same At Fillmore East stand in March, and a side of tracks by the surviving five member band.
Bass guitarist Berry Oakley died less than 13 months later in a similar motorcycle crash with a city bus, three blocks from the site of Duane Allman's fatal accident. Oakley's remains were laid to rest beside Duane Allman's in Macon, Georgia's Rose Hill Cemetery.
The variety of Allman's session work and Allman Brothers Band bandleading can be heard to good effect on two posthumous Capricorn releases, An Anthology (1972) and An Anthology Volume II (1974). There are also several archival releases of live Allman Brothers Band performances from what the band calls "Duane's Era".
Remember Duane Allman tribute carved in the dirt bank next to Interstate 20 in 1973[17]
Shortly after Allman's death, Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd dedicated the song "Free Bird", to the memory of Duane Allman. Van Zant would sometimes allude to this in concert; in the "Free Bird" performance at Skynyrd's famed 1976 appearance at Knebworth, England, Van Zant says to pianist Billy Powell, "Play it for Duane Allman." Many people assume the song was written about Allman. However, it had actually been written well before he died. (Allen Collins wrote the song after his then girlfriend asked him the question "if I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?")
In 1973, fans carved the very large letters "REMEMBER DUANE ALLMAN" in a dirt embankment along Interstate Highway 20 near Vicksburg, Mississippi.[19][20] A photograph was published in Rolling Stone magazine and in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll; the carving itself lasted for over ten years.[21]
In 1998 the Georgia State Legislature passed a resolution designating a stretch of State Highway 19, US 41, within Macon as the "Duane Allman Boulevard" in his honor.[22]
Country singer Travis Tritt, in the song "Put Some Drive in Your Country" on his debut album, sings "Now I still love old country/I ain't tryin' to put it down/But damn I miss Duane Allman/I wish he was still around."
In 2013, Skydog, a seven-CD box set tracing the virtuosity of Duane Allman on the slide guitar was released with the help of his daughter, Galadrielle Allman. A March 16 interview with her on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday by Scott Simon ran over eight minutes, includes many details, and is highlighted with clips of his playing,[23] including links to an audio file prepared for the broadcast.
Equipment
Allman Joys, Hour Glass
Fender Telecaster, modified with a Stratocaster neck.[24]
Marshall amplifier, with six 10-inch speakers and two horns.[24]
Early session work
1954 Fender Stratocaster, used on the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio studio sessions, now at
the Hard Rock Cafe in London at the Vault.[25]
Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, with old 9V batteries for enhanced distortion [26]
Fender Twin Reverb with JBL speakers.[24]
Maestro Echoplex.[24]
1959 Fender Bassman.[24]
Allman Brothers Band, "Layla", later session work
1961 Fender Stratocaster (for early session work overlapping with formation of the
Band).[24]
1958–1962 Gibson ES-345 Semi-hollow body (first album)[25]
1957 Gibson Les Paul Standard goldtop, serial no. 7 3312. Traded on September 16, 1970 for
a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard cherry sunburst, except for the pickups.
1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard cherry sunburst, acquired on September 16, 1970, except for
the pickups.
1958 Gibson Les Paul Standard tobacco sunburst,[25] acquired in June 1971.
1961 Gibson SG,[25] used for slide,[24] given by Dickey Betts.
Marshall 50-watt[3] head, two Marshall 4x12 cabinets with JBL speakers.[24]
Fender Champ combo amplifier ("Layla")
Other
Gibson L-00 acoustic guitar[24]
Fender Rock N' Roll 150 strings (Hour Glass)
Coricidin medicine bottle (slide)
The Allman Brothers Band was formed in 1969 and based in the Southeastern United States. In the early 1970s, the band had major success. Allman is best remembered for his brief but influential tenure in the band and in particular for his expressive slide guitar playing and inventive improvisational skills.[1] In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Allman at #2 in their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, second only to Jimi Hendrix and in 2011 he was ranked #9.[2] His tone (achieved with a Gibson Les Paul and two 50-watt bass Marshall amplifiers) was named one of the greatest guitar tones of all time by Guitar Player.[3]
A sought-after session musician both before and during his tenure with the band, Duane Allman performed with such established stars as King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and Herbie Mann. He also contributed heavily to the 1970 album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs by Derek and the Dominos.
Duane Allman's skills as a guitarist were complemented by personal qualities such as his intensity, drive and ability to draw the best out of others in making music.[4] He is still referred to by his nickname "Skydog".[5]
Early years
Duane Allman was born on November 20, 1946 in Nashville, Tennessee. He was the eldest son of Willis Allman, a World War II non-commissioned officer turned recruiting officer in the United States Army,[6] and Geraldine (née Robbins). His younger brother Gregg Allman was born in late 1947.
While the family was living near Norfolk, Virginia, his father was murdered by a shell-shocked veteran he and a friend met in a bar and had given a ride to.[6][7] In order to retrain as an accountant, Geraldine "Mama A" Allman sent Duane and Gregg to Castle Heights Military Academy in Lebanon, Tennessee, which they both disliked intensely.[8] In 1957, the family moved to Daytona Beach, Florida where the boys attended Seabreeze High School.
The boys returned to Nashville to spend summers with their grandmother, where Gregg learned guitar basics from a neighbor. In 1960, Gregg had saved enough money to buy his first guitar, a Japanese-made Teisco Silvertone while Duane acquired a Harley 165 motorbike. Duane began to take an interest in the guitar, leading to fights over it, and eventually their mother bought Duane a Gibson Les Paul Junior.[9]
It was also in Nashville that the boys became musically inspired by a rhythm and blues concert where they saw blues guitar legend B. B. King perform. Apparently, Duane turned to Gregg and said, "We got to get into this."[9] Duane learned to play very quickly and soon became the better guitarist of the two.
Allman Joys and Hour Glass
The two Allman brothers started playing publicly in 1961, joining or forming a number of small, local groups. Shortly thereafter, Duane quit high school to stay home during the day and focus on his guitar playing. Their band the Escorts opened for The Beach Boys in 1965 but disbanded and eventually became the Allman Joys. After Gregg graduated from Seabreeze High School in 1965, the Allman Joys went on the road, performing throughout the Southeast and eventually being based in Nashville and St. Louis, Missouri.
The Allman Joys morphed into another not-completely-successful band, The Hour Glass, which moved to Los Angeles in early 1967. There the Hour Glass produced two albums that left the band unsatisfied. Liberty, their record company, tried to market them as a pop band, completely ignoring the band's desire to play more blues-oriented material.
In 1968, Gregg Allman went to visit Duane on his 22nd birthday. Duane was laid up in bed, nursing an injured left elbow suffered from a fall from a horse. Gregg brought along a bottle of Coricidin pills for his fever and the debut album by Taj Mahal as a gift. He left it on the front porch and rang the bell, as Duane was angry with him for the injury. "About two hours after I left, my phone rang," Gregg states. "Baby brother, baby brother, get over here now!" When Gregg got there, he found that Duane had poured the pills out of the bottle, washed off the label and was using it as a slide to play "Statesboro Blues", an old Blind Willie McTell song covered on the Taj Mahal album, with blazing slide guitar work by Jesse Ed Davis. "Duane had never played slide before," says Gregg, "he just picked it up and started burnin'. He was a natural." (-quoted from:Muscle Shoals (film)). The song would go on to become a part of the Allman Brothers Band's repertoire, and Duane's slide guitar became crucial to their sound.
The Hour Glass broke up in early 1968, and Duane and Gregg Allman went back to Florida, where they played on demo sessions with The 31st of February, a folk rock outfit whose drummer was Butch Trucks. Gregg returned to California to fulfill Hour Glass obligations, while Duane jammed around Florida for months but didn't get another band going.
Session musician
Allman's playing on the two Hour Glass albums and an Hour Glass session in early 1968 at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama had caught the ear of Rick Hall, owner of FAME. In November 1968 Hall hired Allman to play on an album with Wilson Pickett. Allman's work on that album, Hey Jude (1968), got him hired as a full-time session musician at Muscle Shoals and brought him to the attention of a number of other musicians, such as Eric Clapton, who later said, "I remember hearing Wilson Pickett's 'Hey Jude' and just being astounded by the lead break at the end. I had to know who that was immediately—right now."
Allman's performance on "Hey Jude" blew away Atlantic Records producer and executive Jerry Wexler when Hall played it over the phone for him. Wexler immediately bought Allman's recording contract from Hall and wanted to use him on sessions with all sorts of Atlantic R&B artists. While at Muscle Shoals, Allman was featured on releases by a number of artists, including Clarence Carter, King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, Laura Nyro, Wilson Pickett, Otis Rush, Percy Sledge, Johnny Jenkins, Boz Scaggs, Delaney & Bonnie, Doris Duke and jazz flautist Herbie Mann. For his first sessions with Franklin, Allman traveled to New York, where in January 1969 he went as an audience member to the Fillmore East to see Johnny Winter and told fellow Shoals guitarist Jimmy Johnson that in a year he'd be on that stage. That December, the Allman Brothers Band indeed played the Fillmore.[10]
Formation of The Allman Brothers Band
The limits of full-time session playing frustrated Allman. The few months in Muscle Shoals were by no means a waste, however; besides meeting the great artists and other industry professionals with whom he was working, Allman had rented a small, secluded cabin on a lake and spent many solitary hours there refining his playing. Perhaps most significantly, Allman got together with R&B and jazz drummer Jaimoe Johanson, who came to meet Allman at the urging of Otis Redding's manager, Phil Walden, who by now was managing Allman and wanted to build a three-piece band around him. Allman and Jaimoe got Chicago-born bassist Berry Oakley to come up from Florida and jam as a trio, but Berry was committed to his rock band with guitarist Dickey Betts, the Second Coming, and returned south.
Getting fed up with Muscle Shoals, in March Allman took Jaimoe with him back to Jacksonville, Florida, where they moved in with Butch Trucks. Soon a jam session of these three plus Betts, Oakley, and Reese Wynans took place and forged what all present recognized as a natural, or even magical, bond.CITATION NEEDED With the addition of brother Gregg, called back from Los Angeles to sing and replace Wynans on keyboards, at the end of March 1969, the Allman Brothers Band was formed. (Wynans became well known over a decade later as organist with Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble.) After a bit of rehearsing and gigging, the sextet moved to Macon, Georgia, in April to be near Walden and his Capricorn Sound Studios. While living in Macon, Allman met Donna Roosman, who bore his only child, Galadrielle. Despite their child, the relationship quickly ended.
Success: Layla, At Fillmore East
The Allman Brothers Band went on to become one of the most influential rock groups of the 1970s, described by Rolling Stone's George Kimball in 1971 as "the best damn rock and roll band this country has produced in the past five years."[11] After months of nonstop rehearsing and gigging, including free shows in Macon's Central City Park and Atlanta's Piedmont Park, the group was ready to settle on the Allman Brothers Band name, and to record. Their debut album, The Allman Brothers Band, was recorded in New York in September 1969 and released a few months later. In the midst of intense touring, work began in Macon and Miami (Atlantic South – Criteria Studios), and a little bit in New York, on the band's second album, Idlewild South. Produced mostly by Tom Dowd, Idlewild South was released in August 1970 and broke new ground for them by quickly hitting the Billboard charts.
A group date in Miami, also that August, gave Allman the chance to participate in Eric Clapton's Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. Clapton had long wanted to meet Allman; when he heard that the Allman Brothers were due to play in Miami, where he had just started work on Layla with producer Tom Dowd, he insisted on going to see their concert, where he met Allman. At one point, Allman approached Clapton, fully admiring his ability to play guitar as much as Clapton admired his, and cautiously asked Clapton if he could come by the studio to watch. Clapton eagerly agreed, since he knew that his masterful playing combined with Allman's would be greater than the sum of its parts. After the show the two bands—the Allman Brothers Band and Derek and the Dominos—returned to Criteria, where Allman and Clapton quickly formed a deep rapport during an all-night jam session.[12] Allman wound up participating on most of the album's tracks, contributing some of his best-known work. Allman never left the Allman Brothers Band, though, despite being offered a permanent position with Clapton. Allman never toured with Derek and the Dominos, but he did make three appearances with them on December 1, 1970 at the Curtis Hixon Hall in Tampa (Soulmates LP) and the following day at Onondaga County War Memorial in Syracuse, NY, and one appearance (or possibly just Delaney Bramlett or both Allman and Delaney) November 20, 1970[13] at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, California.
In an interview, Allman told listeners how to tell who played what: Eric played the Fender parts and Duane played the Gibson parts. He continued by nonchalantly noting that the Fender had a sparklier sound, while the Gibson produced more of a "full-tilt screech".[14] Clapton wrote later in his autobiography that he and Allman were inseparable during the sessions in Florida; he talked about Allman as the "musical brother I'd never had but wished I did."[15]
The Allman Brothers went on to record At Fillmore East in March 1971. Meanwhile, Allman continued contributing session work to other artists' albums whenever he could. According to Skydog: the Duane Allman Story, Allman was in the habit of spontaneously dropping in at recording sessions and contributing to whatever was being taped that day. He received cash payments but no recording credits, making it virtually impossible to compile a complete discography of his works.
Allman was well known for his melodic, extended and attention-holding guitar solos. During this period two of his stated influences were Miles Davis and John Coltrane, having listened extensively to Kind of Blue for two years.[14][16]
As Allman's distinctive electric bottleneck steel sound began to mature, it evolved in time into the musical voice of what would come to be known as Southern Rock, being picked up and redefined in their own styles by slide guitarists that included bandmate Dickey Betts (after Allman's death), Rory Gallagher, Derek Trucks and Gary Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Death
Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident only months after the release and initial success of At Fillmore East.[17] On October 29, 1971, in the western part of Macon, Georgia, during a band break from touring and recording, Allman was riding his motorcycle at a high speed on Hillcrest Avenue as he approached Bartlett Street, when a flatbed truck carrying a lumber crane stopped suddenly in the intersection, forcing Allman to swerve his Harley-Davidson Sportster motorcycle sharply to the left to avoid a collision. As he was doing so, he struck either the back of the truck or the ball on the lumber crane and was immediately thrown from the motorcycle. The motorcycle bounced into the air, landed on Allman and skidded another 90 feet with Allman pinned underneath, crushing his internal organs. Though he was alive when he arrived at the hospital, despite immediate emergency surgery, he died several hours later from massive internal injuries.
Memorial
Duane Allman's funeral service was held Monday, November 1, 1971 at Snow's Memorial Chapel. In the chapel packed with family and friends, many of the musicians who had been part of Duane's life were in attendance to mourn his death. Record producer Jerry Wexler gave the eulogy for Duane. His moving portrayal of Duane's uncompromising dedication to Southern gospel, country and blues music and the place he attained alongside the great black musicians and blues singers from the South captured the magnitude of his musical achievements.[18]
After Allman's funeral and some weeks of mourning, the five surviving members of the Allman Brothers Band carried on, resuming live performances and finishing the recording work interrupted by Allman's death. They named their next album Eat a Peach for Allman's response to an interviewer's question: "How are you helping the revolution?" Allman replied: "There ain't no revolution, only evolution, but every time I'm in Georgia I 'eat a peach' for peace." Released in February 1972, this double album contains a side of live and studio tracks with Allman, two sides of "Mountain Jam", recorded with Allman at the same At Fillmore East stand in March, and a side of tracks by the surviving five member band.
Bass guitarist Berry Oakley died less than 13 months later in a similar motorcycle crash with a city bus, three blocks from the site of Duane Allman's fatal accident. Oakley's remains were laid to rest beside Duane Allman's in Macon, Georgia's Rose Hill Cemetery.
The variety of Allman's session work and Allman Brothers Band bandleading can be heard to good effect on two posthumous Capricorn releases, An Anthology (1972) and An Anthology Volume II (1974). There are also several archival releases of live Allman Brothers Band performances from what the band calls "Duane's Era".
Remember Duane Allman tribute carved in the dirt bank next to Interstate 20 in 1973[17]
Shortly after Allman's death, Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd dedicated the song "Free Bird", to the memory of Duane Allman. Van Zant would sometimes allude to this in concert; in the "Free Bird" performance at Skynyrd's famed 1976 appearance at Knebworth, England, Van Zant says to pianist Billy Powell, "Play it for Duane Allman." Many people assume the song was written about Allman. However, it had actually been written well before he died. (Allen Collins wrote the song after his then girlfriend asked him the question "if I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?")
In 1973, fans carved the very large letters "REMEMBER DUANE ALLMAN" in a dirt embankment along Interstate Highway 20 near Vicksburg, Mississippi.[19][20] A photograph was published in Rolling Stone magazine and in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll; the carving itself lasted for over ten years.[21]
In 1998 the Georgia State Legislature passed a resolution designating a stretch of State Highway 19, US 41, within Macon as the "Duane Allman Boulevard" in his honor.[22]
Country singer Travis Tritt, in the song "Put Some Drive in Your Country" on his debut album, sings "Now I still love old country/I ain't tryin' to put it down/But damn I miss Duane Allman/I wish he was still around."
In 2013, Skydog, a seven-CD box set tracing the virtuosity of Duane Allman on the slide guitar was released with the help of his daughter, Galadrielle Allman. A March 16 interview with her on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday by Scott Simon ran over eight minutes, includes many details, and is highlighted with clips of his playing,[23] including links to an audio file prepared for the broadcast.
Equipment
Allman Joys, Hour Glass
Fender Telecaster, modified with a Stratocaster neck.[24]
Marshall amplifier, with six 10-inch speakers and two horns.[24]
Early session work
1954 Fender Stratocaster, used on the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio studio sessions, now at
the Hard Rock Cafe in London at the Vault.[25]
Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, with old 9V batteries for enhanced distortion [26]
Fender Twin Reverb with JBL speakers.[24]
Maestro Echoplex.[24]
1959 Fender Bassman.[24]
Allman Brothers Band, "Layla", later session work
1961 Fender Stratocaster (for early session work overlapping with formation of the
Band).[24]
1958–1962 Gibson ES-345 Semi-hollow body (first album)[25]
1957 Gibson Les Paul Standard goldtop, serial no. 7 3312. Traded on September 16, 1970 for
a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard cherry sunburst, except for the pickups.
1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard cherry sunburst, acquired on September 16, 1970, except for
the pickups.
1958 Gibson Les Paul Standard tobacco sunburst,[25] acquired in June 1971.
1961 Gibson SG,[25] used for slide,[24] given by Dickey Betts.
Marshall 50-watt[3] head, two Marshall 4x12 cabinets with JBL speakers.[24]
Fender Champ combo amplifier ("Layla")
Other
Gibson L-00 acoustic guitar[24]
Fender Rock N' Roll 150 strings (Hour Glass)
Coricidin medicine bottle (slide)
Eric Clapton & Duane Allman - Layla
The Allman Brothers Band - 7/17/70 Love Valley Pop Festival, NC with Duane!
:format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/A-256012-1107815527.jpg.jpg)