Duane Allman doesn’t have even the small body of “frontman” work that Jimi Hendrix has to shine a light on his virtuousity, but you know his guitar work well from the endless session work he did with sixties hit-makers (Boz Scaggs, Aretha Franklin, Clarence Carter, and Wilson Pickett, for starters), as well as later with Derek and the Dominos and, of course, the Allman Brothers Band. He died in 1971, before he had a chance to develop his signature sound, but the straight-up and slide guitar work that remains with us is a pinnacle of soulful, bluesy southern rock.
Prior to the Allman Brothers formation in 1969, Duane and his iconic brother Gregg recorded a collection of tracks in 1968 (released in 1972 as Duane and Gregg Allman). In these early sessions, Duane displays the polished playing honed from years in the studio backing other artists, but the brotherly synergy took his playing in a direction uniquely his own. The album begins with the anti-war folk classic, “Morning Dew,” but mimics Jeff Beck’s more pyrotechnic arrangement from Truth, released the same year. Rod Stewart sang on Beck’s version, but the Allman’s raise the ante, with Duane’s guitar and Gregg’s keyboards and voice driving much more soul into the song, which is more deserving of the subject matter of the lyrics. An early “Melissa” is a gem, as is “Nobody Knows When You’re Down And Out,” which was re-recorded on Eric Clapton’s Derek and the Dominos.
On February 13 and 14, 1970, the Allman Brothers Band headlined with the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore East. The Dead’s sound engineer, (Owsley Stanley, who passed away this year) had a glorious habit of turning on the concert soundboard tape machine whenever the band played, and this accounds for the thousands of Grateful Dead show bootlegs still traded, collected and treasured by Deadheads (with the blessing of the band). Stanley was an Allman Brothers fan, so he recorded their four sets over the two day run as well, whereby the tapes were promptly packed up and forgotten until 1997 when Dick Latvala, the Grateful Dead’s archivist, discovered them and released a seven-song time capsule on the Grateful Dead label that immediately sold out and went out of print. It is an astonishingly work, showing the band already playing well off each other and clearly having fun, and all a year before the run of shows that became the rock classic Live at the Fillmore East.
In late summer of that same 1970, Clapton recruited Duane Allman for his Derek and the Dominos album. I won’t comment much on Duane’s contribution to the effort, other than to say it was nothing less than transformative, and Clapton was stunned by Duane’s expert slide guitar work. I need only refer you to his woeful notes on “Layla” after the change in time signature to spotlight his genius – you already know the notes by heart, even if you didn’t know that beautiful slide was played by Duane Allman.
He died a year later, in the Fall of 1971, in a motorcycle crash. His brother Gregg collected the studio songs that had been recorded thus far with Duane for the next album, as well as a few unreleased songs from the famous 1971 Fillmore East concerts, and in 1972 the Allman Brothers released Eat a Peach (dedicated to a brother).
On a recent business trip to Frankfurt, I stumbled across the Goethe Haus und Museum, which brought back sweaty memories of reading his magnum opus in German at Notre Dame. Faust is the original “deal with the devil” tale, with God and Mephistopheles making a bargain for Faust’s soul. Faust, a devout but intellectually striving man, is tempted by Mephistopheles (Satan), and finds himself caught up in sensual pursuits that culminate in sex and murder. Despite his shortcomings, Faust never gives up on his desire to receive God’s grace, and in the end is saved. Act V: “He who strives on and lives to strive/ Can earn redemption still.”
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