• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Allman Brothers Band set to rock NY again

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 March 2006, 23:20 CST

By Deborah Wilker

NEW YORK (Amusement Business) - As it launches yet another of its legendary March mega-stands at New York's Beacon Theater, the Allman Brothers Band is once again defying the odds. This time, it's a 14-show run, set to attract nearly 40,000 fans -- enormous numbers for any act, let alone one in its 37th year.

With one foot in the classic rock market and the other firmly planted on the younger jam circuit, the legendary rock 'n' blues band mines a unique touring niche. More than 500,000 fans have flocked to the Upper West Side of Manhattan to see the ABB since it began playing the 2,800-seat venue in 1989, and every year since 1996. The current stand kicks off Thursday and wraps March 26.

Founding member Gregg Allman, 58, says the group's continuing evolution fuels interest.

"Just like when they put out automobiles -- you know how they gotta have one more little doodad every year -- well, we've got to go in there and do better than last year," Allman says. "Just like last year, we did even better than the year before that."

But neither Allman or the band's drummer, Butch Trucks, also 58, care to overanalyze just how they've endured through decades of lineup shifts, drug binges, doomed romances, rocky reunions that didn't take, and most notably, the untimely deaths of founding members Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley just as the band's fame was taking off 35 years ago.

Both figure the music says it well enough.

"From the moment we got together in Jacksonville in 1969, there was never one iota of sellout in it," Trucks said during a recent interview at his Palm Beach, Fla. home. "We weren't playing for anyone but ourselves."

Says Allman: "I love it today as much as I did when I was 20. I love to play. I'm pretty sure my legacy will be: Well, man, he always gave us his all. We got our money's worth and nobody ever went away thinkin' they got shortchanged."

Ray Waddell, senior editor of touring at Billboard magazine says the group has triumphed over adversity and even managed to grow in recent years because, "Through it all, they have stayed very true to what they do. And when the jam scene blew up about a decade ago, it definitely added fuel to their fire."

It was indeed the mid 1990s when the Allman Brothers Band finally found a relatively stable reunion groove. Allman was at last getting serious about sobriety, and new fans were discovering the band via low-key appearances on the H.O.R.D.E. tour, at other alt-jam festivals and at the intimate Beacon shows.

"When we first thought about doing (a stand in New York), we were trying to find a place that had the potential to have the same vibe as the old Fillmore East," Allman says of the famed East Side Manhattan venue (now torn down), where the band had played and recorded a seminal set in 1971. "The Beacon was about as close as you could possibly get. It's a real old building - and I don't know, but somehow they get seasoned after awhile."

The band has also made some other smart moves through the years, among them embracing the jam scene, which proved a serendipitous fit for their unusually rich repertoire of album tracks, rock hits, melodic new material, soul staples and sprawling instrumentals.

Even the sudden axing nearly six years ago of lead guitarist and founding member Dickey Betts, which angered many fans, (particularly because the drama seemed to come out of left field), didn't slow momentum.

Trucks said that despite appearances, internal clashes had been intensifying through the '90s, "and something had to change."

(Betts, who wrote such ABB classics as "Ramblin' Man," "Blue Sky" and "Jessica," ultimately won a settlement and now tours with his own band, Great Southern).

In addition to Allman (organ/vocals/guitar) and Trucks, the band's only other original member is drummer Jai Johanny "Jaimo" Johanson.

In recent years, '90s additions Warren Haynes (co-lead guitar), Oteil Burbridge (bass) and Marc Quinones (percussion/vocals) all stepped up, and the band's much-lauded guitar prodigy, Derek Trucks (nephew of Butch), grew into the spotlight.

"Even when they've changed players, they've always had exceptional musicians," said Alex Hodges, executive vp of House of Blues Concerts.

The younger Trucks, 26, had been sitting in since he was 11 and was ultimately elevated to co-lead guitarist with Haynes (who also leads his own band, Gov't Mule). Their sterling interpretations of such classics as "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," "Midnight Rider," Ain't Wasting Time No More" and many others, went a long way in quelling fan resentment over Betts' departure.

Derek also fronts his own fast-rising bluesy rock outfit, the Derek Trucks Band, which further explains the ABB's expanding demographic. He's now in such demand that he'll join Eric Clapton's band on tour when the Beacon run ends -- all in the midst of promoting his new widely praised Sony BMG release, "Songlines."

"He's very intelligent and an incredible guitarist," Allman says. "The first time we jammed with him he was 10 years old. He's a natural, just like my brother was."

And now that he's teaming with Clapton, fans can't help but notice some interesting parallels. It was Duane Allman who played guitar in Clapton's brief 1970 band Derek and the Dominos, during which the epic single "Layla" came to life. (But rumors that Clapton and Trucks will revive the "Derek and the Dominos" moniker aren't true, say the musicians' reps.)

Fittingly, it was the younger Trucks and Haynes who helped the older ABB members learn "Layla" -- just four years ago.

"If anyone has a right to play 'Layla,' I guess we do," Butch Trucks says. "The first time -- when people figured out what we were playing -- the roof of the Beacon went up about four feet. "

As usual, the current stand will feature a unique set list every night, a few surprises and a mix of old and new material. "Some from the end of my own pen, some from the archives, some of the old blues songs, as we always do," Allman said. "I got some things."

Reuters/VNU

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category