Alan Paul's Blog, page 31

Duane Allman’s Three Beloved Les Pauls Were Onstage Together For The First Time At the Allman Brothers’ Final Stand

Duane’s Les Pauls on stage at the beacon. Photo by Kirk West.

Duane Allman had three primary Les Pauls during his time with the Allman Brothers Band.

The 1957 goldtop he played on the band’s first two albums as well as most of the Derek and the Dominos Layla sessions has been on display at the Big House Museum in Macon, Georgia.

The other two Les Pauls, a 1959 cherry burst and a 1958 or 1959 dark burst, are owned by Duane’s daughter Galadrielle and have long been on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. She made sure that both guitars made it to the Beacon, along with Duane’s goldtop, for the Allman Brothers Band’s final performances this past October.

“I’ve always wanted to see them play the guitars, knowing that it would be amazing for everyone,” Galadrielle says. “It’s a daunting thing to try to imagine these fragile and valuable things out in the world, and it had to be the right time and place.”

The guitars’ histories are long and varied. In September 1970, Duane traded the goldtop for the cherry burst after swapping the pickups between the instruments. The cherry burst became his primary guitar, heard on At Fillmore East. In June 1971, guitar dealer Kurt Linhof sold Duane the dark burst, which became his main guitar until his death on October 29, 1971.

According to Galadrielle’s moving memoir,Please Be with Me: A Song for My Father, Duane Allman, her mother Donna took the cherry burst from Duane’s apartment after his death and soon lent it to a musician friend—who had introduced Duane and Donna. She asked him to return it when her daughter was 21.

Gregg had the dark burst, but the band’s road manager Twiggs Lyndon was worried about its fate. A classic car aficionado, Lyndon traded Gregg a 1939 Ford Opera coupe for the guitar, determined to hold it for Galadrielle until she was “old enough not to give it to the first guitar player she dated.” He took the guitar on tour with the Dixie Dregs, and it was on the road with him and band when Lyndon died in a skydiving accident in 1979.

Dregs guitarist Steve Morse safeguarded the guitar for over a decade, recording several tracks with it. On April 2, 1990, Twiggs’ brother Skoots Lyndon met Donna Allman at Duane’s Macon grave and presented her with the guitar for her daughter.

Fittingly, it was Skoots who traveled to Cleveland to transport the guitars to New York, guarding them with the expected vigilance. After decades behind glass, both guitars were not in playable shape. Lyndon, who is on the Deep Purple crew, asked Morse guitar tech Tommy Alderson to prep the guitars. He began working on them at 10:30 at night on an ironing boarding in room 805 of the Millburn Hotel, pronouncing them done at about three in the morning.

“I kept it really simple because they are very fragile,” Alderson says. “I cleaned the pots real good and got the intonation as right on as you can get with flattened frets. I flattened the necks with the truss rod so I could measure and set the bridge so it didn’t buzz or fret out.”

Alderson was struck in particular by the pickup setup on the cherry burst. “They are set different than anything I’ve ever encountered,” he says, “dropped down a fair amount below the pickup ring. The pickup pole adjustments had the screws turned up so they would pick up the signal. Also unusual, the bridge pickup is a lot weaker than the neck pickup. I plugged it in and put it in the middle, and it was the ‘One Way Out’ sound. It was just crazy to hear.”

The guitars’ unique sounds were apparent the moment Haynes and Trucks played them.

Duane’s Les Pauls at the Millburn Hotel. Photo by Creigh Lyndon.

“You plug them in and the sound of Duane is unmistakable,” Haynes says.

“The sound is so distinct and powerful,” adds Derek Trucks. “There was definitely some extra spirit in the room. At one point, [his uncle, drummer] Butch looked down, saw I was playing Duane’s goldtop and was really struck.”

“It was during ‘Dreams,’ ” Butch recalls. “And seeing and hearing Derek play the solo on the guitar Duane used was very emotional.”

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Gov’t Mule debut “Spanish Moon” – Sco-Mule bonus track

I present to you an exclusive preview of “Spanish Moon,” Gov’t Mule with John Scofield, recorded at The Georgia Theatre, Athens, on September 22, 1999.

Sco-Mule will be released on January 27. If you pre-order the album now from Mule.net, you will receive an exclusive bonus disc with 40 minutes of additional music from those shows. “Spanish Moon” is one of the songs.

On January 27, 2015, Gov’t Mule will release Sco-Mule, spotlighting two 1999 shows that the original trio of Warren Haynes, Allen Woody and Matt Abts played with jazz guitarist John Scofield. The Atlanta performances, which also featured keyboardist Dr. Dan Matrazzo, have been widely traded, discussed and revered by Mule fans for 15 years.

The Mule will celebrate the release of Sco-Mule by touring with Scofield as special guest beginning February 18, 2015, at Seattle, WA’s Moore Theatre. Pre-sales begin December 9th and tickets go on sale to the general public on December 12th. (All ticket info at www.mule.net.)

“The possibilities are endless for these shows and we are really excited about them,” says Warren Haynes. “We could take them in any of a million directions. The shows on Sco-Mule were the first time John and I ever played together, and we have played many times since, with Phil Lesh and in many contexts.

“We are certainly nit going to be limited to playing the material that’s on Sco-Mule. That will just be the starting off point.”

Sco-Mule will be available as a 2-CD set as well as a double vinyl and anyone pre-ordering the album here will receive an exclusive bonus disc with 40 minutes of additional music from those shows, including the “Spanish Moon” which is being debuted above. You can order here.

With SCO-MULE at the helm, Gov’t Mule is marking the band’s 20th Anniversary with a series of one-of-a-kind live archival releases available in a variety of formats (visit www.mule.net for more info). These releases will highlight some of the more memorable special shows the band has performed for Halloween and New Year’s Eve, where they cover one artist or genre in depth.

“As we celebrate our 20th anniversary, it seemed like a good time to spotlight some of the shows,” says Haynes. “I wouldn’t recommend any of them as an introductory point to the band, but this far down the line there are a lot of other entry points. And I would strongly recommend them to fans already acquainted with our work.

“When we do these shows, we do a deep dive into a ton of material and it brings a certain edge and intensity to the shows. We also tend to play really divergent setlists for our ‘regular’ Mule sets and a lot of that is included in these releases. Anyone who checks them all out is going to get a very wide cross section of Gov’t Mule.”

This Saturday, December 13, Haynes will host his 26th Annual Christmas Jam at Asheville, NC’s US Cellular Center. I am very excited to finally be attending one of the most celebrated and longest-running live concerts in the U.S. The Christmas Jam will benefit the Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity for the 16th year in a row. Haynes recently presented the organization with a record-breaking $500,000 in Christmas Jam proceeds from last year’s sold-out Silver Anniversary event.

Each year, the Christmas Jam sets the stage for surprise collaborations, rare appearances and musical sets that rock into the wee hours of the morning. Artists scheduled to perform are: Gov’t Mule, Billy & The Kids (a new group formed by Grateful Dead founding member Bill Kreutzmann), Hard Working Americans, Jason Isbell, The Revivalists and Vince Gill. Special guests include: Col. Bruce Hampton, Jackie Greene, Oteil Burbridge, Jack Pearson, Kevn Kinney and Paul Riddle.

These releases include:

Stoned Side of the Mule: Volume 1, released as part of Record Store Day’s Black Friday, featuring seven Rolling Stones covers from a Halloween, 2009 show. Volume 2 will be out in 2015.

Dark Side of the Mule will be released on December 15th and will feature 90 minutes of Pink Floyd covers recorded during a Halloween 2008 show. It can be preordered on ITunes or Amazon.

Next March Dub Side of the Mule will be released featuring a 45-minute set of reggae songs with special guest, reggae legend Toots Hibbert, founder of Toots & The Maytals. Recorded on New Year’s Eve 2006, the release also features special guests Gregg Allman & Friends and John Popper.

As always, Gov’t Mule will ring in 2015 with their annual New Year’s Eve shows on December 30th & 31st at New York City’s Beacon Theatre (with special guest Myles Kennedy on 12/31) and January 2nd & 3rd at Philadelphia’s Tower Theatre.



Gov’t Mule Tour Dates

12/13/14 Asheville, NC @ US Cellular Center – Warren Haynes’ 26th Annual Christmas Jam

12/30/14 New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre

12/31/14 New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre

1/2/15 Philadelphia, PA @ Tower Theatre

1/3/15 Philadelphia, PA @ Tower Theatre

1/14/15 – 1/18/15 Negril, Jamaica @ Island Exodus VI

2/18/15 Seattle, WA @ The Moore Theatre (with John Scofield)

2/19/15 Eugene, OR @ McDonald Theatre (with John Scofield)

2/20/15 Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater (with John Scofield)

2/24/15 Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre (with John Scofield)

2/26/15 Minneapolis, MN @ State Theatre (with John Scofield)

2/27/15 Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre (with John Scofield)

2/28/15 Indianapolis, IN @ Egyptian Room at Old National Center (with John Scofield)

3/1/15 Columbus, OH @ LC Pavilion (with John Scofield)

3/3/15 Durham, NC @ Durham Performing Arts Center (with John Scofield)

3/5/15 Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium (with John Scofield)

3/6/15 Charlottesville, VA @ Paramount Theater (with John Scofield)

3/11/15 Portland, ME @ State Theatre (with John Scofield)

Andy Aledort with the Big in China Band

The Big in China Band is very pleased to announce that Andy Aledort of Dickey Betts’ Great Southern bnad will be joining us for our Dec. 6 show at Suzy Que’s. For a taste of what we’ll be doing, here are some clips frm the last time we played with Andy.

“I Know You Rider”:

“Serve Somebody”:

“The Thrill Is Gone” (partial):

Allman Brothers Band at the Fillmore 9/23/70

There’s a lot for me to figure out about You Tube’s new Music Vault channels. But hee’s one thing that you need to understand: despite a flurry of articles this week with headlines like “Allman Brothers release full, classic Fillmore show,” they did no such thing.

The video that is now on You Tube’s Allman Brothers’ Music Vault channel is the same clip that’s been surfing around for years. It’s the Allman Brothers Band at the Fillmore East, 9/23/70, filmed for PBS and never officially released primarily because of a dispute about ownership.

So don’t get too excited about anything new – but most certainly enjoy this excellent reminder of why we care so much in the first place.

Ladies and Gentleman: Duane Allman, Berry Oakley, Dickey Betts, Butch Trucks, Jaimoe, Gregg Allman – and Thom Doucette… t

 

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My coverage of the final Allman Brothers shows

That’s all folks. Photo by Derek McCabe

Wow.

So it’s been almost two weeks now and I can finally communicate with you all about a very intense 10-day whirlwind of emotions, conversations, interviews, rehearsals and, of course, shows.

A little update on my reporting on these final Allman Brothers performances – and yes it still feels strange to write that.

I woke up early the next morning and wrote up this report for Billboard. The print copy included a lot more photos by Derek McCabe and Danny Clinch.

A more extensive report will be in the January Guitar World, out end of November. That one will include photos by Kirk West.

But the real piece of writing about not just the final shows, but the whole confusing, tumultuous, ultimately glorious final year for the band will be a new final chapter in the paperback edition of One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band. That will be out February 25 and will also include about 20 new Kirk West photos.

I’ve done extensive interviews with most of the band and there are some surprises in there. Much more to come after the first of the year.

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Buy a sweet Les Paul played by Warren Haynes? You betcha!

Warren playing Big House guitar on stage. 10-22-14. Photo by Derek McCabe

The guitars… Photos by Derek Trucks’ tech Ryan Murphy

Thanks to an arrangement between the Gibson Custom Shop, the Allman Brothers Band Museum at the Big House and Warren Haynes, a special selection of Gibson guitars is now available to the public.

Each of the nine hand-selected Les Pauls will be played by Haynes during one of the Allman Brothers Band’s final six shows at New York’s Beacon Theatre over the next week.

Lucky purchaser Steve Harlamert with his faded tobacco burst.

All proceeds will benefit the Big House Museum in Macon, Georgia. The purchase will be a tax-deductible donation.

“These are great instruments for a great cause,” says Haynes, who has been playing the guitars during the band’s rehearsals. “Each of them is different, and each of them is great.”

Man, so lucky I got to play these.

Each guitar will be photographed while being played on stage. Each also will be autographed by Haynes and will come with one of 20 limited-edition Big House commemorative medallions, featuring the museum’s iconic mushroom logo. Guitar buyers who will be at the Beacon might have an opportunity to be photographed with Haynes (with the guitar) before the show and take the guitar home after the performance.

The guitars are 1957, ‘58 or ‘59 Custom Shop reissues and include one Goldtop, two faded Lemon Tops, one Washed Cherry, one Bourbon Burst, one Western Desert Fade, one Sun Tea burst and one Ice Tea.

Several of the instruments have already been sold. Anyone interested in purchasing one of the guitars should email info@thebighousemuseum.org.

Duane Allman’s 1957 Les Paul goldtop is at the Beacon. The story…

It was very moving to see Derek Trucks play Duane Allman’s 1957 Les Paul goldtop at the Beacon Weds. night. Duane is always on stage with the Allman Brothers band but that brought this fact home in a serious way.

Enjoy the photo by my friend Derek McCabe… and read the story of this great guitar and its remarkable journey home.

Derek Trucks plays the goldtop at the Beacon. Final ABB run. 10-22-14. Photo by Derek McCabe

Duane Allman’s long-lost 1957 Gibson Les Paul goldtop has been found and given a new lease on life courtesy of the Allman Brothers Band Museum.

 Originally published in Guitar World, January 2011. some details about the museum exhibits and other things hanve changed a bit.

Duane Allman played a gorgeous 1957 Les Paul goldtop for the first 18 months of his two and half years in the Allman Brothers Band. He played the goldtop on the band’s first two albums, which featured the original versions of “Whipping Post,” “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” “Midnight Rider,” “Revival” and other classics, and he played it on his numerous sessions with other artists, including Derek and the Dominos’ 1970 masterpiece, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. Then Allman swapped the guitar for a sunburst Paul, and this piece of rock and roll history disappeared into the ether.

Now the goldtop is back where it belongs: in the spotlight. Today, Duane’s former guitar is on display at the Allman Brothers Band Museum at the Big House in Macon, Georgia. What’s more, it can be heard on a new recording, Guitar Magic, by the Skydog Woody Project, which also features the 1976 Gibson Thunderbird bass once owned by late ABB/Gov’t Mule bassist Allen Woody.

The story of how Duane and the goldtop became separated is a classic tale of guitar lust. On September 16, 1970, the Allmans played a show in Duane and Gregg Allman’s hometown of Daytona, Florida. Duane, fresh off recording Layla with Eric Clapton and company, was, as usual, playing his ’57 goldtop. The opening band was a local group called the Stone Balloon, whose guitarist, Rick Stine, was playing a 1959 cherry sunburst Les Paul, which caught Duane’s eye. While making Layla he had fallen in love with Clapton’s cherry sunburst. Wanting one of his own, Duane offered to swap Les Pauls with Stine. When Stine balked, Allman upped the ante, throwing in $200 and one of his regular Marshall 50 heads.



Stine agreed, but Duane had one caveat: he wanted the goldtop’s pickups for his new ’burst. The electronics were swapped, and the deal was done. Exactly one week later, on September 23, Allman played his new guitar when the Allman Brothers Band performed at the Fillmore East in New York City, a fact born out by video footage from the show. He played his new cherry ’burst throughout the rest of his career, which ended far too soon when he was killed in a motorcycle crash on October 29, 1971.

Meanwhile, Allman’s original goldtop drifted around Daytona, passing through the hands of three different owners, the last of which eventually sold it to a local guitar store. In 1977, the shop sold it to Gainesville guitarist Scot LaMar. He’d heard from his friend Billy Bowers that Duane’s Les Paul was for sale in Daytona, and he rushed to the store to purchase it. He paid $475, a fair price for a vintage Les Paul in 1977.

The goldtop had some damage, including a bite mark on the headstock from a previous owner’s dog. LaMar had two respected luthiers refinish the guitar, but he was dissatisfied with the results and eventually had the instrument refinished by Tom Murphy, the man behind the Gibson Historic series and probably the most renowned “goldtop guy” in the world. The guitar was restored to its original glory and placed on display at the Allman Brothers Band Museum at the Big House.

Opened last year in the communal house where various members of the band lived, played and jammed together from 1970 to 1973, the Big House Museum includes thousands of artifacts from the ABB’s career. The goldtop is displayed along with artifacts directly related to it, including a shirt given to Duane by Clapton during the Layla sessions and two amps Duane used with the guitar: a Fender Showman and a 50-watt Marshall head, which were sometimes used together.

In the studio – Duane and goldtop.

Other items on display at the museum include Berry Oakley’s Fender Jazz “Tractor” bass and Showman amp, a T-shirt from the first-ever run of ABB merchandise, a Fender Bassman that Dickey Betts used during the band’s earliest days and one of Duane’s Marshall cabs. It also includes a recreation of the famous Fillmore East stage, where the band recorded its landmark At Fillmore East live album in 1970. The display includes a set of vintage Ludwig drums used by Butch Trucks from 1968 to 1970, and a pair of road cases with stenciled lettering pictured on the cover of At Fillmore East.

The guitar will be on display at the Big House at least through this year, and probably longer. “The guitar is where it belongs right now,” LaMar says. “People need to appreciate it and see it.”

Remarkably, LaMar’s generosity with the instrument includes a firm belief that it should be played as well as viewed. “It’s a real living legend and it shouldn’t exist only behind glass,” he says. “It’s a shame to me how many of our greatest guitars have become dead artifacts.”

Putting his money where his mouth is, LaMar recently lent the goldtop to guitarist Joe Davis, who used it to record Guitar Magic, which also features bassist Garry Harper playing Allen Woody’s Gibson Thunderbird bass, on loan from Woody’s father. Davis and Harper released the album under the name the Skydog Woody Project, an amalgam of Woody’s name and Duane’s nickname, Skydog. “There was magic in these instruments,” Davis says, “and it impacted everything we did.”



The project got rolling after Davis heard about the goldtop and got in touch with LaMar, who invited him to come visit. The two men spent a few days hanging out, but while LaMar showed Davis many to-die-for vintage axes, the goldtop was not among them. “I think he was testing me out,” Davis says. “He took me swimming in alligator-infested water and watched how I acted and how I treated the guitars. During those days, I got discouraged that I might never even see the goldtop because it wasn’t discussed. But we made a great friendship, which started with our mutual love of Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman.”

At long last, LaMar produced Duane’s 1957 goldtop and shocked Davis by asking if he wanted to play it. “I knew right away that this is the perfect guitar,” Davis says. “I went home satisfied that I got to see the Layla guitar and thrilled that I got to play it.”

Davis could barely dream that within months he would be in the studio recording an album with that piece of rock and roll history. “It’s the first time I‘ve recorded an album and not thought about how it will sell at all,” says Davis, who has released four other CDs. “I’m just thinking about how it happened and feeling very pleased that I had this opportunity.”

LaMar says he was just happy to see and hear the guitar being put to good use. Derek Trucks has also performed with the instrument, and LaMar hopes Warren Haynes will lay his hands on it soon as well. “I want people to see it and hear it,” LaMar says. “It’s not my guitar; it’s Duane Allman’s. I’m just babysitting.”

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Derek Trucks got some ink

Butch and Gregg watched on and approved.

I was at the Allman Brothers’ second Beacon rehearsal Friday and Derek was talking to Jaimoe about getting a mushroom tattoo on his calf. Wanting to make sure that his would match the tat that all the original members received together in San Francisco in January, 1971 from pioneering tattooist Lyle Tuttle, Derek was going around photographing theoriginal member’s artwork. (Details of the Tuttle tattoos are on page 112 of One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band.)

Derek and Warren have been the only members of the band ever to not receive them.

“Why are you doing this now?” I asked Derek.

“Because Jaimoe told me to and I do what Jaimoe says to do,” he replied.

I still wasn’t sure he was serious. I arrived early on Sunday to find Jaimoe alone in the room behind his kit, with a few hard-working techs getting everything set. Gregg Allman Band keyboardist Pete Levin soon showed up, with two tattoo-artist friends. Derek was close behind. And so it began.

IMG_5707

I asked the tattoo artist, Brian, what he thought. “Easy job,” he replied. “Somewhat intimidating setting.”

And that was before Gregg, Butch and everyone else showed up and crowded around.

The stencil

As Jaimoe stood there videoing the action with his phone, I asked him why he pushed Derek to do this now, seemingly six shows from the end of the guitarist’s Allman Brothers career.



“Young Blood told me he wanted this about two years ago and I couldn’t believe it, but no one knew an artist,” he replied.

Derek was reclining on the couch stoically watching the Jacksonville Jaguars game on his Iphone as the artist worked away. The setup had taken so long that the band members arrived one by one and strolled over to have a look. As you can see, uncle Butch and Gregg shared a moment together while this was going on. They were all quite amused and excited.

Derek watching some football as he gets inked.

I shot some classic video, which I will share after I get it over to Derek.

After Derek, several other people got the same tatoo, including Gregg confidante Chank Middleton and drum tech Rachel “Stixx” Turner, whom Gregg and Butch proclaimed to be the first female to be so adorned.

Phil Lesh, Bob Weir sing National Anthem before Giants game

Bob Weir returned to music for the first time since he cancelled all remaining tour dates early in the summer. Alongside pal Phil Lesh and San Francisco Giants third base coach (and musician) Tim Flannery, the trio sang the National Anthem at Game 3 of the NLCS before the game against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Ah, San Francisco.

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Geraldo Rivera 1979 Tv report on the Allman Brothers

Check out the video below: a pretty great Geraldo Rivera report about the Allman Brothers Band and their 1979 reunion:

Geraldo is a legit fan and did a great radio interview with me when One Way Out came out.

Lots of great lines in this report, including, “Their music is old fashioned… they don’t even play disco.”

Cool interviews with Dickey Betts, Butch Trucks, Gregg Allman – and Bonnie Bramlett.

And some nice live footage.