Customer Reviews

The Allman Brothers Band

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an album full of excellent music by the early Allman Brothers Band. However, for an additional [money] you can purchase their album BEGINNINGS, which contains all of this album plus all of their second album, Idlewilde South. Both albums are truly first rate, and you get them both on one CD if you just buy BEGINNINGS.

There is nothing, I repeat, nothing weak about this album. From the beginning of the first track "Don't Want You No More", it takes only a nanosecond to be hooked by the genius that was the original Allman Brothers lineup. The only complaint that I could come close to making would be that the album is too short coming in at under thirty-five minutes. The same is true of the afformentioned opening track. At only 2:25, it always leaves me wanting more.

Obviously, Duane Allman is everywhere here. "Black Hearted Woman" has some real mean licks, as does "Every Hungry Woman". I disagree with an earlier reviewer that "Dreams" is a bit too long. At about seven minutes, it's just right. Hypnotic and slow grooving, there just isn't a better song on the album which brings me to "Whipping Post". This is a great tune that can't really be appreciaited unless you're attempting to blow your speakers by cranking them to 11. The opening bass and Duane's solo should be pretty recognizeable.

The first four albums by The Allman Brothers Band are all excellent, including this one. Each one doesn't quite sound like any other so enjoy this one early and often.

Despite much great music with a variety of players up to this day, nothing can really top this first Allman Brothers release. The tunes are solid from beginning to end. It's no surprise that most of them have become standards.
It's also no surprise, that at the time of its release, the album was largely ignored. American blues-based rock was still not very popular, and these guys were Southerners to boot.

But other musicians took note; one of them was Eric Clapton. (Give a listen some time to Eric and Duane dueting on Mean Old World.)
Anyway, Idlewild South, as a whole was not up to this eponymous debut, and soon Duane would be gone. Eat A Peach was ambitious, but much dominated by Duane's playing on Mountain Jam. Then that wonderful and under-appreciated bassist Berry Oakley would be gone, too.

The ABB would have its ups and downs and be a breeding ground for great musicians and a continuing fount of great music, but nothing has yet topped the tight, focused, writing, playing, and sequencing of this first album. It is a perfect record.

The Allman Brothers are one of those bands that I have "discovered" rather late in life. Years ago I worked in radio for a year and we were able to bring albums home from the station to borrow overnight if we wanted to listen to something. I remember borrowing "Eat A Peach" and "Enlightened Rouge" and thought they were both good, but it did not make we want to run out and buy a bunch of Allmans stuff. Over the past 10 years I have discovered a growing appreciation of blues based music and thus went back to re look at the Allmans. The result was basically falling in love with their material and I have since picked up much of their stuff. The first Allman Brothers album has to rank up there with the best debut albums of all time. The album contains classic after classic, "Not My Cross To Bear", "Don't Want You No More", "Trouble No More", "Dreams" and the band's most well known classic "Whipping Post" The album is solid all the way through and formed the blueprint of all that came after.

As you probably know by now, I love debut albums! And the year, 1969, was one of the best years ever for them. Such great first efforts by artists like Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Santana, Grand Funk Railroad, Mountain, the James Gang, Led Zeppelin, Chicago. This first album by the Allman Brothers Band, however, ranks among the best debuts of 1969, and the more I listen to it, the more it reminds me a lot of Santana's debut album from the same year, and a little bit of Aerosmith's debut a few years later. Unlike many Allman albums to come, when they started to evolve into what we now fashionably call "Southern Rock", this one combined more of the latin/funk, percussive rhythms and organ-driven, blues-wailing jams of Santana's debut album, together with the urban swagger and attitude of Aerosmith's debut album--Aerosmith and Allman's debut albums also having in common the same producer, Adrian Barber, with his raw, dusty, "flip-the-switch-and-let'em-bang-out-the-tunes-'til-we-get-tired-and-fade'em-out"-style of production. And like Aerosmith and Santana's debut albums, there's not a whole lot of songs on this first album. It's short, sweet, and to the point--and tells you all you need to know about the band at the time.
Considering the fact that nearly all but two songs here were written by Gregg Allman (the rest were "covers") and that all the songs were sung by Gregg Allman, it's amazing when you realise that he was only brought into the group at the last minute! No one else in the band were writing songs at the time. Dickey Betts would write songs later, but he had just come from a "mostly" covers band called the "Second Coming". No one else was really a "singer" then, either. How fortunate they must have been for Duane Allman to think about calling his brother, Gregg, in from L.A. to play organ, sing, and write songs for the band. If not for Gregg's involvement here, this band might not have had an album, a recording contract--or even a career!
But at the tender age of 21 or 22, Gregg was rather "world-weary" already, and seemed to have experienced the kind of blues that only Eric Clapton would have envied so early in life, and be able to articulate. Gregg Allman was certainly one of the first great white blues songwriters. Nearly all the songs, except for "Dreams", seem to convey some kind of anger or resentment toward women--four of the songs written by Gregg, and two written by others. It's obvious that Gregg had "girl trouble" in his life at this time, and this first Allman Brothers album was a chance for him to get it out of his system! There's only one other album mostly dedicated to trouble with women, and it's one that, ironically, Gregg's brother, Duane, would play on a year later--Derek and the Dominoes, "Layla". But Gregg Allman had a way to communicate his heartbreak in a way that Eric Clapton would never be able to duplicate, and it is his white blues singing/songwriting that reminds me of another "Gregg"--Gregg Rolie from Santana, whose passionate singing and songwriting about resentment and heartbreak over women mirrors that of Gregg Allman to a "tee". I truly believe Gregg Allman would never write better songs later than the few he did on this first Allman Brothers album, and it is only life experiences that can bring out the best in one's songwriting, and it's what he lived through at the time.
As for musical highlights: This is the one Allman Brothers album where every member seemed to showcase every bit of talent they had. For starters, the instrumental, "Don't Want You No More", written by Spencer Davis--now there's an obscure cover tune, if you want to show how much you know about "British R&B"! (sort of reminds me a little of Aeromsith familiarising themselves with Fleetwood Mac's "Rattlesnake Shake"!) My favorites, however, are the ones that you don't hear on a "greatest hits" set of the Allman Brothers Band, and those are "Black Hearted Woman" and "Every Hungry Woman"--and to a lesser degree, the studio version of "Whippin' Post" and "Trouble No More". "Black Hearted Woman" has some of the funkiest riffs ever to set sail from the twin-lead guitars of Dickey Betts and Duane Allman, and some of the best drum and percussion work ever from the team of Butch Trucks and Jaimoe Johanson, really showing their talents well on that track. I especially like the "echo" put on Gregg's vocals for dramatic effect. "Every Hungry Woman" opens with one of the few times you will ever hear "echo" or "reverb" on Duane's guitar, but follows with some more twin-guitar funk. I like the drums that open "Trouble No More"--followed, once again, by more twin-guitar funk. I'm now beginning to see how rock critics criticised this album for all the songs sounding the same! The Allman Brothers band just had a sound all their own, and much of it was the creativity and inventiveness in the sound and the riffs of the two lead guitars of Dickey and Duane played together. As for "Whippin' Post", I always thought this one had some of Berry Oakley's most unique bass guitar lines. Oakley was defintely not one to sit back and let his bass be the instrument that the drummer just flopped his sticks with! His bass was all over, in, around, and through "Whippin' Post"!
But what really sets the Allmans apart from all other British and American blues-based rock bands--from day one, and throughout their musical career--guitar-wise, they were never really a "power-chord"-type of band. They let their single-string leads and solos be their "calling card" in that area, and whatever else fills the sound is driven by the organ, bass, drums, and percussions. They were never even really big on guitar effects--although, there is one instance at the end of "Whippin' Post", where I believe I faintly hear the sound of a "wah wah" pedal as they close the song? Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I do think it adds some nice drama to end the song with, anyway!
There's a lot in the sounds of this album, effects or otherwise, that I don't believe the Allmans would ever return to much of later (there was even some Santana-like percussion and "timbales" playing by Butch Trucks!) I think this was their least "Southern Rock"-sounding album--Dickey Betts would bring more "countrified" lyrics and playing later, beginning with the album, "Eat A Peach". But that's why I like their first album best, because it doesn't "fit" the stereotypes of what people think "Southern Rock" should sound like (notice I compared this album more to Santana and Aerosmith's debut albums, than those by Lynyrd Skynyrd or Marshall Tucker). In a lot of places, the music sounds more urban and jazzy--conjuring up more the images of the dingy streets of downtown Memphis, Atlanta, and New Orleans, than those of the southern countryside. And for goodness sakes, people--PLEASE, stop comparing them to the Grateful Dead! The "jamming" by the Allman Brothers Band here, and on future releases, is far more fun, dramatic, soulful, and funky than anything the Grateful Dead would ever play! In a lot of ways, too, this was Gregg Allman's best solo album--in as far as his soul searching, and songwriting throughout. But certainly for those who don't like "southern rock"--but just good, bluesy jamming, this is the one Allman Brothers band album you must have!

A great debut by the Allman Brothers Band. Though they would make even greater music, with Duane's guidance, this album still stands the test of time.

Because their live sets are so legendary, the original Allman Brothers Band's first - and, alas, only - two studio albums are somewhat overlooked. Granted, the band would only reach full fruition on later releases like AT FILLMORE EAST and EAT A PEACH, in the process expanding and improving many of the tracks from this album and its follow-up, IDLEWILD SOUTH; but right from the start the Brothers were a musical force to be reckoned with, and their regrettably small output is an essential part of any comprehensive collection.
Like Santana, whose own debut album was released almost simultaneously, the ABB took an innovative approach to rock, adding jazz, gospel, bluegrass and even classical elements which few of their contemporaries had the chops to tackle. With the matchless guitar talents of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts, first-rate white blues singing from Gregg Allman and an expanded rhythm section - bassist Berry Oakley and drummers Butch Trucks and Jaimoe - this was a sextet which could and did make magic out of anything.
Opening with the slamming "Don't Want You No More," a nasty blues instrumental which rivets the attention from its very first note, THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND showcases an already fully realized vision, with one foot in the soil and the other in the stars, quite unlike anything else out there even in those heady days of 1969. "Not My Cross to Bear" gives Gregg some room to start shouting as only he can, and the Jimi Hendrix-influenced "Black Hearted Woman" is a nonstop sizzler. "Trouble No More," which would become a staple of the Brothers' live shows, gets its initial ABB workout here as well, leaving the second half of the album for the lengthier, heavier explorations at which this band always excelled. "Every Hungry Woman" opens with a reverbed bayou slide intro from Duane which sounds like the cover of a horror comic book, then segues into a countrified hard-rock performance of superlative tightness and menace. "Dreams" is as ethereal as its name, a slow sensual groove held aloft for seven minutes by the rhythm team's restraint and Duane's boundless imagination. Finally, the original "short" version of "Whipping Post" gives both guitarists a chance to shine as Gregg spits out his self-penned tale of a hapless man's victimization at the hands of a no-good woman. The transcendent finale, with the whole band seemingly straining at the very borders of its own and its instruments' capabilities, would be extended but never fundamentally altered onstage.
THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND remains a fine offering from the finest of rock bands, if a rather brief one at barely half an hour. For this reason, the reader is advised to seek out BEGINNINGS, which pairs this album with the similarly abbreviated IDLEWILD SOUTH, thereby getting both of the Brothers' studio efforts on one disc for the same price.

So will all the boys on the debut of the ABB.Another strong candidate for best album of the 60s/70s. All the songs are incredible.BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT!

I didn't get into Led Zeppelin-and I don't want to start a who was better debate here-because my roommates at the time bought Led Zeppelin II, loved it, played it to death, and I picked up the first Allman Brothers album instead. I had never heard anything so intense this side of Robert Johnson. Gregg sounded like he was in mortal pain and the guitars screamed like panthers. And then there was that floating rhythmn section. Imagine my surprise-and my deranged grin- when I remembered that Gregg gave Berry Oakley credit for the opening riff for Whipping Post and years later I discovered that Berry stole the riff from Rachmaninoff's cello concerto. If you're going to be the best, you gotta steal from the best.

I love the original Allman Brothers Band. Many years ago, I made a pilgrimage to Macon to pay my respects to Duane and Berry. This was way before they put up that fence around their gravesites, because "fans" took the footstones and partied on the graves themselves. Anyway, I went to lunch at a restaurant that was used to be a mansion, I think the name was Beales. The waiter asked me why I was in Macon and I told him about paying my respects to Duane and Berry. He told me their first album cover was shot on the side of the restaurant I was eating my lunch in !!!! I would have never guessed it. And to top it off, he told me Duane carved his name into the stone floor where he stood posing. Sure enough it's there along with the outline of his shoes... sorta like Graumanns Chinese theater without the cement.