Customer Reviews

Jam Band Tribute to the Allman Brothers

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

 

 

Woe!!! Hold on to your hats boys and girls - this CD is a must have for fans of The Allman Brothers Band. That's right - MUST HAVE!!!!!
Let's start by saying that there isn't one Brother on the disc - with the exception of Mantra & Gov't Mule drummer, Matt Abts who I do consider a brother through association of playing with Warren Haynes. The disc features Zoo People & Mantra doing 5 Allman tunes out of the ten. The balance has some very fine playing by David Kalish Band, Rollin' In The Hay, Charlie Terrell, Richie & The Pocket Rockets, and Jimmy & The Tercels. Disc highlights in particular: Zoo People's versions of "Ain't Wastin' Time No More" & "Les Bres in A Minor" - PLUS a great good feeling, sunny day, top-down, highway drivin' original in the Brothers vein called, Sage. You gotta here this tune - you'll go lookin' through your stack of Allman Brothers stuff to see if they didn' write the dang song themselves! Sage is written by John Nau - a very fine piano player in the Chuck Leavell style.
Two other highlights are Rollin' in The Hay's version of Jessica done in a bluegrass vein and GA-RON-TEED to keep you feeling every bit as good as if Dickey Betts was pickin'!
The other highlight which I can't stop playing is Mantra's version of "In Memory". This absolutely smokes!!! Bass player Eric Topolski had me really, really remembering just what a monster Berry Oakley really was. I'm not downplaying Oteil or even the late Allen Woody - but man - this is the guy to snatch for the warmth of that early 70's Allman sound. And can they extend the jam??? Hell Yeah!!! Matt Abts 'drums up a storm' and when guitarist Rich Meijer gets to really pushing some nastiness late into the tune - Matt is smokin' all four limbs in contrapuntal overdrive!!! I'm gonna say this cause after 25 listens to this one song in 4 days it has to be said...You don't miss the Jaimoe/Butch combo at all with Matt Abts at the helm! Drummers: NO JUNK, HE IS THAT GOOD!!!
Look I'm not going to say go out and buy this CD - it won't be for everyone and yeah, I admit, if you want the Allman Brothers music - listen to the Allman Brothers; but I've been an ABB fan since 1971 and I know the "FEEL" and this CD has that "FEEL"! So, to me - it gets the 5 stars and we get some very fine music to listen to!!!! To the Jam Bands I say, "Well Done!"

This is an interesting experiment to emulate the ABB. These are all classic ABB songs. However, it is not the ABB and does not even come close. Some performances are rather flat, they lack this southern spririt, and southern rock! The good thing is it just shows how great ABB was in the good days.