by Paul, Alan
In one magazine interview, Allman was asked who he would most like to record with. His surprising answer: Tim Buckley, the romantic folksinger and fingerpicking guitarist who had mesmerized Allman during a performance in Los Angeles that Browne had dragged him to. Shortly after the interview appeared, Gregg answered his Macon phone.
“Someone I could barely understand on this bad line said, ‘Could I speak to Gregg Allman?’” Gregg recalls. “I said, ‘Who’s calling?’ And I thought he said ‘Lord Buckley,’ the comedian from back in the old hippie days. And it took me a minute to realize it was Tim Buckley, who was such a gentleman, such a wonderful person. That guy might have had a twenty-one-inch waist but he had a heart as big as Alaska and he could write down his thoughts in a beautiful way and pick this twelve-string acoustic with three steel Nationals on his fingers, and a Dobro thumb pick, which I also use. I got this from him and it gave my music a lot of life.”
* * *
BETTS: Duane played the acoustic on “Revival” and “Midnight Rider” and everything else where you hear it. Getting a good acoustic sound in the studio can be tough, and Duane could do it much more easily and quickly than me at that point. Duane was a lot more studio savvy than the rest of us because of his experience at Muscle Shoals. He was really, really good in the studio.
ALLMAN: Even on the songs I wrote on acoustic like “Midnight Rider,” I never played it on the records. We had enough guitarists.
For years, Duane didn’t have a nice flattop [acoustic guitar], because he mostly played Dobros and National Steels, so he would rent an acoustic in the studio. But eventually he ended up with one of those old dark Martin D18s that looks almost like mahogany. He loved playing the steel guitars, and Dickey ended up with his favorite National—that’s it on the cover of his solo album [Highway Call]. I wound up with two of his Nationals. I knew I wasn’t going to play them properly and I knew I wasn’t going to sell them either, so I gave one to Clapton and I gave one to Ronnie Wood.
The band also recorded a rearranged version of Muddy Waters’s “Hoochie Coochie Man,” featuring Oakley on his only studio lead vocal.
BETTS: That arrangement of “Hoochie Coochie Man” came right out of the Second Coming and was a really good example of what Berry and I were doing in that band.
Receipts show that the band stayed at the Chelsea Hotel in New York on April 26, 1970, in between gigs in Fallsburg and Stony Brook, N.Y., sharing rooms, mostly with a band member paired with someone from the crew. Room rates ranged from $13 to $22.50.
CHAPTER
6
Keep on Growing
WITH THEIR SECOND album done, the band returned to the road. One of Dowd’s next clients was a hero of Dickey and Duane’s—Eric Clapton, recording with Derek and the Dominos, his new band of American musicians formerly with his friends Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett. The band came to Miami to record their debut album with just a few songs written.
DOWD: When I was working with the Allman Brothers on Idlewild South, I got a call from [Clapton manager] Robert Stigwood saying that Eric would like to record and asking if I could fit him in my schedule. Of course I said I’d be delighted. It became a lengthy conversation, which I normally would never have while I was working with someone. I put the phone down and apologized, saying to Duane, “You have to excuse me. That was Eric Clapton’s manager. They want to come here and record.”
He said, “You mean this guy?” and plays me an Eric solo note for note. I said, “That’s the one,” and he goes, “I got to meet that guy. Let me know when he’s gonna be here. I’d love to come by and watch. Do you think that would be possible?” And I told him I was sure it would be fine, he should call me and we’d work it out.
ERIC CLAPTON, guitarist, rock legend: I was very aware of Duane. I had become aware of him when I heard Wilson Pickett’s “Hey Jude.” That break at the end just blew me away and I immediately made a call to Atlantic Records to find out who it was. It was one of the few times in my life where I had to know who that was—now!
We went to Miami just to record with Tom Dowd. It’s where he was based, and he was raving about the studio and the musicians we could get if we needed anyone extra. Duane hadn’t even been talked about at that point. That was much more coincidental.
DOWD: I was recording with Derek and the Dominos [at Criteria, on August 26, 1970], and Duane calls: “Is he there? We’re gonna be in Miami tomorrow for a concert. Can I come meet him?” I said, “I’m sure you can. Hold on.”
I grabbed Eric and said, “I have Duane Allman on the phone. His band is playing in the area tomorrow and he’d like to come meet you.” And he goes, “You mean this guy?” And he plays Duane’s solo off of Wilson Pickett’s “Hey Jude”’ note for note. I said, “That’s the guy.” And he goes, “I’ve got to see him perform. We’re going to that concert.”
CLAPTON: When I heard they were playing nearby after we had been in the studio about a month, I immediately wanted to go.
DOWD: Now I knew the two of them personally and they were both low-key, beautiful human beings and wonderful musicians, so I thought, “This is gonna be fun.” Sure enough, Saturday afternoon, we record for a few hours, and then head out to the limos Eric had waiting and go down to the Convention Center, where the Allman Brothers are playing. They snuck us in behind the photographer’s barricade, sitting on the floor with our backs to the audience, right in front of the stage. Duane’s in the middle of a solo, when he opens his eyes, looks down, sees Eric, and stops playing cold, in shock. Dickey starts playing to cover until Duane regains his equilibrium, and then he sees Eric and he freezes, too. That’s how big Eric was to them.
BOBBY WHITLOCK, Derek and the Dominos keyboardist: They were playing on a flatbed behind an eighteen-wheeler that had hay bales around the front to keep the crowd back and we crowded up under the trailer and put our backs to the bales and were sitting there looking up at them. Duane was wearing it out and he looked down and saw us—saw Eric looking at him—and he just stopped playing. He always had his mouth open when he was getting down on it, but he didn’t close it this time. Then Dickey was wondering what was going on and looked down and stopped playing, and I thought the whole band would stop, but they kept cranking and then the guitarists got back on it.
DOWD: After the show they met and hung out and all of a sudden I had half the Allman Brothers and all of Derek and the Dominos crammed into a limousine going back to Criteria, where they jammed until two or three the next afternoon. I kept the tape running the whole time. There’s Duane playing Eric’s guitar and Gregg playing Bobby Whitlock’s organ and they were all in piggy heaven.
JAIMOE: Everyone was really grooving, but I wasn’t all that knocked out by what Clapton was doing, or the whole scene, so I went out to the Winnebago, smoked some pot, and listened to Tony Williams’s Emergency!
Many of these impromptu performances were eventually released on The Layla Sessions, a twentieth-anniversary expanded box set, which included five jams totaling over 70 minutes.
CLAPTON: Needless to say, Duane and me hit if off instantly—soul mates, instant soul mates.
WHITLOCK: This thing with Eric and Duane was such a natural. They had the same authority, and they dug from the same well: Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson, Bill Broonzy. I already knew Duane from working together with Delaney and Bonnie, so I wasn’t surprised at all that they hit it off.
ALLMAN: That was a lot of fun and a lot of good music went down that night. I was glad to be there, man.
WHITLOCK: We had some drinks and other recreational relaxants and were just enjoying each other’s company. But something deeper was happening right away with Eric and Duane, who were like two long-lost brothers. Those two guys started bouncing back and forth on each other and it was an amazing experience. Everyone else drifted away eventually, but Duane stayed all night.
DOWD: When it was over, they were all such good friends, then Eric said to Duane, “When are you coming back? We should record
some.”
CLAPTON: I just asked him if he’d like to come into the studio and play and help me out.
DOWD: The Brothers had to go back on the road, but Duane said he’d be back as soon as he could and a few days later he called and said, “I’ll be there tomorrow.”
DOUCETTE: Wexler called Phil and asked Duane to come back to Miami and he and I got into that Ford van and drove down. When we arrived we had about fourteen dollars, half a joint, and a wee bit of wine. Wexler goes, “You need anything?” I said, “We’re broke, man, tapped.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of hundreds and handed them to Duane, who eyeballed it and handed me about half.
This is close to midnight. He walks in there with his amp in one hand and his guitar in the other and all the guys are sitting around and they go, “Well, tomorrow we’re going to get busy.” And Duane goes “Tomorrow? I just drove fifteen hours in that piece of shit. Let’s play some music.” He plugged in and tuned up and everyone started getting up and going to his instrument.
WHITLOCK: He came and joined us at the Thunderbird Motel. He got a room right next to mine. One of the most amazing things I ever witnessed was in Eric’s room there. The two of them were going back and forth hitting a Robert Johnson lick, then Elmore James and on and on. I knew I was witnessing something real special—these guys in front of me pulling all this from the deep well. I was in awe, because they were both in their early twenties and they were like two seventy-something old blues guys from the fields of Mississippi running it down.
DOWD: By then, the Dominos had recorded several songs and had arrangements set for others, but right away Duane started fitting in parts and the more he did that, the more songs started to radically change. Duane had unleashed this dynamic entity that was just ridiculous. They were feeding off each other like crazy and running on pure emotion.
WHITLOCK: We weren’t really stagnant before Duane arrived. “I Looked Away,” “Tell the Truth,” and “Bell Bottom Blues” had been written and recorded. We had come up with “Keep on Growing” in a jam. Eric kept playing guitar parts and I ran out into the lobby with a yellow pad and wrote out the lyrics as fast as my fingers would move. So we had something, but we didn’t have enough material for one album, much less a double album. We didn’t have a plan and when Duane came on the scene, everything exploded and things just started coming.
DOWD: I’ve never seen spontaneous inspiration happen at that rate and level. One of them would play something, and the other reacted instantaneously. Never once did either of them have to say, “Could you play that again, please?” It was like two hands in a glove. And they got tremendously off on playing with each other. That whole album is definitely equal parts Eric and Duane. The whole session was just so damn impromptu and fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants brilliant. It was just a wonderful experience to witness such a meshing of musical minds, such telepathic sympathies.
WHITLOCK: We had two leaders then. We had Eric and Duane. Eric backed up and gave Duane a lot of latitude, a lot of room, so he could contribute up to his full potentiality, and Duane was full of fire and ideas. He’d just go, “Hey, how about we try ‘Little Wing’?”—that was completely his idea and he came up with the intro by himself. He just started playing it.
Duane was very, very good in the studio. Working with the finest musicians and engineers on the planet really paid off for him. When he had the opportunity to be thrust into that environment, he absorbed what was right and righteous and then used it to killer advantage.
DOWD: It was never gonna happen again; if you didn’t catch it, you blew it, so I had the tape rolling constantly. The spontaneity of that whole session was absolutely frightening.
WHITLOCK: Sam the Sham [Domingo “Sam” Zamudio of “Wooly Bully” fame] was in Studio B recording. I knew him from my childhood days and he suggested that we do “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out” and “Key to the Highway.” Those were his ideas.
During the Layla sessions, Duane also found time to join Zamudio to record three songs: “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Relativity,” and “Goin’ Upstairs,” all of which can be heard on Skydog: The Duane Allman Retrospective.
WHITLOCK: We were just jamming and it turned into “Key to the Highway.” The reason that song fades in is Tom Dowd was in the toilet and it was one of the few times during these sessions that tapes weren’t rolling. He came running out of the can, screaming, “Push up the faders! Push up the faders!”
DOWD: There have been a lot of stories about how much drugs these guys did, but we started sessions every day at two, and everyone arrived clear-eyed and ready to work. As I dismissed people, they may have floated away, but it did not interfere with the album. Even in his wildest moments, Eric arrived at the studio on time with his instrument in tune, ready to play—and he would give absolute hell to anyone who didn’t. Eric and Duane shared that. They didn’t know each other from Adam before the sessions began, but they were both taskmasters. They didn’t give a damn what anyone did on their own time, but when they were in the studio, it was their time, and you better be ready to go.
SANDLIN: No matter what else was happening with him or around him, Duane was completely serious about and dedicated to the music.
After about two weeks of recording, Duane returned to the Brothers, having missed a handful of shows. While this seems to have caused some dissension, everyone understood the importance to Duane of the “Clapton sessions.” At the end of the sessions, Clapton asked Duane to join the Dominos.
WHITLOCK: We did talk to him about joining the band and coming with us on the road, but his loyalty was to his brother. He said, “I can’t do that unless I bring Gregg along.” I did not want another keyboardist and we all just knew that wasn’t happening. He had his thing to do. Duane was a leader unto himself.
Of course, Duane did join us on stage twice, in Tampa and Syracuse. And, honestly, I didn’t think he was as great on stage with us as he was in the studio. He was good in a structured environment. The Allman Brothers played the same thing last night that they played tonight. We weren’t a structured band.
JAIMOE: Eric really wanted Duane in his band and we all knew that. We played at least a couple of shows without him, while he was doing those sessions and then went to play a couple of gigs with them. Growing up in Mississippi, I knew that one monkey don’t stop no show, so I didn’t really sweat it. I figured, “If that’s what he’s gonna do, that’s what he’s gonna do. I was playing music before the Allman Brothers or Percy Sledge and I’ll be playing it after.” But I know it was a concern with Butch and Dickey.
TRUCKS: Of course I was concerned. Eric asked him to join the band and Duane almost left. He very seriously considered it. I had a long talk with Duane one day when we were out fishing. I wasn’t going to beg him but I said, “Duane, look, what we’ve got going—and it’s yours. Are you ready to give this up to join someone else’s thing? That’s what you’re gonna do, Duane, because it’s Eric’s band. Is that what you want to do?”
DOUCETTE: He said, “Man, they asked me to join,” and he was pleased about it, but I don’t think he came close to doing it. I think he liked being wanted, liked being asked. That made him feel good, and he genuinely liked Eric.
TRUCKS: Duane finally told Eric no. He felt that we were the best band in the whole world but at the same time, it’s Eric Clapton for cripes sake. And we hadn’t gone anywhere yet. He had to make a decision: Am I going to stick with this music I love and I am building, or am I going to join Eric’s band? It wasn’t an easy decision, because he would be a rock star if he went with Eric, and he had spent a lot of his life with that as a goal. I don’t know what the final determining factor was, but I’m just so glad he didn’t go.
JAIMOE: When Duane got back, he figured out what I already knew: “Shit, Eric Clapton should be opening for us.” That was the kind of attitude we all had and it was probably the best thing we had going for us. I just simply thought Duane had more going playing with us than with E
ric. He had put together this band exactly how he wanted it and I think playing those dates with Eric helped him realize that. He was like, “I’m back. Will you let me back in the band?”
Dowd was left to mix the Layla album on his own, sending cassettes of his work to Clapton to keep him up to date.
DOWD: Eric called and said they wanted to come back to alter a part on one or two songs and remix one song. When they returned—with Duane—among the things they had in mind was adding a piano part to “Layla,” and I couldn’t understand where it went. The song was tight as a drum. I played them the cut, and they said it went on the end. I thought they were all stark raving mad, that we could never get everyone to match the brilliance of what they did the first time and make it fit.
Drummer Jim Gordon played the coda’s piano part and is credited with writing it as well.
DOWD: When I set up, I expected Bobby Whitlock to play the piano, but Jim played it. I can’t say whether or not he wrote it, but he had it mastered; that part was in the end of his fingers.
WHITLOCK: I did not want anything to do with the coda so Jim played the drums and came back and played the piano, but he’s not a piano player, so there was no feel to it, and Tom asked me to put another piano on there. In the Language of Music movie [a documentary about Dowd’s career], when Tom pulls the tracks to “Layla” up individually, there is a track labeled “support piano” and he says, “I forgot about that.” That was me. Tom mixed it in to give the piano part more feel and life.
DOWD: Duane’s guitar part on that coda is just absolutely intense and, of course, I was absolutely wrong about not being able to make the new part fit. We spliced it right in and it made the song. I knew immediately that we had something really, really special—as anyone would have.
WHITLOCK: To this day, I think adding the coda was a big mistake. When I was still with Delaney and Bonnie and Friends and living in the big house they had in L.A., they had a guesthouse up on top of the hill. I went up there and Jim, Rita Coolidge, and some other folks started messing around on this melody on the piano and asked me to join in … and I said, “Nah, that for sure ain’t rock and roll.” Well, they wrote this thing called “Time” which was later recorded by Rita’s sister Priscilla—and that was the melody to the “Layla” coda!