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Gregg Allman’s First LP in Fourteen Years Raises The Bar

By Don Wilcock

Gregg Allman’s Low Country Blues, due out on January 18 from Rounder Records, is almost as transcendent in its supple and subtle carpet of sound as Live at Fillmore East was for the Allman Brothers in 1971. I say “almost” because the CD contains only one original song, while Live at Fillmore East was all about Allman Brothers originals.

Like the Fillmore album, Low Country Blues takes familiar sounds and comfortable American music and changes the recipe just enough to reawaken our taste buds and remind us how much we love the blues. Starting in the late 1960s, The Allman Brothers brought Duane Allman’s Elmore James-like slide into a rock context, with Dickey Betts adding a smoked, country-swing feel, while Gregg’s lyrics, vocals, and B-3 gelled the whole sound into a mix that jumpstarted the kind of excitement early Elvis had given American pop music a generation earlier.

Gregg Allman had not been in a recording studio since The Allman Brothers’ Hittin’ The Note CD, released in 2003. His last solo LP was Searching for Simplicity in 1997. The Allman Brothers’ long-time producer Tom Dowd died in 2002. Dowd had worked with some of Gregg Allman’s biggest influences, including Otis Redding, Solomon Burke, and Ray Charles.

It took some arm-twisting to get Gregg into the studio again last January without Dowd as a comfort blanket. “I [didn’t] want to start meeting a string of dudes, all of ’em trying to outdo the other one,” he’s quoted as saying in the press release for the new LP. Producer/guitarist/songwriter T Bone Burnett is himself a ten-time Grammy winner and almost as iconic as Dowd. He reportedly got on Allman’s good side by acknowledging Dowd’s stature in his first meeting with Gregg. Burnett came to the sessions armed with a hard drive containing 10,000 old blues songs. They laid down fifteen masters in eleven days, many on the first or second take, uncharacteristic of Allman. Twelve songs made it onto the final release.

Low Country Blues, named after a geographic locale in coastal Georgia where Allman is from, is a strong enough album that it could come to define a genre of music and do for Gregg and this area what the term “hill country blues” did for North Mississippi, R. L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and the North Mississippi Allstars. Here T Bone Burnett has done what he did in his Grammy-winning O’ Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack in that he’s smoothed the edges of a pretty raw sound without losing the bite or flavor. With the help of some of the best musicians in this field he has created a blended sipping whiskey that goes down easy but has a strong punch.

Like B.B. King’s One Kind Favor, which Burnette also produced, Low Country Blues spotlights new and unique arrangements of classic blues songs that showcase the talents of an iconic artist who himself has generated a catalog of his own “classic” songs. From early 20^th century progenitors like Sleepy John Estes (“Floating Bridge”) and Skip James (“Devil Got My Woman”) to 1950’s big band R&B by Bobby Bland (“Blind Man”) and Amos Milburn (“Tears, Tears, Tears”), from Muddy Waters’ 1948 Delta-infused Chicago blues classic single “I Cant’ Be Satisfied” to West Side soulman Magic Sam’s signature song “My Love Is Your Love,” from the almost chain-gang clang of the traditional “Rolling Stone” to the one original on the album, “Just Another Rider,” Gregg Allman stakes his claim to more than seventy-five years of American roots music history.

Not since Ray Charles’ “experiments” with complex arrangements of sounds outside his comfort range beginning in the 1960s has an ensemble of this many instruments sounded this beautifully simple and not clichéed. Darrel Leonard, who worked with Delanie & Bonnie when Gregg’s late brother Duane was in that band, arranged the brass section of four and sometimes five horns appearing on five of the twelve cuts. Never brassy, never aggressively sharp, this blend is pure black velvet.

Guitarist Doyle Bramhall II is the yin to Allman Brothers guitarist Warren Haynes’ yang. Haynes does not appear on this album even though he co-wrote the one original, “Just Another Rider,” with Allman. Bramhall is one of the most underrated lead guitarists on the rock scene, probably because he’s usually hidden behind headliners who do the featured vocals, including Eric Clapton (2006 – 2009 tours), Roger Waters (1999-2002), and the Arc Angels (1992, 2006 and 2007).

While Haynes is often credited with lighting a fire under the Allman Brothers reunion in 1989 and subsequent tours, his style of playing is busier and more aggressive than Bramhall’s. Bramhall, like Buddy Whittington formerly of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, is able to take the staccato and strident primal-scream licks of Otis Rush and Hubert Sumlin and add another dimension that projects a rock energy without adding extra notes. His exquisitely understated but stinging delivery on Otis Rush’s “Checking on My Baby” and Junior Wells’ “Little By Little” plays a pivotal role in underlining Gregg’s smoky vocals. And his deep-cutting chords on the more traditional numbers bring a whole new perspective to these songs.

Gregg Allman’s vocals, like those of Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, and Jimi Hendrix are so universal in music lovers’ consciousness that they transcend any attempt to criticize or qualify them. Gregg Allman sounds like Gregg Allman. When we hear him on any song, we see this larger-than-life, long-haired blond and tattooed rock star whose decades of hard living and obsession with road trips invest every song he sings with a southern barbecue flavor that is all his own. His voice transcends genres, time, styles, race, and age. This LP was recorded before he had his liver transplant in June of last year. His voice sounds stronger but more nuanced than he has sounded on recent tours, and Burnett has done an incredible job of setting his voice like a diamond in a ring in this incredible production.

Although Allman plays his patented B-3 on eight of the twelve songs (and acoustic guitar on three others), both his own keyboards and Dr. John’s piano are understated throughout. Both standup bass player Dennis Crouch and drummer Jay Bellerose are in Bramhall’s own band and their familiarity works to the arrangements’ advantage.

Gregg Allman is currently on tour:

Jan. 7: Mayo Center for The Performing Arts, Morristown, NJ

Jan. 8: Ulster Performing Arts Cetner, Kingston, NY

Jan. 9: American Music Theatre, Lancaster, PA

Jan. 11: Count Basie Theatre, Red Bank, NJ

Jan. 12: Bergan Performing Arts Center, Englewood, NJ

Jan. 14: Flynn Center for The Performing Arts – Main Stage, Burlington, VT

Jan. 15: Zeiterion Performing Arts Center, New Bedford, MA

Jan. 18 Low Country Blues CD Release Event At The Bowery Ballroom in New York, NY

Jan. 22: Penn’s Peak, Jim Thorpe, PA (postponed from December 29)

VizzTone recording artist Bruce Katz is touring with Allman through January 22, and doing some TV shows in support of the new CD, including Late Night with David Letterman on January 13, the CBS Morning Show, and others. The Bruce Katz Band will be playing a Midwest tour from February 28 to March 19.

Don Wilcock is Editor in chief of BluesWax. You can reach him by commenting on this story below.