“YOU WANNA PLAY IN MY BAND, YOU’D BETTER COME TO PICK”: DUANE ALLMAN AND AMERICAN MUSIC by Bob Beatty A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Public History Department of History Middle Tennessee State University August 2018 Doctoral Committee: Carroll Van West, Ph.D., Chair John Dougan, Ph.D. C. Brendan Martin, Ph.D. Kristine M. McCusker, Ph.D. Dedicated to Suzi and Pat Beatty. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for the unwavering support of all of my various interests and in my pursuit of my life and career goals. I am sorry you aren't here to celebrate this moment with me. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS All acknowledgments begin with my family: my wife Candy and daughters Ryan and Tyler, who lived this journey with me. Thanks to each of you for the role you play in my life and my life's work. Thank you to Dr. Carroll Van West, whose careful shepherding of this project and this phase of my graduate career is so appreciated. Thank you also to my dissertation committee, Drs. John Dougan, C. Brendan Martin, and Kristine M. McCusker, whose insights into this process were invaluable. To Troy Wilson, Brandon Munson, and Steve Marshall: a man is blessed to have one friend as good as each of you, my cup overflows that I have three. The same is true of my first best friend, my cousin Brad Beatty. I am forever grateful to my friends in the Allman Brothers Band world who encouraged and inspired me to dig deeper into this band and its meaning: most notably: Andy Beichler; Jules Fothergill; Gary Barrett; Gary Nagle; Art Dobie; Philip Torrez; Bill Proudfoot (thank you for the editing!); John Page; Cary Hall; Gail and Ira Packer; Ron Everhart; Tim Langan; Bob Johnson; Jon Sawyer; Mike Ummel; Chris King; Becca Fuller; Dave, Kim, and Emily Ashton; Nan Philpot; Jim Kelly; Jeff Kollath; Ryan Moore; Tom Clareson; Denise Halbe; Ceecee (Russell) Moore; Ray Hutchison; John Curatolo; Rowland Archer; Lana (Michelizzi) Archer; Pat Henson; Mark Vormittag; Craig Ruskey; Walter Vanderbeken; Hans Van Ryswyk, whose amazing website is a wealth of Duane Allman information; the late Skip Littlewood, for the tapes and his love of the band; and Eliot Spindel. iii Thank you Tom Nolan, Scott Freeman, Alan Paul, and Randy Poe for laying out the parameters of this story so well in their books and to Duane Allman's daughter Galadrielle Allman for her poignant memoir of her father's life and work. Big shout-out to Richard Brent (and Rob Schneck, Greg Potter, and E.J. Devokaitis before him) for his stewardship of the Big House museum in Macon. Very, very special thanks to Kirk West, the ABB's Tour Mystic for many years. Kirk carried the flame for the band for many years and without him, much of this information would not have seen the light of day. In many ways, this dissertation is one of many results of Kirk's relentless dedication to all things Allman Brothers. Ultimately this dissertation would not have even been possible had it not been for the music of the Allman Brothers Band. I first encountered the ABB when I purchased a cassette tape of At Fillmore East. I was deep into the electric blues of Muddy Waters and Eric Clapton, and the album was simply too much for my thirteen-year-old ears. I finally *got* the music nearly a decade later and found it to be the perfect combination of everything I love about music, in style, in substance, and in intent. Thank you Duane Allman for assembling this band whose music has provided such a soundtrack to my life and to all of the band members who played a part in it. iv ABSTRACT "'You Wanna Play in My Band, You’d Better Come to Pick': Duane Allman and American Music provides an understanding of why Duane Allman and the Allman Brothers Band were groundbreaking and important. American music is quintessentially Southern music and Duane Allman and the Allman Brothers Band, the band he founded in 1969, is found at that intersection. In combining multiple genres of southern music (nearly all African American in origin)—blues, rhythm and blues/soul, gospel, rock 'n' roll, country and western, and jazz—into a cohesive sound, the Allman Brothers Band ultimately created a new form of American music. This dissertation demonstrates how that came to be. It puts Duane Allman into context as a singular force in American music and the culture and music of the South. Duane Allman's legacy is a story of the pursuit of musical excellence on his own terms. That he did so from the South, with an integrated band, following an uncompromising musical path, is what sets him apart. Allman was a giant among his peers whose accomplishments in his brief career dwarf those of many of his contemporaries. He created a sound that many other bands have tried (and failed), to duplicate and a band that outlasted his own tenure by four decades. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ii Acknowledgments iii Abstract v Introduction 1 Chapter 1 This Is a Story about the South 31 Chapter 2 "Now Everything's Run Together and Melted Into One Big Thing": Duane Allman and Southern Musical Culture 59 Chapter 3 "It's Like I Brought Myself Back to Earth and Came to Life Again": Duane Allman Discovers His Musical Vision 107 Chapter 4 "The Band Was So Good We Thought We'd Never Make It": The Formation of the Allman Brothers Band 157 Chapter 5 "Strive to Play a Pure Form of Music; A Kind of Music that's Honest to Yourself": The Development of the Allman Brothers Band 209 Chapter 6 "I Mortgaged Everything for this Thing. I Believed in it that Much": Phil Walden and Capricorn Records 273 Chapter 7 "After Listening to Your Beautiful Music, the Rest of My Records Seem Irrelevant": Audience Reception of the Allman Brothers Band 315 Chapter 8 "Don't Be Afraid to Share What's Inside of You with Other People": The Ethos and Legacy of Duane Allman 381 Chapter 9 "We Came Back to the Big House and It Was Truly a Home": The Public History of the Allman Brothers Band 445 Bibliography 480 vi 1 Introduction "Berry Oakley, Dickey Betts, Butch Trucks, Jai Johanny Johanson, Gregg Allman, and I'm Duane Allman!" exclaimed Duane Allman in the early morning hours of March 14, 1971, following a nearly 35-minute version of the Allman Brothers Band's instrumental tour de force "Mountain Jam." The improvisation closed out the group's triumphant run at Bill Graham's Fillmore East on March 11 through 13, 1971. Allman's joyous introduction reflected the confidence he felt in the six shows they had recorded. He and his bandmates knew they had finally properly captured the septet's sound for its next record, released in July 1971 as At Fillmore East. The release of At Fillmore East and its subsequent success represented the apogee of a musical journey Duane Allman had pursued in earnest since 1965. It was a somewhat unique quest for two reasons. First, while Allman was neither a singer nor a songwriter, he was known as the undisputed leader and "face" of the Allman Brothers Band, the group he founded in March 1969 in Jacksonville, Florida. Second, Allman did so from the South. While it is a region that produced a number of influential musicians and birthed multiple musical genres, few bands had emerged directly from the South in the rock 'n' roll era. Many of Allman's contemporaries, therefore, had to leave the region to 2 pursue musical fame and fortune, a course Allman himself had followed (unsuccessfully) as well. The story of how Duane Allman and his band so profoundly affected the world of rock music can be traced back to 1960, when he picked up his first guitar. Shortly thereafter, Allman formed his first band, the Uniques. Later known as the Escorts, this group began playing cover songs in and around his home in Daytona Beach, Florida. By 1965, Allman and his brother began to tour in the South as the Allman Joys. In summer 1966, the brothers served a brief, and ultimately unsuccessful, apprenticeship in Nashville under the tutelage of songwriter John D. Loudermilk, who could not garner record company support for their efforts. The Allman Joys disbanded soon after, and the brothers joined forces with several other southern musicians as Hour Glass. In March 1967, Bill McEuen, manager of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, discovered the band and helped them secure a contract with Liberty Records in Los Angeles. Hour Glass recorded two records with Liberty, a self-titled debut record (released in October 1967) and Power of Love (released in March 1968). The experience was fraught with tension. Allman bristled under the direction of producer Dallas Smith. His list of grievances was long. Not only did he dislike the material Smith chose and the manner in which Smith recorded the band, but he hated Liberty's restrictions on Hour Glass playing live. Smith and Liberty, however, operated within the traditional music industry structure where the producer and record label wielded authority over the artist. At that particular moment, Allman offered little else to his 3 employers besides the ability to play lead guitar (no matter how well), which limited his options to them. In 1968, Allman angrily left Los Angeles to settle in at Rick Hall's FAME Recording Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. At FAME, Allman first earned renown beyond a relatively small circle of intimates and bandmates, recording as a session guitarist with Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, and Aretha Franklin, among other notables.