Part 5 (1/2)

”We knee had lost,” says Betts ”We even thought seriously about not going out and playing anyht, 'Well, what can we do better? We'll just do it with the five of us' We had already risen to great heights by that point But Duane didn't experience the highest point-he didn't experience being accepted across the board” Betts pauses for a longdistant memories It's as if, after all these years, he can still sense deeply all the potential joy and invention that were obliterated on that day

A few ot it,” he tells Betts, with obvious pleasure Betts rushes off to the control booth, where Dowd plays back the finished vocal After a few bars of Gregg singing with an uncommon ferocity about a man who just wants to feel soain, Betts' face lights up in a proud and relieved grin Later, in a private s hiood work,” he says Gregg blushes and the two trade a look that speaks volumes For all the disappointer that has passed between the Allman are still brothers of the closest sort

EARLY IN THE EVENING, as another stor an i for soold records he earned for engineering and producing countless legendary acts, including James Brown and Aretha Franklin-when, in one of the older studios, he sturand piano ”That's the ”Layla' piano,” he says, referring to the instrument on which Jim Gordon played pop's most fa its still-shi+ning white and black keys It is not unlike touching so sacrosanct Clearly, this is a room where essential modern cultural history was made-where American and British rock & rollcollaboration

Trucks settles into a nearby chair and begins to recount the story of the Layla sessions Clapton had come to Miami to record with the Dominos (pianist Bobby Whitlock, drummer Jim Gordon, and bassist Carl Radle) Producer Tom Doho had worked with the Allmans on Idlewild South and At Filltiht and watch the recording During one of the Dominos rehearsals, Dowd relayed the request to Clapton, who replied, ”Man, if you ever knohere Duane All, letMiaht, back at Criteria, Duane and Eric started ja, and Clapton invited Allether, Clapton and Allman found an empathy they had never experienced with any other players, and that they would neverto discover and match each other's depths-which turned out to be an ideal musical metaphor for the sense of romantic torment that Clapton wished to convey with Layla

On another night, Trucks says, Clapton invited the Allht jaood ere,” says Trucks, ”but it was fun It sure would be great to hear that ain

”After we finished that ja 'Layla' back for us, and all of a sudden Duane said, 'Let uitar and came up with that five-note pattern that actually announces the song-that signature phrase that just kind of set that song on fire” Trucks pauses and shakes his head Perhaps he realizes that he is sharing a remarkable disclosure: The most revelatory riff of Eric Clapton's career was actually one of Duane Allman's inspired throay lines

Trucks is surprised to learn that archivist Bill Levenson has recently dug up the Dominos-Allmans session and plans to edit and e Trucks seeued at the prospects, but he also admits that perhaps soht that was the epito of Fillht, which was the one we recorded for Eat a Peach Instead, it was the night before We went on for the late show, about 1 AM, and played a normal three-and-a-half-hour set, and e caot froet I re there with tears, just really e, about four in the ht o'clock It was just one ja to another, and it was ht hours, and e finished playing, there was no applause The place was packed, nobody had left, but not even one person clapped They didn't need to Soot up and opened the doors and the sun caot up and quietly walked out while ere all sitting up there onstage Myin front of uitar behind hi it, and he says, 'Godda church' To me, that's what music is all about You try to reach that level If you're lucky, you reatest night of our life-wasn't recorded, and in an odd way, I'lad”

Like Betts, Trucks says the loss of Duane Allman was insurmountable ”On just about any level you can think of, it was devastating What kept us going was the bond that forrief Also, we did it for his sake as one too far, and hit so , to si is, when Duane ca Curtis's funeral [the R & B saxophonist-one of Allman's favorite ust 1971], he was thinking a lot about death, and he said uys better keep it going Put me in a pine box, throw me in the river, and ja sixtoo crazy from it There wasn't any other way to deal with it but to play again But the hardest thing was just that he wasn't there, you know? This guy was always right there in front of me-all I did was look over and there he was-and he wasn't there anymore”

But the band paid hard costs for its deter bouts of drug and alcohol addiction in the months after Duane's death In addition, bassist Berry Oakley began having serious difficulties In some ways, theto rief-stricken over Duane's death to acco his h Macon when he lost control and slammed into a city bus The accident occurred just three blocks from where Duane had been fatally injured, a year and teeks earlier Like Allman, Oakley enty-four And like Allman, he was buried in Macon's Rose Hill Cemetery

”As much as Duane, Berry was responsible for what this band had become,” says Trucks ”But in so With Duane, man, it was just a shot out of the blue But Berryhe just couldn't cope with Duane being gone, and he got very self-destructive There were nights when you wouldn't even know if he would be capable of playing More than once, he would just fall off the stage By the time Berry died, it was al end It was devastating, but it was expected We could see it coht sound cold or whatever, but by then another direction was co”

In some ways, it was a more fruitful direction The Allmans had recruited a second keyboardist, Chuck Leavell, and after Oakley's death, they added a new bassist, Lamar Williams, who had played around Macon with Jai-anticipated fifth album, Brothers and Sisters; within weeks it went to nule, dickey Betts' countrified ”Ra last, the Allman Brothers Band had become the dominant success that Duane Allman and Phil Walden had dreamed it would become; indeed, as much as any other act, the Allmans defined the American mainstreauiding vision or consensus had eed to replace Duane's sensibility In time, there were reports that Chuck Leavell wanted to lead the band on a ressive, fusion-jazz-oriented course, but that Betts felt the group was drifting too far afield froinal blues and rock & roll roots Also, a so between Betts and Gregg Allman Both had released solo LPs and had formed their own bands (Allradually, Gregg was becoroup In part, this was due to his stellar roe to) superstar Cher, as well as his by-then-widely-ru's fa more morbid: He was a survivor in a band that seemed both brilliant and damned, and many watched him with a certain fatalistic curiosity

”By this tione,” says Trucks Outside, the flash storainst the s around the roo a lotin, and we did more and more of that as the years went on-to the point where it just finally got ridiculous, where even we could see it through our drunken stupor”

Even the band's biggest moment-when the Allmans appeared at Watkins Glen, New York, with the Grateful Dead and the Band, for an audience of 600,000: the largest crowd ever assembled in Aave the people what they expected,” says Betts ”Also, it was not a ti friends I ree with us and took over There was no doubt he was going to do Then he'Johnny B Goode,' and dickey just fried his ass, and we left” Trucks laughs at the memory, then looks saddened ”They never seemed to like us, the Grateful Dead, and they had been Gods to us at one tie in those days, and like us, they were really in a certain eye of the stor to sell lots of records and they had also lost a couplea lot of the same doubts”

Trucks pauses and watches the rain for a h,” he says with open distaste ”It was just insane, fucking rock-star ridiculousness Also, we had quit living together, which I think really had a lot to do with our deet their own lie, and that was it And God, the cocaine was pouring You would go backstage and there would be a line of thirty dealers waiting outside, and the roadies would go check it out Whoever had the best coke, they could get in, and they would just keep it flowing all night That right there probably has a lot to do withfurther and further apart, until the last couple of years were just pure bullshi+t Actually, to me they were just a blank I was drunk twenty-four hours a day”

Then, almost simultaneously, the Allreatest downfall By 1975, Phil Walden was taking a hand in Georgia politics He had met and struck up a friendshi+p with Governor Ji the first to know of Carter's plan to seek the presidency In the fall of 1975, when Carter's ca benefit concerts, featuring nu the Allman Brothers-Carter's favorite American band In the end, with Walden's help and federalfunds, Carter had raised over 800,000; without Walden and the Allmans' support, it is unlikely that Carter would have survived the expensive prih to win the Democratic party's 1976 nomination

But at the saht up with the band In early 1976, a federal narcotics force began investigating drug activities in Macon In a short tirand jury indicter, Scooter Herring, who had been charged with dealing drugs All was sentenced to seventy-five years in prison; plus, there were fears that further indictures in the Capricorn and All, they insisted, had saved All overdoses onhad been betrayed They felt that Gregg had dishonored the group's sense of fraternity ”There is no e can ith Gregg again ever,” said Betts at the time-and his sentiment was reportedly shared by every otherAllman had killed off the Allman Brothers Band The various members went on to other projects Betts formed Great Southern; Leavell, Williaeles, where he recorded with Cher, and suffered a difficult e in exile

It took a couple of years, but the wounds healed Betts now says: ”Six months later I read the court transcripts and said, 'Goddauy had his ass between a rock and hard place' Actually, I think we had all been set up by a Republican adh his connection with Phil Walden and us”

In the interiether-that they couldn't achieve with other bands what they had found together, and couldn't win the success separately they had enjoyed collectively In 1978, they regrouped; Leavell and Williauitarist Dan Toler and bassist Rook Goldflies; and for a brief time, Bonnie Bramlett joined on vocals The band ues, but then quit Capricorn, filing suit against Walden for unpaid royalties Shortly, Capricorn went bankrupt; Phil Walden's great Southern Rock empire had collapsed, bitterly ”Walden raped us financially,” says Trucks ”He felt like he had done it all and we had nothing to do with it His worst point was his arrogance: I think Phil has a hard ti that musicians are on a social level with hi about Phil Walden”

The Allmans moved to Arista and made two misconceived records, Reach for the Sky and Brothers of the Road, but at decade's end, the great pop wars of disco and punk were raging, and there was no longer an e receptivity for Southern Rock ”If we had found an audience that was ready to listen,” says Trucks, ”ould have kept going But the yuppies wanted to get as far away froet Wanted to raise their faeneration was denying its history Well, all good things come to an end”

In 1982, the Allroup s, or collected for a ja music that seemed to have outlived its historical s Lyndon-as the Aller and favorite roadie; who had once stabbed to death a club one to prison and undergone tre over a New York town na, and failed to pull his rip cord; he was dead before he hit the ground In 1983, Lareatest American band of the 1970s was no host in a ether by the bonds of dark remembrances and lost dreams

THERE REMAINS one subject that people in the Allman camp aren't always anxious to speak about, and that is the er who still bears the band's deepest debts and highest expectations ”It's almost unfair that we're called the Allman Brothers Band,” says Trucks, ”because people just zone in on that blond singer: the last Allman It puts a lot more pressure on him than needs to be there At the same time, he puts the pressure on hi everything he can to rectify it, but it's a heavy burden And like anybody that has his problems, it's a day-to-day procedure, but we're all here with hi's for sure: You couldn't do the Allman Brothers without hi is at once the , alcohol, and terief, and he has suffered lapses recent enough to have made some people in and around the band wonder if this reunion can truly last And yet, as Trucks notes, the group cannot do without hi Allman is more than the band's most visible namesake; he also has the band's voice dickey Betts, Johnny Neel, and Warren Haynes can write the blues, and along with Trucks and Jaimoe, they can still play it better than any other rock-based band in the world But Gregg genuinely sings the blues It is not an easy talent, nor can it be faked Unfortunately, it is also a talent that, to be rendered at its most effective, has too often involved the physical, moral, e the blues may sound like the hoariest cliche in the rock world, but it is also true that really living the blues can cost you everything-and Gregg Aller alive

The trick is, getting Gregg to talk about the blues he has lived Actually, the trick is getting Gregg to talk aboutHe doesn't open up much to outsiders, and he even seems reticent with the friends and eneration or h, he is ith members of the press-and for fair reason: Itproblees of sensationalist tabloids for years on end Also, he has pretty th about his brother's death (it al incident (it terrified and humiliated hiered him), and chances are, he may not yet truly understand just why he has had soand alcohol problems Or perhaps he understands perfectly well, and wouldn't drea to knoever, is how Allman's relationshi+p to music has sustained him-and whether its siren's call has hurt him more than it ever healed him But in Mia the vocals for Seven Turns, and he doesn't spend his voice on gratuitous conversation with anybody And late at night-a tiis nowhere to be found

One weekend a feeeks later, though, Gregg is playing a blues festival and civil rights benefit on Medgar Evers Day, in Jackson Mississippi Seven Turns is now finished, and reportedly Gregg is as ready as he will ever be for an interview Also, Gregg's personalsoins Apparently, Gregg can still be nervous about perfor live, and this anxiety is part of what has contributed to his difficulties with drugs and alcohol in the past For his part, Gregg is playing the festival because two of his old blues friends, B B King and Bobby ”Blue” Bland, are on the bill; in addition, Little Milton is scheduled to appear Little Milton is Gregg Aller-a model for his own passionate style-but in a quarter-century of following blues, All live, nor has heforward to the chance, and is especially anxious to play a late night ja, Bland, and Milton

The blues festival is being held in a big open-air e of town Like Mia's van arrives at the site, a late spring torrent has turned the surrounding area tofor a dry place for the interview, Dave Lorry talks Bobby Bland into acco some visitors on his homelike bus

Seated in the bus's central roo isn't much more talkative than he was in Miaent; it's more like he's shy or wary or simply exhausted from twenty years of inquiries He doesn't really have ood record; I'ain (”They're a fine band; I' seeets in and out of answers as quickly and sis, rather than talks about, and his life, he makes plain, is off limits ”The private facts of my life are just as private and painful as anybody's,” he says in hisover that stuff all the time”

After a few minutes, Bland co experience to meet Bobby Bland, to watch and hear hier-a vocalist as sensual and pain-filled as Frank Sinatra In addition, he has a transfixing face: big, open, warracious face and he is a gracious e would be celebrated on postage stamps, his bus would be full of Grammys, and he would have the pop audience he has always deserved

When Bland takes a seat across froes He relaxes visibly, puts his feet up on a nearby bench, sinks back into the sofa, and even allows hiuarded smiles Clearly, these twoabout watching the Rolling Stones' recent live TV broadcast, but it is not Mick Jagger or Keith Richards or even guest guitarist Eric Clapton that they gossip about What engaged their interest and huie-bluese with the Stones and Clapton

Allhs as he recalls the times he has seen Hooker on the blues circuit ”He always has these two big white women with hi

”Yeah,” says Bland, ”John Lee is crazy about theentle leer, and he and All warmly for a moment then says, ”I just wanted to see you were okay You know, taking care of yourself” He levels an inquiring look at Gregg

Gregg Allman returns the look, and then blushes ”Yeah, ht”

Bland s on you,” he says with paternal war you knoe care”

For whatever their differences in age, teround, these two ards Allman as a fellow traveler on the inescapable blues road He knows the life Allman has lived He knows its hopes, and he knows its ends

Bland also knows it's tiet out of the pouring rain This means, for thecan't help looking a bit relieved ”We'll talk later,” he says ”Right now I'd like to stay and talk with Bobby a little while”

Actually, as it turns out, the interview is over for good Later, Allain One e, watching Bland's elegant blues act, and then he is nowhere to be found He will not be there when the evening's blues-superstar jam transpires, nor will he meet or hear his idol, Little Milton When those events take place, Gregg is so TV, brooding

But h the afternoon, he is true to his vocation, and takes the stage in Jackson, with the rudimentary blues band that backs Wolf rean, he sings Blind Willie McTell's ”Statesboro Blues,” Muddy Waters' ”Trouble No More,” and Sonny Boy Willias that he has sung for a generation, but as if they were bitter facts that he was just facing in his life This is not the man who seemed skittish back in Miahs with Bobby Bland earlier No, it is a different e, before ht and tilting his head back until his blond hair grazes his shoulders, sings as if his soul depended on it This s the ht, and as if it offers the only moments in which he can work out theAlls like ato ghosts Maybe he's trying toto haunt them as much as they have haunted him

keith jarrett's keys to the cose corridor of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium-a silence just about as bearable as the hush that trails a judge's gavel at sentencing Keith Jarrett, thirty-three, a short, curly-headed bundle of e of his nose with both hands in a prayerlikethe midway date of a ide solo piano concert tour, a performance that should easily rank as one of the more florid and sinewy displays of his career But Jarrett seems heedless of the fact He has answered the few attee party with lares, and for thereverie

After several strained uests with an i his stare on me, ”how vain and purposeless it would be to attee Iabout theto you about the music Words are a poor substitute for experience, and in order forto have to play games with you” He pauses to pet the bristly contour of his mustache ”I think it's totally appropriate that we say nothing now”

With that, the itchy silence returns

ALTHOUGH HE WOULD probably bridle at the suggestion, Keith Jarrett is to jazz what Jerry Brown is to California politics-a guileful and feisty enight be terht talk, because, sins to be comprehensible under the myopic lens of Western scrutiny

Jarrett, who first won acclaim for his work in Charles Lloyd's and Miles Davis' early fusion ensembles, creates music that by all surface criteria is jazz: an i rhyth harmonic similarity to the work of such twentieth-century European co, and Stockhausen, which writers and fans alike laud as a union of jazz technique and h, it's nothing of the sort He asserts that his orization-devoid of will, purpose, influences, or even conscious methods, music that very nearly transcends human processes, and therefore, human considerations