"If he doesn't play, we ain't gonna play." The Allman Brothers stand up to a bigot
Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads of Southern music, history, and culture with historian Bob BeattyShow Notes
Episode Overview As a teenager in Sarasota, Richard Price began following Dickey Betts. He was there as Dickey and Berry Oakley joined forces in the Second Coming. In Jacksonville in fall 1968/spring 1969, Richard witnessed the extraordinary burgeoning musical connection between Dickey and Duane Allman and the birth of the Allman Brothers Band. Part 2: touring in the South with long hair; Evaluations by the 2nd Coming; and guitarist Gerry Groom. Dickey Betts and Richard “Hombre” Price. 📷Courtesy Hombre Price. Share Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads Our Crossroads Our most direct crossroads are the Allman Brothers Band. We’re also Southerners, Floridians to be exact. Both of us are musicians. We are also archivists and storytellers. I’ve been following Richard’s efforts to keep the memory of the Jacksonville and Southwest Florida scene alive for a long time. He’s quoted pretty extensively in Play All Night, so it was particularly cool to sit with him at the crossroads. All podcast episodes The Conversation The challenges of touring in the South. This is where Part 1 ended, a question I asked about a gig in Merritt Island, Florida and a racist promoter who objected to Jaimoe playing for an audience of white girls in June 1969. “If he doesn’t play, we ain’t gonna play” was the response. The possibility of several hundred ticket refunds forced the man’s hand. Richard speaks very highly of Jaimoe for what he endured as a Black man traveling the country with a bunch of hippies. Psychedelia 57 years in the making. Price played bass in the second iteration of the 2nd Coming, which formed in the wake of the founding of the Allman Brothers Band. In April 1969, Price, guitarist Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt, drummers Monty Young and John Meeks, and keyboardist Reese Wynans recorded an album in Jacksonville. (It was five months before the Allman Brothers recorded their own debut.) Richard tells the story of the 57-year gap between recording and releasing the band’s only album, Evaluations. Guitarist Gerry Groom. I asked Richard to talk a little about Gerry Groom, Duane’s young protégé who ended up in possession of Duane’s 1961 SG. Groom is also who recorded what we know as The Gatlinburg Sessions, recordings from a band writing session for Eat a Peach.
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More from Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads of Southern music, history, and culture with historian Bob Beatty
Episode Overview Woodstock alumni Gary Barrett (with a cameo from his wife Camille, also a Woodstocker) joins me at the Crossroads to talk about his memories of the festival. This is part 2 of my Woodstock series. Part 1 was Tom Pragliola. Our Crossroads Gary and I first bonded in the late 1990s over a shared love of the Allman Brothers Band. We were members of a 1,000ish member ABB listserv that contained an amazing group of people, some of whom, like Gary, have become dear friends. Our connections extend far beyond the ABB and into jazz, fatherhood, friendship, and all of the things that make life what it is. The Conversation Getting tickets. Gary learned about Woodstock on WNEW-FM and through the Village Voice. He bought tickets for Saturday only, figuring he’d buy Sunday tickets onsite if he needed to. Turns out he didn’t need them for Saturday either. The journey to Bethel, NY. Gary made the decision to attend late Friday evening, his friend Alan convincing him over a bottle of Thunderbird. They recruited Camille and a friend and left Budd Lake, NJ, before dawn Saturday, August 16. They parked at a stranger’s house, and hiked to the festival site. The crowd at Woodstock. Listen to Gary talk about his strategy for getting close enough to recognize Grace Slick, and far enough away from a potential collapse of a giant speaker tower. They fell in with a crew from Pittsburgh who gave them watermelon soaked in booze. Gary kept one strict rule: watch what anyone hands you. The music. Santana was a highlight. As was Canned Heat. The Dead put him to sleep, and he considered leaving for home when Creedence Clearwater Revival woke him and everyone else up with “Born on the Bayou.” Janis, Sly, the Who followed. On Sunday, Joe Cocker started the day and brought the heavens down. Gary’s memories of what followed are hazy. He remembers Johnny Winter, losing a shoe in the mud, and watching Jimi Hendrix from the top of the hill. Arriving home. Gary missed his Monday shift at the RCA warehouse and lost the job, two weeks before he planned to quit anyway. He and Camille both remarked how Woodstock changed them immeasurably.
This post offers several levels of goodness: a video from my conversation with Lamar Williams Jr., Dickey’s thoughts on composing, and a deep dive into my second favorite ABB instrumental, “High Falls.” Let’s start with that Dickey quote in its entirety. This is Dickey in 2017: In writing instrumentals, you have to decide what you are trying to do, and then see if you can make it happen. These are the mental tools I use to help guide me through, to find the proper direction for whatever piece of music I am working on. I used this approach for songs like “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” “High Falls” and “Revival.” Just like the use of words in the telling of a story, every note is of essential importance in crafting a successful instrumental. Here’s Dickey in 2002: I try to keep the audience firmly in mind. I like to imagine that they are right there in the room with me, listening to the piece of music as it progresses. This is one of my most valued considerations while I am developing a song. I’ll be thinking, “How will someone receive this? How will each element affect the person who is listening to it?” Keeping this concept in mind offers me a highway to follow, however intangible it may be. This frame of mind creates an ideal as to how I imagine the music will make the audience feel, and that ideal guides the creative process. A good instrumental will take the listener on a journey; the way I keep an adherence to the path of the journey is by staying aware of where the audience is being taken as the song progresses. And that is really the whole reason for writing the stuff in the first place. And here’s Betts in 1975:
I spent the last weekend in August with a group of pals in Bethel, New York, site of the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Festival. Among them was Tom Pragliola, a paid member of Long Live the ABB: Conversation from the Crossroads and also a veteran of Woodstock. Episode Overview This one is 100% Tom’s story of Woodstock. He’s one of the very few who saw the entire thing, from Havens to Hendrix. Our Crossroads Our shared love of the Allman Brothers Band extends well beyond just listening to the music. We’ve met up at countless events from my hometown of Stuart, Florida, to Macon, NYC, and the Catskills. Tom’s got an ABB cover band, Highway 41. And it was on his recommendation I attended Roots Rock Revival, the camp Butch Trucks founded with Oteil Burbridge and Luther and Cody Dickinson. We’re also both avid readers obsessed with detail. The Conversation Getting to Woodstock. From rerouting along the way from NYC to pick up a ticket he never needed, to navigating the miles-long backup on the only road leading to Bethel, the trip itself was quite the journey. Tom estimates a 5-mile walk from his car to the festival. He arrived just as things were starting. The lineup. Tom was there from Richie Havens’s opening set on Friday afternoon through Jimi Hendrix’s set at 9am on Monday morning. His memories of Santana and Sly and the Family Stone are pretty great. Leaving the festival site. This is a really great story. On Friday night after the music ended, Tom drove a young female friend to a family friend’s house as promised. When he saw Woodstock on the 11pm news, he realized he was part of something big. Surviving the elements. Rain and mud. Scant food. Orange sunshine and a film cannister of hash. Visiting Woodstock in 2026. Tom and I reminisce about our August visit to Bethel and the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. Tom has an ABB tribute band called Highway 41. Check ‘em out on Youtube. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed End of the Line
In my decades of research on the Allman Brothers Band, I have unearthed very few Lamar Williams quotes. This one comes from Downbeat magazine, September 1974. This is from a recent Conversation from the Crossroads episode with his son, Lamar Williams Jr. Downbeat writer Ray Townley spent significant time in Macon with the band and produced a fantastic four-page feature in the magazine Jaimoe called Heaven-sent. Here’s Lamar’s full quote. Were you accepted into the band immediately? It was a thing of adjusting to their particular style of music. I feel that musicians are able to . . . if you have to play country and western, then you’re going to play country and western; if you’re going to play jazz, you’ll adjust to that. Now, you take cats who are not real musicians, then they’re hung up in one particular bag, a lot of other things they’re not hip to. What does “Southern blues” mean? Well, I can relate to “down home,” you know? Musicians who come up in the South, musicians who come up on the West Coast, the East Coast, anywhere. That environment affects their heads. In most cities you have a whole bunch of other static going on. Down South, living in a small town, Macon, you have a lot of time to put into it. You have a lot of time to check out other stuff, to check out a lot of stuff in your head. The whole South is laid back, that’s where atmosphere comes from. What is the ABB’s special quality? It’s a religion. For instance, I can feel just blah, but when I get on that stage, there’ll be so much energy flowing from the other five cats that they just lift me in a real strong spiritual way till I don’t know how tired I am. It becomes a real strong spiritual thing to get to the point where the six cats on that stage, their job is to produce a sound, the Allman sound. But I don’t think it can be put in any particular category. We play the first and second numbers, all that time we’re feelin’ each other out, where everybody’s head is. As it goes up, everybody gets into a thing with each other. I can feel incredible vibes on that stage. Earth School I cited my dude Richard Josey’s concept of life as “Earth School” as an example of what Lamar is talking about here. It is the concept that learning doesn’t end with formal schooling. We should be constantly learning and remain open to the possibilities of life. Here’s Richard on Conversation from the Crossroads defining Earth School. Lagniappe Tedeschi Trucks Band “It Ain’t Fair”>“Dreams” Beacon Theatre, 3/2/24 Here’s what I mean about Alecia Chakour on “It Ain’t Fair” with a bonus “Dreams” tacked onto the end. I was there for this. Yes, I wept. 🍄🍑MERCH🍑🍄 Ad for ABB’s March 1971 run at Fillmore East
Episode Overview A few months ago, reader/subscriber/paid member J.D. Seem and I sat for a discussion on Matt Zako’s City’s Backyard podcast. Our conversation focused on At Fillmore East at 55—how the road-hardened band finally captured their live sound on their landmark album. In memory of J.D. Seem We recorded this in July 2026 and before I edited this episode, I learned J.D. died suddenly at age 61. J.D. led the ABB tribute band Faster Things and has been an important part of my Allman Brothers family. He supported Long Live the ABB from the very beginning. Godspeed my friend. “Time goes by like hurricanes…And faster things” Our Crossroads There’s three folks in this conversation: me, J.D. and host Matt Zako of The City’s Backyard podcast. All of us are music lovers to the utmost degree. J.D. and I connected directly on our love and reverence for the Allman Brothers Band. The Conversation This was an Allman Brothers Band history lesson through the eyes of two dyed-in-the-wool ABB fanatics. Our main topic was the 55th anniversary of the release of At Fillmore East, the record’s story, and the myriad connections we have to the album. * The risk. It’s 100% live (zero overdubs). The record succeeded in part because of great playing of great songs by a great band. Recording live was a risk, as was releasing a live album by a semi-unknown band who’d yet to break into the marketplace. * The recording. Tom Dowd’s recording makes the room sound alive. The band is well-rehearsed from hundreds of live shows and hours of rehearsal. At Fillmore East was the embodiment of the band’s image as the People’s Band. You can feel the energy of the band and audience. * The promotion. Band manager/record company owner/booking agent/music publisher Phil Walden fought his partner, Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records, on the final product. First, on the decision to issue a double album. Second, his campaign to sell the double album for a single album price. 🍄Play All Night! Duane Allman & the Journey to Fillmore East🍄The origin story of a landmark album. BUY PLAY ALL NIGHT Lagniappe Here’s J.D.’s band Faster Things on “Hot ’Lanta” Brought to you by the paid members of the Long Live the ABB community. 🍄🍑MERCH🍑🍄 Jimmy Carter reppin’ the ABB July 4 weekend 1976. Ad for ABB’s March 1971 run at Fillmore East. Here’s the original ad—with Johnny Winter at top of the bill.