Bluegrass fans know Mike Compton from his long and eclectic resumé, including decades of touring and recording traditional Monroe-style mandolin with greats like John Hartford, Doc Watson, Peter Rowan, Ralph Stanley, Alison Krauss, and David Grisman, as well as venturing into more mainstream music with with Sting, Gregg Allman, Elvis Costello, and many others. He was also heard on the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? and traveled with the smash hit tour, Down from the Mountain, which highlighted the artists and musicians on that incredibly popular soundtrack.
But, as Toy Heart host Tom Power points out, it’s not just virtuosity that makes Compton stand out as a mandolinist – it’s just as much about the heart, feel, and grit that he brings to the instrument.
Tom speaks with Compton for over an hour for this exclusive Toy Heart interview, walking through his life and career, from the musical influence of his great grandparents and growing up in Meridian, Mississippi, to the indelible mark left on his own playing style by Bill Monroe. Compton also recalls his childhood, skipping school to hide out in a “dirt pit” to practice all day, his time in Nashville – including a historic visit to China with the Nashville Bluegrass Band – and recounts his collaborations with the legendary John Hartford. You’ll also hear Compton discuss the impact that playing on O Brother, Where Art Thou? had not only on himself and his own career, but on bluegrass as a whole.
Artist:Irene Kelley Hometown: Latrobe, Pennsylvania Latest Album:Snow White Memories Personal Nicknames: Renie
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
I’d have to say the artist who influenced and inspired me the most has been and continues to be Dolly Parton. It all started in 1980, when I was the lead singer in a rock ‘n’ roll band, and I heard Dolly singing on TV from another room. I basically stopped in my tracks and ran to the TV to see who that voice was coming from. I started watching Dolly’s show regularly and got really interested in her original songs. She was responsible for converting me into a country music fan, and then later, a songwriter. The first song that I learned to play guitar on (just to be able to sing to it) was “To Daddy.” The simplicity of the chords, the beautiful melody, and the storyline compelled me to want to perform the song at my shows in the early ’80s.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
Gosh, that comes and goes so often that I can’t really narrow it down to just one song. Sometimes songwriting is a breeze, and a song will just make itself known in 30 minutes. Other times, it’s like milking a cow. It doesn’t give milk, you’ve got to go in there and pull it out. When I started to record my own records in 2000, I found myself recording songs I’d written, and then second-guessing the lyrics, sometimes going back and rewriting them several times before mixing. That can be a good thing though because it really makes me focus on the songs and truly want to make them the best that I can make them. Especially since I am the one who will be singing them night after night.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
That would probably be the first time I played the Grand Ole Opry in April 2001. My mom and sister came to town from my hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and both of my daughters, Justyna and Sara Jean were there — it was truly a special night. They all sat on the stage as I performed. My mom watched me go from singing rock as a teenager in her basement, to country and bluegrass (her favorite music genres) on that hallowed stage that night.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
I love to hike in the parks around Nashville and the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. Those are my favorites. I keep flower and vegetable gardens at home, and getting my hands in the dirt is always good therapy, too. These are the times I can truly talk to God, and lo and behold, sometimes He’ll send me a song idea.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
I had some classical training as a teenager and I still use some of those techniques if time and environment allow. Just to remind myself on proper breathing for singing, I learned to touch my toes and breathe in deeply. The air goes where it’s supposed to and that’s a good reminder, especially if I’ve got some jitters before a show and can’t get centered. Also, standing facing a wall and singing the song “Satan’s Jeweled Crown” that I learned from an early Emmylou Harris record is a great way for me to warm up my voice before a show and a recording session. That song in the key of D has all of the notes I need to stretch my voice, hold a vibrato, and get on pitch. I have been doing that for over forty years I’d say, but I don’t ever sing that song in my shows. Go figure!
I found myself digging into my comfort music throughout ’20-’21. It felt like a hard time to be adventurous. These songs are from so many records I’ve spent so music time with, and which surely informed my new album, Power Up! (out June 10). It also features a few of the great folks we lost during this period. — David Newbould
Thin Lizzy – “Try a Little Harder”
I probably listened to more Thin Lizzy over the last two years than I did to any other artist. They have so many songs I wish I could just crawl up inside of and never come out. This song is at the top of the list. Phil Lynott just had everything to me. He wrote the life he lived. He somehow enhanced it but never sugarcoated it, and in the end it was all too real. This song feels like it could be one of the defining songs of the 1970s but it was an unreleased B-side. “When all those dark days came rolling in I didn’t know whether to stop or begin / To try a little harder…”
Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros – “Get Down Moses”
I love the rawness of this track, the gang vocals, the reggae telecaster, and the way Joe always sang with the passion of a thousand rock ‘n’ roll ambassadors rolled into one electric folksinger body. I wrote a song years ago called “One Track Heart,” based on a line I heard Pete Townsend say. Supposedly when he heard Joe Strummer died (of a heart defect), he said, “Well that makes sense, his heart was always too big.” I’ve come back to this excellent posthumous album over and over throughout the years, starting with this track. It always fills my heart and makes me miss him.
Gregg Allman – “These Days”
Gregg Allman’s voice will always be comfort food to me. I remember putting this on during one of the first days of lockdown setting in and feeling, “Somewhere, sometime, a different world existed, and maybe if I just keep listening to the music from it, it will exist once again.” I’m not sure about the second part yet, but it sure felt good listening to songs like this over and over again. A perfect version of an already perfect Jackson Browne song.
Bob Dylan – “Pressing On”
I’m not a religious person, but the performance of this song is powerful enough to make me believe in a different dimension. It’s one of Bob’s most impassioned studio vocals ever, and how to not love Jim Keltner and the incredible band and backup singers on this album? “Shake the dust off of your feet, don’t look back / Nothing now can hold you down, nothing that you lack.” To me there is no more defiant Bob Dylan than religious-era Bob Dylan. I see him standing on the hull of a ship, saying, “This is it, friends. Get on board with me or don’t. I really don’t care…but here’s why you should.” It took me years to get to this album because of all the critics I would read saying how bad it was. I’m pissed at every one of them for that and I’ve never listened to any of them ever again. How can people hold a job in which they are so wrong so much of the time?
Black Sabbath – “Wheels of Confusion”
This is one of the saddest and most soulful guitar lines to open a song ever. This band was all heart on record. Heart and drugs. Like Phil Lynott, they wrote the life they lived. Fortunately, they all made it out the other side. I feel that on all their records, particularly the original band. This was the first album of theirs I bought, when I was 14. It was so dark and groovy, and really spoke to me. Bill Ward’s drumming gets something close to funky at a certain point, while Ozzy sings Geezer Butler’s lyrics about being a 22-year-old multimillionaire prone to depression who was something close to homeless a couple of years prior. Hard to resist.
The Rolling Stones – “Ventilator Blues”
One of my favorite songs ever, off an album that just keeps sounding better and better with every decade. From the slide guitar opening riff, to Charlie… When I put on Rolling Stones vinyl through my old handed-down Celestion speakers and turn it up, Charlie’s drums do something physically to me. There is movement and life in those spaces that make everything groove and shake. And a snare that makes my eye twitch. Like so many of the greatest Stones songs, seemingly simple but deceptively complex in the layers, colors, and fluid relationships between all the instruments. Like jazz, but with four chords and in (usually) 4/4 time. I truly believe this specialized blend of simplicity and complexity is their secret weapon.
Patti Smith Group – “Ain’t It Strange”
Just another all-hands-on-deck tidal wave performance from a band truly locked in to what makes them great. Patti Smith has such a way with melody and cadence, and can belt the shit out of a lyric, too. Damn! Radio Ethiopia is the one for me. I love the humble raking guitar chords that open the song that hint at the thunder to follow. I also have a weakness for songs in A minor, the official key of the 1970s.
Bruce Springsteen – “Youngstown”
Bruce is one of the most empathetic songwriters ever. The amount of research he puts into some of his songs when he really swings for those fences — songs like “Youngstown,” “Nebraska,” “Highway Patrolman” — he does such a thorough job of inhabiting the character, I find it very moving and inspiring. I was stuck in this song for days and days, and finally stole some of the chords and melodies and out of it came the song “Peeler Park.” I couldn’t stop myself. I had to change a chord or two so that it wasn’t out-and-out theft. Sorry, Bruce.
Steve Earle – “Taneytown”
See above! God, I feel everything inside of this troubled boy in the song. It’s so fierce and gut wrenching, and just a masterclass in empathetic songwriting by one of the best at it. Brutal vocal delivery to match. Also it’s in A Minor.
James McMurtry – “Rachel’s Song”
See above again! Few people’s work can put an unsuspecting lump in my throat on a regular basis like James McMurtry. He gives you just enough detail, and yet it’s so much. This song makes my heart hurt for this person, this single mother trying to keep her life in order for the sake of her son. And then she pauses to fixate on the snowflakes dancing outside the window. I know where it’s going every time, but I still get a chill when it does. Another song that does that to me is “If I Were You” by Chris Knight. Every time, I shudder. The power of songs like these haunts me.
Jerry Jeff Walker – “Long Afternoons”
When my wife was pregnant with our son, we would walk through the park and I would listen to this song and think, “I want our life to end up like how this song feels.” There are so many beautiful lines, and the lazy and relaxed pace of the guitar and vocal is something Jerry Jeff really had figured out. Music like this has a way of making me nostalgic for a place I wasn’t even really a part of. But that’s the power of great music and art right there. Paul Siebel wrote this song. We lost both of them over the last 2 years.
Gary Stewart – “An Empty Glass”
The most vulnerable, honest, and painful country singer I’ve ever heard is Gary Stewart. His voice is not shy at all but has so much open vulnerability to it, and his songs match the instrument to a “T.” This song paints such a picture in my mind. End of night, blurry bottles, random people, helpless inability to stop drinking the emptiness away. Deep deep pain that started as early as the character can remember. Once again, the mark of a great record is to make you feel the life of the character in the song — from the instrumentation to the production, lyrics, and of course the performance of the singer. Gary Stewart was a master.
Nellen Dryden – “Tullahoma”
This song just feels like pure freedom to me. It was cut 100% live and just bounces up and down the open highway, singing in search of a new life that surely awaits. It’s so infectious, and the playing and Nellen’s vocal feel so effortless. I also love songs that do the thing where the verse and chorus are the same chord progression, but still completely different parts. It’s a hard trick to pull off! “Everyday People” is another great example of this. Great song here. Check out Nellen, y’all.
Pete Townshend – “Slit Skirts”
Pete has a gift of taking the truly uncomfortable and making it truly powerful, examining it in truly epic pieces of rock. The time changes and chord progressions here are from heaven. Yet he’s singing about people hitting middle age, dreaming of the clothes they once wore, of the feelings they could once stir up in their lover, and crystallizes it with a line like, “can’t pretend that getting old never hurts.” Ouch! It’s just so good, it’s always impossible for me not to feel what he’s feeling, no matter where you are in your own life. He’s an original. I have leaned on his music a lot over the years.
The Wailers – “It Hurts to Be Alone”
This is another song I return to again and again and again. When I first heard this, I was with someone in a very painful situation in a very painful room, and it felt like time suddenly stopped. When the song ended I asked if we could put it on repeat, and lo and behold time just kept stopping. I love songs that can take you right back to both the moment you first heard them, and also somehow into the moment they were recorded. The vitality of this record. The voices in this song just explode out of the speaker, and the chords and lyrics are so incredibly deep. And oh that guitar (Ernest Ranglin)!
Dave Alvin – “Border Radio”
This is another song where time once again stopped as I first heard it. There are some artists you come across later than you ought to have, and when you do, you think, “Where the hell have you been my whole life?” Dave Alvin is one such artist for me, and it all started with hearing this song on the radio. It’s a perfect recording harkening back to a very specific era, and it’s a perfect song. During The Twilight Zone-esque 2020/2021, I just wanted crutches that I already knew made me feel right. Ideal or not, it’s just how it happened for me.
John Prine – “When I Get to Heaven”
One of the most frustrating and sad losses. Mr. Prine was a beautiful man who wrote about our world and life through every unique lens under the sun, and somehow had a way to make you still feel OK about it. Then he got taken down by the stupidest thing imaginable. But what joy he brought, how much perspective he helped us see through, and what a sendoff he left us. This, the last song on his last album, this spoken-word ragtime jig about going to heaven. It can’t help but make you laugh and cry at the same time. Thank you, John.
Artist name:Brigitte DeMeyer Hometown: San Francisco, California Latest album:Seeker Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Well, my husband calls me Bubba. My friends sometimes call me B, or Brig. My nieces and nephews call me “Tante Brigie.”
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
I always knew I loved to sing, as far back as age 12 when I won the talent show at summer camp. I sang whenever I could, in church, in school musicals, in various bands, just for the fun of it. But, in my late 20s I was asked to jump in and sing at an informal party with a very talented friend who was playing acoustic guitar for folks. He played in such a way that a feeling came through me when I began singing, it was like I left the building and got lost in the song. I felt like notes were coming through me from somewhere else.
When I opened my eyes at the end of the song the room of people had gone quiet and all had gathered around me and erupted into a joyous cheer at the end of the song. It was the first time I remember getting naturally high from singing. I have spent my whole career chasing that feeling of connection to whatever came through me that day. It can come from anywhere. Collaborating with someone with the right chemistry, connecting with the audience, or just being by myself writing. They may not be the best performances of my life when that happens. But, it’s about the feeling I get, from connecting to something higher. It’s also really fun to play with friends. Energy exchanging and collaborating. Hope all that makes sense.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
I guess I would say the toughest time trying to write a song is when I am super happy. You have to really dig in deep and create something out of nothing. “Cat Man Do” came out that way. It took me a year to write that song. You have to make up a character or situation from scratch. I have enough life experiences to draw from. And, inspiration can come from anywhere so I force myself to be open and pay attention. You mix a little fiction with imagination and add a bit of grease and salt, or sugar if that’s what the song calls for. Approaching a song like a poem or a story is something I enjoy as well, or using old language that isn’t vernacular is fun. It makes the song feel deeper and have more character I think. Though it has to make sense to the listener as well, so finding balance lyrically there is tricky at times.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
I have so many. But one of them, was at Humphreys in San Diego in 2014, when I opened for Gregg Allman. He was in the wings watching and listening to me during my whole set. When I came off the stage, he approached and told me I had a beautiful voice. I told him he did. That was a great day. Another great memory was in Ullapool, Scotland, sitting in at the pub with those raucous Scots listening in. They are so appreciative and warm in the U.K. I love performing there.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
This is an easy one for me. I am an avid horse enthusiast. I am often out at the barn where I board my horse, which is surrounded with rolling hills and wildlife, like hawks, coyotes, goats, etc., and a neighboring cattle farm. Horses for me remind me nature is king, and give me that feeling of connection to something higher as well. I come home way happier every time I go and spend time with my horse. It is also a confidence builder.
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
I would say trust your gut, and just be yourself. Don’t try to sound like anyone else, or write like anyone else. And don’t let anyone tell you what is right for you. If you need to get your mix right, do it. Don’t settle. Also, I was told I was too old in my late 20s to begin my career. I did not listen. I forged my own path kind of organically. Oh yeah, and ALWAYS surround yourself with people who make you happy in your work. If the vibe is there, the music will follow. It shows in the music.
This week on The Show On The Road, it’s a rock ‘n’ roll family affair with a special conversation with Devon Allman and Duane Betts, two guitar-slinging sons of the iconic Allman Brothers Band who formed their own soulful supergroup: The Allman Betts Band.
With their 2019 debut record Down To The River, Allman and Betts — who took turns playing alongside their revered dads Gregg and Dickey as teenagers — finally banded together to create a new collection of the soaring slide-guitar-centered, Gulf-coast rock and brawny, road-tested blues that both pays homage to their heady upbringings and forges their own way forward. Even their touring bassist has a familiar name to Allman diehards: Berry Oakley Jr., whose dad was one of the Allman Brothers’ founding members when they formed in 1969 out of Jacksonville, FL.
While many groups were stuck at home licking their wounds as the pandemic shut down most touring options, Devon and Duane’s crew tapped into the nascent drive-in circuit, bringing their spirited 2020 release, Bless Your Heart, to a whole new set of excited fans. Always sticking to their southern roots, they laid down both records at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios with producer Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, Elvis Presley). While history is always dancing in the margins of the songs, it’s clear on this second offering that they wanted to create stories that didn’t only reflect their roaring live shows.
Standout songs like the soft piano ballad, “Doctor’s Daughter,” show the group roving in new, more nuanced directions — while “Autumn Breeze” is a pulsing slow-burn, but features the effortless twin guitar lines that made their dads’ work so instantly recognizable.
Of course playing in the family business wasn’t always a given for the guys — especially Devon, who only met his hard-touring father Gregg at sixteen. Devon first started hanging out with young Duane (then only twelve) in 1989 on the Allman Brothers’ 20th Anniversary tour. As he describes in the episode, Devon wasn’t sure he wanted to follow in his father’s hard-to-follow footsteps, but once he sat in on “Midnight Rider” and the crowd went crazy? It was off to the races.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Allman Brothers’ breakout record Live At The Fillmore East, which I grew up listening to on loop with my father. Though Duane Allman died tragically in a 1971 accident before his namesake was born, and Gregg passed away in 2017, their spirits live on in the Allman Betts Band’s epic live show, which is already gearing up for the tentative 2021 touring season.
One of the most celebrated and innovative bands of the 1980s, New Grass Revival will be inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame during the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards on October 1. As part of our coverage of the 75th anniversary of bluegrass music, BGS caught up with founding member Sam Bush and vocalist/bass player John Cowan to talk about the early years in this first of two stories exploring their remarkable discography. Read part two of the story here, featuring insight from Béla Fleck and Pat Flynn, as well as Bush and Cowan.
The four founding members of New Grass Revival are Curtis Burch on guitar and Dobro, Courtney Johnson on banjo, Ebo Walker on bass, and Sam Bush on mandolin. They had all played together in the five-piece band, Bluegrass Alliance.
Sam Bush: We wanted to fire our [Bluegrass Alliance] fiddle player Lonnie Peerce, and when we told him this he said, “You can’t fire me, I own the name of the band.” So we said, “Let us put it this way: we quit.” We were already influenced by the Country Gentlemen and the Osborne Brothers and Jim & Jesse and the Greenbriar Boys and a really great record by the Charles River Valley Boys called Beatle Country. That’s one of the reasons we called ourselves New Grass Revival — we were trying to point out that we were reviving a new bluegrass that had already been invented by those people. We were only hoping to further the progressiveness we already dug.
Bush had been friends with Courtney since he was a teenager, when the banjo player was lead singer in a band playing Stanley Brothers tunes.
SB: We had no particular plan to play differently but our very first practice I remember Ebo hitting a bass lick in D minor that we later discovered he got from Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” We played licks back and forth over it and all of a sudden Courtney went into the melody of “Lonesome Fiddle Blues” by Vassar Clements. That’s how we came to work up “Lonesome Fiddle Blues” for our first album. It was like a band epiphany, that we could improvise over a riff the way rock ‘n’ roll bands did. We were just playing it the way we felt it.
Courtney and Curtis were steeped in traditional bluegrass, but Bush was a musical sponge, soaking up everything from Homer and Jethro to Jefferson Airplane to the Rolling Stones to French jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. The band’s first, self-titled album, from 1972, included covers of Leon Russell’s “Prince of Peace” and Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Great Balls of Fire.“
SB: This is the days before cars had cassette players, so Ebo had a tiny cassette player we took with us on the road, and we’d made a tape we could listen to. One side was John Hartford’s Aereo-Plain. And on the other side we had Leon Russell and the Shelter People. Without John Hartford there would be no newgrass. Growing up close to Nashville, I would watch him on local TV, and one night he did a bluegrass version of “Great Balls of Fire” on the Glen Campbell show, and I recorded it from the TV — that was the one we learned. Courtney even played his chromatic run the same way John did it.
While making their first album Bush encountered the man who would be his songwriting partner, Steve Brines.
SB: We lost our Louisville club gig when we ended Bluegrass Alliance, so in order to make a living that first winter in ’70-’71 I ended up playing electric bass with a folk group called the Cumberlands: Harold Thom and his wife Betty, and a banjo player called Jim Smoak. Jim had co-written a couple of songs with this poet-lyricist over in Lexington called Steve Brines and we played one on that early album — “Cold Sailor.” After I made his acquaintance Steve and I started trying to write together. Steve lived up in Lexington and I lived down in Barren County, and he’d send me five to ten sets of lyrics in the mail and I’d make up music, put it on a cassette and send them back. Our rule was I wouldn’t change one word, if he didn’t change one note.
It was a productive partnership – Bush and Brines wrote half the songs on their second album, Fly Through the Country. By then, Walker had left the band and they had gained a new player: John Cowan.
John Cowan: I joined in 1974. I did not grow up in bluegrass. I was a rock ‘n’ roll kid playing in local garage bands. But I had an awareness of New Grass Revival because I lived in Louisville, which was their home, and the woman who became my wife once dragged me to go see them. I didn’t want to go, but I was blown away. Six months later I got a phone call from Sam living down in Western Kentucky with Courtney and Curtis and he said he got my number from this guy, and would I be willing to come down and audition for us?
SB: He was a city guy, and when he pulled up and saw us, it was like “Oh my god what have I got myself into?”
JC: Courtney and Curtis were truly unique individuals. They were from South Georgia, super country dudes, born and raised playing bluegrass. I was wild-eyed and “What is all this stuff?” To their credit they welcomed me with open arms.
SB: We played some tunes together and asked him to join the band and he said, “I sing too — do you mind if I sing a song?” And in the tradition of Barney Fife I puffed up my chest and said, “Well, I’m the lead singer but yeah, go ahead.” And he sang “Some Old Day” in the same key as John Duffey did it in, only with this powerful voice and this beautiful vibrato. At the end of it I said, “John, I used to be the lead singer, now you are.”
JC: The day they hired me we rehearsed with the drummer. The next morning I got up and he was gone! I was like, “Where did Michael go?” Courtney said, “Oh hell, we fired him. We don’t need him with you!” I felt kind of bad about it, he was a really nice guy.
Soon the band’s rock ‘n’ roll influences were coming to the fore.
JC: They were already experimenting with jamming on traditional instruments over songs and it was right up my alley, because I was also a big prog rock fan. I was obsessed with Yes. On the title track of Fly Through the Country, Sam played this little thing that looked like a can of Spam — it was a resophonic mandolin, he played slide on it. When Béla joined, he said the big joke was that you could listen to the first part of the song, go out for lunch, come back, and you’d still be playing it.
SB: People would call us “The Grateful Dead of Bluegrass” because of our long tunes and our experimentation. We had to put it in our contract that we wouldn’t be billed like that, because then we had Deadheads coming expecting us to play their songs, and we didn’t do any.
JC: Our touchstone was the Allman Brothers. Their live album At Fillmore East came out three years before and we both knew it by heart; to this day I could sing every note and every solo. So that was a crucial record for our band. Sam exposed me to Jack Casady’s [of Jefferson Airplane] bass playing. When I joined the band I was 21, and Courtney was already 38, I was so out of my element. I’d only ever played with guitars and keyboards and drums, and I was smart enough to at least say, “I don’t know what I’m doing, you guys have to help me.” They’d give me a joint and say, “Go listen to this stuff — here’s John Hartford, here’s Norman Blake, here’s the Dillards….” It was so foreign and beautiful to me.
SB: One of the first songs John taught us was “These Days.” He sang like Gregg Allman when he first arrived, and his voice and vocal style changed to fit into what he had joined.
JC: I would imitate him [Gregg Allman], Lowell George, Stevie Wonder. But when I got in that band, now what do I do? I was smart enough to realize it wasn’t going to work for me to try and sing like Ricky Skaggs or Bill Monroe, that’s not in me. But Sam was very encouraging to me and the more I sang the more I developed my own voice.
SB: Garth [Fundis, the band’s producer] had introduced me to a piano player, Chuck Cochran, and Chuck played electric piano with us on “These Days” at the end of the Fly Through the Country. It was the last song we recorded, and we went, “Huh… We can make this fusion of more instruments into our sound.”
Their next album, When The Storm Is Over, went further, incorporating more of Cochran’s keyboards, as well as drums and percussion.
SB: We wanted to augment our sound and appeal to a wider audience, and Chuck and Garth introduced us to the great drummer Kenny Malone. He played on our next three records and I started producing the records myself. Stephen and I continued to write. The subject matter of our songs was totally different than bluegrass-style songs. I’ve always just said newgrass music is contemporary music played on bluegrass instruments.
JC: Sam’s going to solo for eight minutes, then he’s going to toss it to Courtney, then Curtis, and I’m the guy who’s in charge of keeping the train on the tracks and keeping the coal in the engine. That was my job and I loved it. To this day, when you’re playing that kind of music and all the players are in sync spiritually and musically and emotionally there’s nothing like it. To me that’s what punk music is: just this tremendous energy of people.
In 1977 their first live album, Too Late to Turn Back Now, was recorded at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
JC: It was such a fruitful time for music and we were in the middle of it. Jackson Browne, Miles Davis, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, John Coltrane, Little Feat…. Those people were our models, we listened and listened and it came out in our music. At Telluride we took this Willis Alan Ramsey track off this one solo album he made, the song “Watermelon Man,” and to me that was us doing Little Feat. That’s “Dixie Chicken.” That’s “Fat Man in the Bathtub.” There was a lot of Little Feat groove in what we were doing.
SB: We were trippier on stage than on most of our records, but you can hear it on that live record. Our association with Leon Russell — we’d opened for him in 1973 — had opened the doors. I don’t know that we were psychedelic exactly, but I was trying a phase shifter on my fiddle, like Jean-Luc Ponty, and Curtis would play lap steel with distortion.
JC: We had all grown together. Sam and I were fixated with Delaney & Bonnie at the time. We played “Lonesome and a Long Way from Home,” which Delaney co-wrote with Leon Russell, and we were so obsessed with them vocally that we talked about this: “I’m going to do Bonnie, you’re going to be Delaney.”
The band’s popularity was growing and they were finding their audience, thanks to the support of fellow musicians like the Dillards and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. In 1979, Leon Russell had dropped in on the band’s soundcheck when they played at the Apollo Delman Theatre in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The band released the album Barren County that same year.
SB: Leon saw our name on the marquee and hadn’t seen us for years so he stopped by. We went back to his house that night, we jammed all night, and then we went and recorded with him in Nashville and in Hollywood where his studio was. It was really cool. We were teaching Leon bluegrass songs.
The result was the album Rhythm and Bluegrass, Vol 4, which Russell recorded in 1980 under his country alter ego, Hank Wilson. However, the project stayed unreleased until 2001.
SB: We were always most proud of that record. I co-produced it, I just didn’t know that’s what you called it. Leon had a bluegrass songbook and he’d say, “What do you think, should we do this one?” And I’d say, “Nah, let’s try this one.” So that’s how we started as his backup band. For two years! John and I had so much fun singing harmony with him. I love singing baritone, and vocally we were glued to him. And the way John and I did call-and-response in our singing was very influenced by the way Leon and Mary [his wife] did it on their records.
A live album, recorded in 1981, captures the spirit of their collaboration with Leon Russell.
SB: There were shows where you’d see him bounce up and down on his piano stool and that’s when we knew we were going to go into this Pentecostal church service with him, and the songs would just keep speeding up and speeding up and the audience was getting more and more excited. It was amazing, the rock ‘n’ roll hysteria. We learned a lot about show business from him.
Russell played keyboards on Commonwealth, which was Johnson and Burch’s last album with the band.
SB: Listening to the solo that I played on “Deeper and Deeper” [on Commonwealth], having not heard it for years, that one I managed to go to place I hadn’t planned on. Of course you have a game plan and an outline of what you want to achieve with a solo, but that solo was one of the happiest surprises.
In 1978, during a concert on the White House lawn, legendary jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie put the leader of the free world on the spot. President Jimmy Carter, formerly a peanut farmer in his home state of Georgia, had requested “Salt Peanuts,” a rambunctious tune that had been a hit for Gillespie back in the 1940s, but the musician said he’d only play it if Carter himself sang the lyrics. That’s not a hard job: There are only two words, “Salt peanuts,” repeated over and over, in a fast, staccato exclamation.
Carter gamely obliged and took his place onstage among the jazz greats, wearing not an official suit but a more casual outfit of unbelted slacks and a shirt-sleeve shirt. No musician himself, the President gave it his best shot, but could barely keep up with the veteran players. The song ended in laughter, but it was no joke. Instead, it revealed not only Carter’s sense of humor about himself—a rarity among politicians—but also his abiding love of music. Even as he’s flubbing such a basic vocal, he looks like he’s having the time of his life up there.
That impromptu performance is a key scene in the persuasive and often joyous new documentary Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President, which redeems the 39th President by examining his accomplishments in office through his relationship to music. The words stagflation and malaise are never mentioned, nor is there any appearance by an angry rabbit — all issues that have long obscured Carter’s legacy. A naval submarine officer turned politician who farmed peanuts on the side, he served in the Georgia State Senate through the 1960s before running successfully for governor in 1970.
Six years later he ran for president, right at the heyday of southern rock and outlaw country, when the entire nation seemed to be fascinated by the South. Artists like Gregg Allman, Ronnie Van Zant, and Willie Nelson saw in Carter more than a little of themselves: Southern men who didn’t fit the old hick stereotype, who might have called themselves rednecks, but rejected the hostilities and prejudices and buzzcuts associated with that figure.
And Carter was a real fan of the music they were making at that time. They not only befriended but endorsed him, playing fundraisers along the campaign trail and later visiting him in Washington, DC. Willie Nelson was famous for sneaking up to the roof of the White House to smoke pot and Rock & Roll President reveals that it was Carter’s son Chip and not some security guard who joined him. These were not family-friendly pop stars like the Osmonds or the Partridge Family, but countercultural figures who could very easily have hindered a candidate by tying him to drugs or sex or rebellion. Rather than undercut Carter’s gravity or mission, they helped portray him as an outsider who could clean up the mess made by Nixon and Watergate.
As the documentary makes clear, however, this wasn’t just politics as usual. There was no strategy behind Carter’s partnership with these southern musicians. Instead, it came about more organically, a happy accident stemming from his clear love for the music. He and several other talking heads say as much in the film, but the most convincing evidence is visual. Rock & Roll President is filled with archival footage of the President watching and listening to a wide array of music — not just rock, but folk, jazz, gospel, and country — and at every concert he’s there singing along and smiling his big, toothy smile. Rather than playing up a focus-group-approved reaction, he lets his guard down and projects something resembling pure joy. At 95, Carter remains an imposing and presidential presence. Yet, especially when he’s recalling a particular concert or simply putting a Dylan record on the turntable, that unselfconscious smile returns, its hint of mischief intact.
Rock & Roll President includes interviews with a range of artists, some of whom are still identified as progressives (Rosanne Cash, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan) and others who have swayed further right over the years (Larry Gatlin). But they all respond to Carter’s calls for bipartisanship, his moral leadership, his steady demeanor in office, and of course his musical knowledge. Over time many of his accomplishments have been dismissed, undone, or simply swept under the rug, but the documentary connects some of them — his handling of the historic peace treaty between Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, for example — to Carter’s Christian faith and the principles he found in music.
There are, of course, holes in the story Rock & Roll President presents, but Carter’s idealism is refreshing especially at a moment when politics has become ugly, divisive, and cynical to the point of nihilism. He comes across as a folk hero: embraced by the people and too honest for politics. “There was so much about the story that is timeless, in terms of messaging,” says director Mary Wharton. “During filming and production, there were all these things that would happen in the news that resonated with the stories that were being told in the film. Things like Carter’s role in the Civil Rights movement continue to be more and more relevant.”
She and producer Chris Farrell spent three years researching and filming the documentary, which included two trips down to Plains, Georgia, to speak to the former peanut farmer himself. For our latest Roots on Screen column, BGS spoke to the duo while they were in Massachusetts for the Berkshire International Film Festival, where Rock & Roll President played at a drive-in theater — just like it was ’76 all over again.
BGS: In the film, Carter seems to be very unselfconsciously enjoying himself around this music whenever there’s live footage. What was he like to deal with?
Chris Farrell: He’s in his mid-90s, first of all. He’s a former President. He’s a naval guy. He’s pretty stern, and even in his advanced age, he’s still pretty imposing. He shows up to the interview and sits down and he’s very serious. But within the first three to four minutes, he realizes this is not the typical interview. We want to talk about his love for music, what music meant to him, and how he used music in his personal and political life. I’ll never forget — that smile just showed up, and you can see it in the interview.
Mary Wharton: We were told that President Carter was a very punctual man and that we needed to be ready when he walked in the door. They said he’s not very patient in terms of waiting around for you to get ready for him. He’s a very exacting person who does not suffer fools. And why should he? But it was obvious that he had enjoyed talking about this stuff, and that he had a lot of fun with it. I think he genuinely enjoyed sharing this part of his life that he had never really been asked about before.
Was he the first president to use music this way? How unprecedented was it to have endorsements from this kind of countercultural creative class?
MW: JFK got the endorsement of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. I don’t know if they were doing campaign benefits for JFK or not — I never researched that — and the only other thing I could point to is Nixon inviting Elvis to the White House, because Elvis wanted to be made a sheriff or something along those lines. But that didn’t seem like anybody endorsing anything…
CF: And Johnny Cash, remember? Nixon tried to co-opt Johnny Cash and it didn’t work. Again, the interesting thing was: This was not marketing necessarily for them. As the film shows, from his very early childhood, music was massive in Carter’s life. It was very, very important to him, and that’s why it made a natural component to his campaign. It wasn’t like some campaign manager said, “Hey, listen, boss, just trust us on this. You know, if you hang out with these guys, you’re gonna get endorsements and people are going to like you.” He genuinely loves music, all music, and he really, really felt a strong relationship and bond with these guys, and that’s what made them willing to endorse him.
Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris and Jimmy Carter
And these weren’t just any old musicians either. They were Southern musicians who seemed to be redefining how the South was being depicted. The Allmans and Skynyrd were popular right when you’re having movies like Walking Tall and Deliverance, and suddenly there are new ways of thinking about the South.
CF: Mary and I are both from the South — and not terribly far away from where Jimmy Carter is from. We’re both from North Florida. Even though we were young when he was elected — I was ten, Mary is slightly younger than me — we spent the ’70s in the South and we remember that it was changing. As Chuck Leavell says very well in the film, and Rosanne Cash says extremely well, things were going in the right direction, and Carter personified that attempt to move us along not only in the South but the country as a whole. Unfortunately, a lot of those issues we were making progress on then, it feels like we’ve gone backwards on, whether that’s civil rights, women’s rights, a whole host of issues.
Looking back, many of the artists associated with that movement are now seen to be very conservative, while Carter was and remains very progressive. It’s interesting to see footage of him sharing a stage with Charlie Daniels.
MW: Charlie Daniels [became] very conservative. But he was more affiliated with Carter and was onstage at his campaign rallies. He did a lot to support Carter at the time, then had a bit of a change of heart during the Reagan administration. Larry Gatlin is another one who’s in our film who is now very conservative. At the time, though, he did support Carter. He saw that Carter was a good man, and he believed in him. The country was a little less polarized back then. As John Wayne says in that clip in the film, he’s a staunch Republican and was known for being “the opposition.” But he makes clear he’s a member of the “loyal opposition.” He saw that Carter was president and said he would support him as best he could. We as Americans may not always agree on every issue, but we need to figure out how we can work together to come up with some kind of compromise that we can all live with. We’ve gotten to a point where that doesn’t even exist anymore.
CF: That’s ultimately the point of the movie: that Carter was able to use music to bring people together. We have so many examples of how music broke down barriers and brought people together, unified people — and would it be nice to think that, somehow, that can happen again.
MW: We had an early screening of a rough cut in New York, just some friends of mine and the editor. We just needed to get some feedback from some outsiders, and there was this one woman in the group who had a very visceral reaction to the Charlie Daniels piece of music in the film. Charlie Daniels is playing at this campaign rally in 1980 where the Ku Klux Klan showed up and were counter-protesting and demonstrating outside the rally. Carter stood up to them and essentially called them cowards for hiding behind white sheets. Charlie Daniels got up on the stage and performed, and that was why we wanted to play that music. This woman so associated the music of Charlie Daniels with many of the beliefs that the KKK espouses. She saw Southerners as automatically racist, and that’s a common misperception. I’ve heard people say, “Oh, you’re from the South, but you’re not a racist. What made you change your mind?”
CW: One of the most beautiful examples of that is the jazz on the White House lawn. There’s the sheer brilliance of those musicians and how Carter brought them all together and how he honored the genre. Carter said part of the reason that jazz had not been recognized over the years was racism. He was able to talk about racism in a way that eludes so many politicians. They find it a difficult topic to deal with, but he tackled it head on. That’s one of those scenes where you really get the essence of Jimmy Carter, where he really shows moral courage and moral leadership.
What I find remarkable is that he’s able to connect that to his Christian faith, which is another issue that people seem to have misperceptions about. Christianity is usually associated with a very specific political stance.
CF: The best example of that in our movie, I think, is the Gregg Allman story, because, to me, that’s the essence of Carter. He didn’t judge Gregg Allman, and he didn’t think he needed to forgive Gregg for something, because he knew it wasn’t his place to forgive him. It was his place to be compassionate and be there for his friend in his time of need. I consider myself Christian. I’m an Episcopalian, and to me that’s what Christianity is all about. It’s about love. It’s about compassion. And I think that he really does exhibit those attributes.
Carter seems to be thought of as a failed president who really came into his own after he left the White House. But the film argues that the traits we associate with his humanitarian efforts were the same traits that guided his presidency and the same traits he found in the music he loved.
MW: The thing we wanted to do with Carter was look at him through this different lens of his relationship with music, and perhaps that might make people reconsider their ideas about his presidency. Jim Free [formerly special assistant on congressional affairs], who’s so great in the film, got angry when he talked about how people saw Carter as a bad president. On both sides of the aisle, people will say, “He was a terrible president, but I love what he’s done post-presidency.” And that would just make Jim angry. He said, “If you like what he’s done post-presidency, then take another look at what he accomplished during his administration because he was about the same things. He wasn’t always successful, because the presidency is not a dictatorship. It’s not a monarchy. You can’t just decide what you want to happen and then, lo and behold, it happens. You have to work with Congress. What Carter was able to accomplish puts him on the right side of history.
CW: If people would go back and look at the record — and we could have done this with the movie, but we decided not to go down this path, because Stu Eizenstat wrote a 900-page book about this — they’d see that Carter had an enormous amount of legislation, some really groundbreaking legislation. He’s one of the most efficient and effective presidents in history, in that regard. Nile Rodgers rightly says that Carter got the short end of the stick somehow. Hopefully, upon further reflection and examination, people will hold him in higher stead. And he loves music and understands that it has this incredible power to bring us joy, to bring us together, and to remind us that we’re more alike than we are different. We all want to dance to a good song.
Lede photo, Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter photo, Jimmy Carter on stage photo, and Jimmy Carter interview photo: courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment; Photos with Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris, and photo with Dolly Parton, from Carter Presidential Library.
The year end is a time for round-ups — reflections on the cultural, social, and political landmarks of the past 365 days. But the tragedies brought on by ideological conflict, mass violence, and natural disasters in 2017 are particularly hard to sum up in a few simple phrases or talking points. That’s where music comes in, lending form to feelings and ideas that we may otherwise struggle to put into words. Luckily, there were plenty of releases that did just that throughout the course of the year (and we’ve highlighted our favorites on our BGS Class of 2017 lists).
However, this function of songwriting is far from new. Music has provided respite or thrown down the gauntlet since its inception, and 2017 saw the passing of artists across all genres who have channeled this power brilliantly for years. We lost Sharon Jones, Curly Seckler, Butch Trucks of the Allman Brothers Band, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave, Hüsker Dü’s Grant Hart, AC/DC’s Malcolm Young, Steely Dan’s Walter Becker, Sister Sledge’s Joni Sledge, Montgomery Gentry’s Troy Gentry, Jimmy LaFave, Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, Kevin Garcia of Grandaddy, and Pat DiNizio of the Smithereens, among others.
Here, we pay tribute to and honor the legacies of musicians who have bolstered communities, broadened the scope or forged new paths across this broad spectrum that we call Americana.
Chuck Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017)
Chuck Berry is heralded as one of the preeminent fathers of rock ’n’ roll. His influence is so profound that John Lennon once famously remarked, “If you tried to give rock ‘n’ roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry.’” Born in St. Louis, Berry signed to Chicago’s Chess Records in 1955 and produced some of the biggest staples in American music like “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” “Rock and Roll Music,” and “Johnny B. Goode.” Berry contributed just as much to the landscape of country as he did to pop and R&B, and his songs became hits for heavyweights like Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris, and Buck Owens. His impact on the genre was recognized in 1982, when he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 1984, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 as part of the inaugural class. Released in June, Berry’s posthumous record, CHUCK, became his first studio release since 1979. Tinged with playful nods to the past, it’s a fitting farewell from the architect of rock ’n’ roll.
Gregg Allman (December 8, 1947 – May 27, 2017)
As co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band, Gregg Allman was one of the most enduring figures in music. Allman and co. rose to fame as sonic trailblazers with their amalgamation of soul, gospel, R&B, country, and jazz. Allman was a strong proponent of the blues, and while he is often hailed as the king of Southern rock, it’s a moniker that he didn’t fully embrace. As Gregg Allman Band guitarist and music director Scott Sharrard told us in an interview earlier this year, “[Gregg] used to say to me all the time, ‘Nothing matters but the blues. You can go in all kinds of directions with music, but if you don’t have blues, you don’t have shit.’… And he also used to say something to me, which I thought was a really, really deep and important historical and contextual understanding of musicology in America, that there’s no such thing as Southern rock. All rock is Southern. It’s all from the South. All of it.” During Allman’s quest to preserve and build upon the blues tradition, he penned notable tracks like “Midnight Rider,” “Melissa,” and “Whipping Post.” He passed away in May due to a reoccurrence of liver cancer, leaving behind his posthumous release, Southern Blood, and a legacy of down-home soul that cuts right to the heart.
Glen Campbell (April 22, 1936 – August 8, 2017)
Selling 50 million records over six decades, the Rhinestone Cowboy reigned as country royalty, but is just as deserving of the title “Crossover King.” In the ‘60s, his guitar chops earned him a spot in the Wrecking Crew, a cast of sought-after session musicians in Los Angeles. As part of the Crew, Campbell played on infamous recordings like Frank Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night, the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, andElvis Presley’s Viva Las Vegas. Toeing the line between pop and country, Campbell became a solo star in his own right, with a perfect croon that was unmatched. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and awarded with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. In 2011, Campbell announced that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and embarked on a Goodbye Tour, which was captured and subsequently released as a documentary film. He lived to see the June release of his final album, Adiós, which he recorded with the help of his longtime friend and banjo player, Carl Jackson. A pop star and a country legend, Campbell will forever be remembered as the down-to-earth farm boy from Arkansas who never lost sight of his roots.
Don Williams (May 27, 1939 – September 8, 2017)
The Gentle Giant got his start in the mid-60s, forming the Pozo-Seco Singers with Susan Taylor and Lofton Cline in his home state of Texas. After the trio went their separate ways, Williams moved to Nashville in the ‘70s and launched a prolific solo career that kept him on the top of the charts for decades. From 1974 to 1991 and over more than 40 albums and 50 singles, he never charted below number 22. Williams’ straightforward tunes and smooth vocal provided the framework for some of modern country’s biggest names, and his contributions were honored during his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2010.
Jessi Zazu (July 28, 1989 – September 12, 2017)
The word to describe Jessi Zazu is fearless. The Nashville-based singer/songwriter co-founded the band Those Darlins as a teenager alongside fellow musicians she met at the Southern Girls Rock Camp. Born out of an affinity for the Carter Family, Those Darlins sonically ran the gamut from rockabilly to growling punk and back again. On stage and off, Zazu was the epitome of grace and grit. An artist through and through, she was a staple in the Nashville scene who was just as prolific in the world of visual art as she was in songwriting. Those Darlins planned to go their separate ways, performing their final shows in March 2016 just weeks before Zazu was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cervical cancer. She publicly shared her diagnosis with a video last December in which she shaved her head and wore a t-shirt bearing the phrase “Ain’t Afraid” — a Those Darlins song written years prior. Zazu was a fighter and a creator until the very end; she continued coaching young women at the Girls Rock camp, recording solo music, and hosting art exhibitions. In her short 28 years, Zazu exuded a strength, determination, and passion that will serve as an example for young women for years to come.
Charles Bradley (November 5, 1948 – September 23, 2017)
James Brown’s frenetic set at the Apollo Theater on October 24, 1962 was given an official release the following year. One of the most acclaimed live albums of all time, its magnetism impacted generations of music fans, including a young Charles Bradley, who was in attendance at the show. In the years that followed, Bradley worked a series of odd jobs — from a cook to a James Brown impersonator — all while keeping his aspirations of a singing career in focus. Bradley’s big break finally came in the form of Gabriel Roth, who co-founded Daptone Records. Roth introduced Bradley to producer Tom Brenneck, and the result was Bradley’s debut album, No Time for Dreaming, released in 2011 when Bradley was 62 years old. Over the course of six years and two more albums, Bradley delivered captivating, worldly soul ballads that garnered him his own nickname — the Screaming Eagle of Soul.
Tom Petty (October 20, 1950 – October 2, 2017)
Tom Petty is a national treasure. Songs like “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” “I Won’t Back Down,” “American Girl,” and “Free Fallin’” are so ingrained in the American fabric that it’s hard to imagine a time when you could turn on the radio and not hear Petty on the dial. After a chance encounter with Elvis Presley, Petty became interested in music, later dropping out of high school to join the band Mudcrutch. After its dissolution, he formed Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers — the platform which would solidify his status as a rock icon. He recorded two albums as part of the supergroup the Traveling Wilburys, which also included Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. Petty and the Heartbreakers had just wrapped a 40th anniversary tour when he suffered a heart attack. Petty’s death came as a gut-wrenching shock, just a day after the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas that killed 58 people. But we can all find solace in Petty’s legacy, which is palpable. No doubt his contributions will continue to serve as mainstays in music for years to come.
Fats Domino (February 26, 1928 – October 24, 2017)
Fats Domino ushered in the early wave of rock ‘n’ roll, topping the charts in the ‘50s and ‘60s with “Blueberry Hill,” “Walking to New Orleans,” and “Blue Monday,” among others. His adept piano playing and hearty stage presence was infectious, and he was eclipsed on the charts only by Elvis Presley, coming in a close second. His New Orleans rhythm and blues captivated a wider audience and popular music was all the better for it. Rock ’n’ roll heavy hitters like John Lennon and Led Zeppelin later covered his work, and his accomplishments were recognized in 1986 when he became part of the first class of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Fats’ brand of boogie woogie injected new life into pop, and his reverberations can still be felt today.
In 2012, two years after receiving a liver transplant, Gregg Allman was diagnosed with a reoccurrence of liver cancer and given a prognosis of 12 to 18 months to live. The pioneering rock legend kept the news private and moved forward doing what he did best: playing music. Choosing not to undergo treatment, he beat the odds and continued his musical journey for another five years, passing away on May 27, 2017. His parting gift — to himself, his family, his friends, and his fans — is Southern Blood, his poignant farewell album that was released posthumously last month. Produced by the legendary Don Was, Southern Blood features a selection of nine cover songs and one original tune, “My Only True Friend,” co-written with Gregg Allman Band guitarist and music director, Scott Sharrard.
“I was one of a very, very small inner circle of people who knew that he had received the terminal diagnosis with the idea that he may live longer, he may die tomorrow, and I had to make every decision as his music director, as kind of his lieutenant, and as his songwriting collaborator, based on his imminent demise, and that was extremely difficult,” Sharrard says. “We became much closer through that period. I think some of that had to do with our mutual deep, deep love for music, and it also had to do with him, I think, realizing that those of us in his inner circle who were helping to collaborate were kind of ferrying him across to the other side as best we could.”
Don Was and Allman’s longtime friend and manager, Michael Lehman, helped him choose the covers from a list of artists he admired and songs he loved, like Lowell George’s “Willin’,” Tim Buckley’s “Once I Was,” and Jackson Browne’s “Song for Adam,” which always reminded him of his brother, Duane. In a cosmic full-circle move, Allman recorded Southern Blood over a two-week period in March of 2016 at the historic FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where he and his brother Duane recorded their first demo tracks as part of their early band, the Hour Glass, and where Duane later famously became the session guitarist for Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and others.
“I would go with [Gregg] to most of his milestone health appointments at the Mayo Clinic where he had his transplant and where his oncology team was, and every time we’d get there, we’d be amazed because his health was maintained for the most part,” Lehman recalls. “But as the team of doctors always said, one day the lid is gonna come off the kettle. And as we were getting into ’16, and he was starting to have more days than not where he wasn’t always feeling great, he knew. Even though we had never heard that yet from the doctors, I truly believe he knew inside of him that that day was coming sooner than later and so he was going to make the best of it with this record.”
Allman’s health began deteriorating rapidly after those sessions, and he was never able to get back into the studio to record his vocal harmonies, as was his custom. With Allman’s blessing, Lehman enlisted Buddy Miller to fill out the harmonies and Jackson Browne, who he had played with when they were both teenagers, contributed to his “Song for Adam.” Allman signed off on his preferred version of “Song for Adam” with Browne’s additions, and was able to take a final listen to some of the other songs.
“The day before he passed, I had received three final tracks and, that night, Gregg and I listened for about an hour to the tracks and I said, ‘They’re perfect, Gregg. There’s nothing to do, nothing to worry about,’” Lehman recalls. “And we talked about exactly what he wanted to be done with this record. He confirmed that I could share his journey with his health and talked about how to go out there and make this record everything that it should be. And I’ve followed his plan to the tee, right now … I think he just wanted to feel really close to home on this record, and all these songs sort of allowed him to retrace his life’s journey.”
On Gregg’s Final Years
Sharrard: It was very difficult to juggle Gregg’s desire to perform live, his need financially to perform live, because the music business sure ain’t what it used to be. I mean, you can’t just sit home and collect mailbox money anymore; you’ve gotta go tour. That’s why you see these guys touring all the way to the end. They love it, but it’s not just because of that. And then, his health battles. When you’re ill like this, it’s a game of whack-a-mole. They’d give him one drug, and it’d cause some other thing, and then this thing would make him get pneumonia and that thing would make him get COPD, and this thing would do that and then he’s out for various things that had nothing to do with the cancer, that were complications of trying to manage it and trying to manage a new liver … He was not in a writing period. He was not in that frame. I’ve always called him the Frank Sinatra of rock ‘n’ roll. He had grown into this elder statesman master interpreter of song — someone like Nina Simone or Billie Holiday or Muddy Waters. He became a voice, like that voice that could sing the phonebook, as they say. And I think he was inhabiting that.
On Recording at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals
Lehman: As people know — and it’s well-documented — really probably not a day in his life wouldn’t pass where Gregg either wouldn’t think of Duane or talk about him. So he was always ever-present and [FAME] is the place that Duane recorded with Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin and other greats. It was also where Gregg and Duane recorded some demo tracks for one of their early bands, the Hour Glass. And lastly, we had reconnected with Rick and Rodney Hall, father and son, from FAME Studios of Muscle Shoals three or four years ago when the Muscle Shoals film documentary came out. And Gregg was so happy to reconnect and contribute to the doc, that he actually went out and helped promote it and I think, in doing so and reconnecting with Rick after so many years, it just brought back a flood of memories. And Gregg loved the sound that would come from an old studio and a studio like that has so much history and so many artists were there. They had all the analog equipment and boards, and so Gregg said, “You get the best of both worlds because you record in analog, you can mix digitally,” and this was just a place that meant so much to him, so he was thrilled to get back there … I would say about close to half the days he was not feeling great, but his work ethic was such that he would spend four or five hours a day in the studio and then, the other 19 or 20 hours, he’d be back in the hotel room eating, sleeping, resting, and just preparing for the next day. So he did not waste any energy and conserved his energy so that he would deliver the performance that he needed to on the tracks that we went into the studio to record.
Sharrard: Since that demo session with the Hour Glass, Gregg had never been back there. I think it was his first professional recording session, actually. So his first session and his last session were in that studio. That’s pretty amazing, right? I’m sure he thought that through … When we got there, we were all really knocked out by the vibe. Don Was had never even been in the building in his life, and Gregg hadn’t been there since he was a teenager, so the two of them were like kids in a candy store, too, which was also inspiring for us. You think these guys are totally jaded, right? Not at all. They were as freaked out as we were about working in there. So that added to the vibe and the anticipation that you need to get it right.
On the Album’s Only Original Song, “My Only True Friend”
Sharrard: Of all the stories I have about the making of Southern Blood, that song is my personal journey with Gregg. The story of the creation of that song has no shortage of drama, I’ll warn you. But it’s a 100 percent true story, like some of the best ones. I was really lucky to go through this experience with him. I was at his house — this was probably around 2015 is when that song started being written. When we were off the road, I would go for a few days, and we would do these writing sessions. We had already knocked out one song, which was a funky blues tune, and we were real happy about it. We had a good vibe going, and he had had some other ideas we were bouncing back and forth, and we were just having a good time one night. We went to bed real late, as usual, and he had been telling me a lot of road stories. We’d go out to the boat slip and come back — he had this beautiful property in Savannah — and it was just one of those really one-on-one hangs, when he was really lucid and telling a lot of detailed stories, and we always talked a lot about Duane. I was staying in his mother’s room at the house and, as I was going to bed, I was looking at all these pictures of them as kids in military uniforms together and stuff in military school, and I was just digging the whole family vibe. And I drifted off to sleep and then I shot up in bed at dawn with the sun coming up over the swamp. And as I shot out of bed, you know how it’s like you have those dreams where you remember it like it’s a movie you saw and you can’t tell if it’s a movie or a dream? Well, what I immediately remembered — and even weirder, I can still see it in my mind what it looked like, the beginning of it — it was Duane actually speaking to Gregg. And right away, it’s the first two lines of the verse and the hook to the song is what he said to Gregg in the dream. So I run downstairs and I grab an acoustic guitar off the couch, I go out on the porch, and I’m looking at the sun coming up over the boat slip and I start playing that intro that you hear on the record … I had an intro and I had a verse and I didn’t have anything else except for this line, “You and I both know the road’s my only true friend.” And, by the way, I never told Gregg that story because I was worried it would spook him out. I didn’t want him to judge the song or anything about it based on that because I know how much he respected his brother … I had been pacing all morning waiting for him to wake up because I knew how special this song was. When he woke up, I sat there and played what I had for him and he said, “This is it, man. We gotta do this. This is gonna be the tune.”
Fast forward to later that year, I go to the hotel near the Beacon Theatre when he was doing his second-to-last run with the Allman Brothers to do more writing. And when I get to his hotel room, we’re still working on this song, “My Only True Friend,” but it’s going back and forth with all these different pre-chorus and chorus ideas and bridge ideas. So I get to his room and the vibe is really messed up, and he sits me down and he tells me about his terminal diagnosis right there. And I said, “Look, obviously we don’t have to work today, we can just hang. I can leave. Whatever you need,” and he’s like, “No, we need to work.” So we started working and we’re getting into stuff and, right in the beginning of that writing section, he reached over and he crossed out the pre-chorus we had — and I still have this sheet of paper, by the way — he crossed out the pre-chorus we had and he wrote in “I hope you’re haunted by the music of my soul when I’m gone,” and that was the first time that line came in.
The first time he had ever sang the third verse was that day when we cut the song. So that song was almost not recorded. It was right down to the wire. I gotta be honest with you: I had been writing the song for almost three years with him at that point — or two years or whatever it had been — and I was at my wit’s end with getting it right. But I see why it was so important to him now, and it all makes sense now. That’s why, sometimes, you just have to follow the zeitgeist. Creativity is never a straight line. You’ve just gotta trust the process.
On the Cover of Jackson Browne’s “Song for Adam”
Sharrard: It’s about the untimely death of a friend and Gregg and Chank always relate it to their experience with Duane Allman as their brother and friend who they lost so tragically and so early. I can’t tell you how important Chank was. He was like the spirit animal of everything Gregg Allman. He personally really wanted Gregg to record this song and Gregg was fighting him. I think Gregg was very emotional about doing that song because he related it to his brother. So basically, when we got in the studio, I’m gonna tell you that this record, everything is first or second takes. We were having a ball every day, knocking out two songs a day. Fun times. We got to “Song for Adam,” they had sent the horns home and they’d sent Mark Quiñones home, so we had lost a lot of the yucks from the session. It’s like we went into the studio that day to do “Song for Adam” and we’ve got one song left to do, “Song for Adam” — the horns are gone, Mark’s gone. So the vibe in the studio was kind of like a little of the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. And I remember when we were cutting it, on the floor, we had the rhythm section — Steve Potts, Ron Johnson, Pete Levin, and me — four-piece band. Gregg was standing singing. I played all the guitars on that track. So Gregg’s standing up singing with Chank sitting next to him on a stool and Chank was like almost holding his hand through it … We played that fucking song for like seven hours … Now you listen to it and it sounds absolutely gorgeous and, of course, Gregg emotionally was never able to sing the last two lines, and I thought it was quite brilliant that Don Was decided to just let the verse end with that last line about singing his song. I mean, it’s a pretty incredible and dramatic exit to an album.
Photo credit: Danny Clinch
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