The End of an Era: What the New Millennium's Allman Brothers Band has Meant to Me

A few days ago, Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, two of my personal favorite guitar players, announced that they were leaving the Allman Brothers Band, after twenty-five and fifteen years, respectively, with the group.  This news comes on the eve of the band's 45th anniversary, a milestone that the two seemingly decided a long time ago would be their last hurrah with the band.  Both men have put out outstanding albums in the last year with their other projects (Haynes made the double album Shout with Gov't Mule and Trucks made Made Up Mind with The Tedeschi Trucks band, both are awesome, check them out) and promise to keep making music with their other groups in the future.

So, why should I be so melancholy over this?  It's been ten years since a new ABB album, after all and in most still touring classic rock bands. the role that these men would be playing would be under selling their talents.  In an alternate universe where they ended up in the sallow husk of a cover band that is what's left of Lynyrd Skynyrd, maybe nobody would have noticed how good they were in the first place.  But they're not in most still touring classic rock bands, they're in the Allman Brothers, which means that albums or not, they've still been able to explore their own artistry in this band and I've gotten to reap the benefits by hearing it.  Maybe I should back up forty-five years or so to educate the uninitiated and maybe you'll be sympathetic to my woes.

ABB classic put out its self-titled first album in 1969.  The band at the time was made up of Gregg Allman on vocals and organ, Berry Oakley on bass, Butch Trucks and Jaimoe Johanson on drums, and two of the most creative guitarists of their era, which is saying something, Duane Allman and Dickey Betts, whose styles both contrasted and complemented each other.  Duane Allman is still today heralded as a slide guitar genius, his style had a seamless, blues-derived fluidity that earned him the undying respect of no less than Eric Clapton.  Betts, by contrast, boasted a style that one could see as having more to do with country music, but still rooted in the best of heavy blues music.  Together the two men formed a fascinating dual guitar harmonization and counterpoint style, which when put together with the rest of the band was nothing short of hypnotizing.

While the Allman Brothers Band's first two albums were brilliant in their own way, it wasn't until the release of their 1971 live album At Filmore East that anybody really noticed.  The album took some of their already long and complex songs like "Whippin' Post" and extended them into 20 + minute jams that allowed Duane and Dickey to showcase the full extent of their creativity.

Duane Allman died in October 1971, and while the band's actual commercial peak didn't come until a couple years later, The Allman Brother's Band classic is not what I'm here to discuss.  Duane Allman and Dickey Betts are legends among guitar players, and their role in making rock guitar playing what it is can't be diminished, but they are not the guitar gods that I grew up worshiping.  They set the ground work for what I got to watch happen in my life time.  For my closest guitar heroes, Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks.

When the Allman Brothers Band got back together in 1989, they had a few spots to fill, among them, the theoretical "Duane Allman" guitar spot.  Dickey Betts suggested the second guitarist from his band at the time, Warren Haynes, and the rest of the band agreed.

Warren Haynes has always kind of been known as a man who can play anything, a true guitar scientist who can work wherever he's needed.  He started his career in 1980 in the backing band for country singer David Allan Coe before being picked up by Betts, and he had little problem filling the spot of Duane Allman, who he emulated and admired, but he's not a musical parrot either.  In the first three studio albums put out post reunion, 1990's Seven Turns, 1991's Shades of Two Worlds, and 1994's Where It All Begins, you can hear him not only add a progressively unique style to everything he touches, but you can see him grow into an excellent singer and songwriter too.

Warren has never let himself grow complacent.  In 1995, he and fellow ABB alum, bassist Allen Woody, along with former Dickey Betts Band drummer Matt Abts formed the power trio throwback Gov't Mule, which still records and tours today as one of the most popular jam bands working (now as a four piece, following Woody's death).  In addition he makes numerous guest appearances and solo outings and seems to be the go-to guy to fill an absent Jerry Garcia spot in any Grateful Dead related happenings.  In spite of this, he's never come across as a man who doesn't have the energy for whatever thing he's doing at the time, and he's always managed to show what a musician and an artist he is with the Allman Brothers or wherever else he might be at the time.

Warren stepped away from the band for a short time in the late 90's, and for a while the Allman Brothers Band was somewhat in flux.  In 1999, the "Duane" spot got filled by then nineteen year old Derek Trucks, nephew of drummer Butch Trucks, and by all measures a guitar prodigy.

While Warren Hayes is something of a stylistic chameleon, in the best way possible, Derek Trucks is a wholly unique presence in rock music.  He's always admitted that Duane Allman was a primary influence on him, and you can certainly hear it, but the way the Trucks plays the slide guitar is damn near revolutionary in its own right, as much reminiscent of the jazz greats like saxophonist John Coltrane as it is to the classics of blues slide guitar like Elmore James.  He's astonishingly creative and never repeats himself.

Like Warren, Derek Trucks has always maintained other projects on top of the ABB.  He formed The Derek Trucks Band in 1996, three years before even joining the Allmans, and put out an album with that group every year or so like clockwork until 2011, when he switched his focus to The Tedeschi Trucks Band, a collaboration with his wife, Susan Tedeschi, and a huge nine-piece backing band.  In addition, he's performed with the likes of Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton.

Dickey Betts left the band amid some mysterious falling out in 2000, and the two guitarists I admire most would finally end up together in one place when Warren jumped in to take his place.  This left Derek Trucks in the "Duane" spot and Warren Haynes in the "Dickey" spot.  I use quotes because those are arbitrary designations when working with musicians of this caliber.  From the second they were in these positions, these two musicians owned them completely.  Want proof?  I highly recommend 2003's Hittin' the Note, the first studio album the two appear on together.  The album is all together excellent and leaves the entire band sounding fresh and creative, including Gregg Allman, who sounded more alive in 2003 then he did in 1990. 

While Hittin' the Note was excellent I consider it a warm up for what came next.  Unquestionably one of my all-time favorite albums, 2004's double live album One Way Out, which came out just in time for me to get my first guitar.  It became my bible.

There it was, in my life time.  I was a big classic rock fan, and even ten years ago most of the classic rock bands had burnt out or changed line ups to the point of being little more than an official cover band.  But these guys were real modern day guitar heroes to me, who were putting out multiple projects and touring constantly.  The hooks were in deep and there was no escape.  

And at first glance, that would seem to be it, as no other albums of new material were released by the ABB before this January's announcement.  But that wasn't it.  This was the twenty-first century, the age of Youtube and online archives, and I've been able to have the pleasure of hunting down live footage of the Allman Brothers on a regular basis.  I've been able to see how the solos and sets change from night to night, I've gotten to watch these guys branch out and change, to explore new styles and interests both with ABB and their other projects.  Two of the most influential guitarists of my life time have been playing together for the past fourteen years, and I've gotten to hear it as much as I've wanted to, which is a lot.

So, while I look forward to hearing what these two giants of their instrument put out in the future, and I hope that they still play together from time to time, one of the most exciting musical partnerships of my life time will come to an end after this year, and I'm sad to see them go.  I guess I always have the archives.

A Nerd of Many Colors

I suppose there comes a time in everybody's life when he or she thinks that his or her thoughts or interests are important enough for somebody else to want to read, and with every interest now having a community brought together by the interwebs, a lot of these people have been right in thinking this.  Maybe I'm overestimating myself here a little bit, but here I am, hoping to be counted among those the the collective internet consciousness deems worth reading.  I guess you can blame it on my frustration with the good old-fashioned physical world and the people I encounter in it.  Don't get me wrong I love all the people in my life very much, but I'm overflowing with the kinds of hobbies and interests that one amasses by spending his formative years as a reclusive introvert, and I find that trying to share these interests conversationally all too often results in glassy eyed disinterest.  Not that I can blame anybody for such a reaction, but it left me in need of an outlet for sharing my thoughts on the various nerd cultures that I dip my toes into, and to that end here we are in the Magpie Nest.


For anybody who doesn't know what a magpie is, it's this little black and white bird that's famous for picking up shiny and colorful objects from wherever it can find them and adding them to its nest.  In this way, I've grown up amassing interests and hobbies that seem shiny and colorful to me at the time and cultivating them.  Most of these interests and hobbies fall into categories that get lumped into the umbrella of the greater "nerd" culture, which in the new nerd dominated twentieth century can basically just means anything that you enjoy un-ironically.  This all leaves me with a fairly broad wheelhouse to work in, and I want it to be that way.  If I accomplish nothing more through this than finding a few more people to discuss these interests with, then mission accomplished.  To give any of you readers an idea of what we might be working with, here's a list of things that you might find me talking about and what they mean to me.  

Classical Music

What most of the world refers to as classical music, or western art music if we wish to discern it from music specifically from the classical period, is somewhat beyond being just an interest or hobby and is my chosen major (in the form of trombone performance) and thus, hopefully, my chosen profession.  It is also an art form that, probably always, but especially in the last hundred years or so has developed a reputation for being somewhat, well, up its own ass, to the point that it's primarily enjoyed by the musicians who make it and bored rich people who don't quite full grasp it.  And while that reputation is not entirely unearned, I hope to disavow the shit out of that notion.  After all, if a simple rural Nebraskan like myself can develop such a love for it, I there's more accessibility there than many people realize.  Most of the personal experience type blog stuff might fall here, as get out and play in various contexts with other musicians.

From a trombone recital I put on in April 2013.

Rock Music

I've read in ancient history books of a time where rock and roll music ruled the world, but by the time I was old enough to care, with the exception of post-grunge ear torture, rock music was mostly a niche market kept alive my nostalgia more than any new interest.  Now, of course, that's not strictly true and it's had its ups and downs, but for the most part, being a rock fan, at least in the way I was, was not normal or main stream for a person my age.  I couldn't help it though, I got my first guitar when I was 14 and never looked back.  While I don't play in a rock band anymore, I was in and out of quite a few for a while, and I still love to get out and play when I can.  Of course, "rock" is such a broad term, but I'll elaborate music more in future.

Me and my telecaster in 2011. Note the Who shirt.

Comic Books

I think I was five or six when I got shown this big box of old comics that had just been chilling in grandma's house for several years.  I think they had belonged to my uncle when he was growing up, and as I'm not sure what happened to them, I think he may have reclaimed them at some point, but I was hooked when I had them.  I remember that there was some real classics in there, like the classic The New Teen Titans books, some of the old JLA/JSA crossovers including the famous The Flash of Two Worlds, and the bronze age Green Lantern/Green Arrow books where they walk across America getting all political.  I remember this was just after the Superfriends re-runs started airing on Cartoon Network, and I thought these comics were just the coolest things I had ever seen, and would think so even more in the near future when my mind would be blown by Batman the Animated Series.  I've been a big DC comics fan ever since, in spite of all the dumb moves they've made lately, and of course my love is big enough for super hero comics everywhere.  

The cover of The Flash of Two Worlds

Films, Anime and Video Games

While I hardly qualify as knowing enough about these things to stand up next to the huge numbers of people who are already critiquing them, I will not hesitate to talk about them when I have something to say.  I've always loved these things, including and especially fantasy and science fiction offerings, and while I don't have all the time to devote to them, especially gaming, that I would like to have, they're still an active part of my life.

I know it's over two years old now, but I've never gotten over Skyrim.

Religion and Politics

For now I'll save any political stuff for the future, but really quickly on religion, while I was raised in a fairly religious environment, I have taken a wholly secular personal belief system and would likely identify as an atheist or agnostic depending on what day you ask me.  This all gets especially interesting, in that I still like church and hymns and tradition and prayer.  I've especially taken an interest in a prayer style in the manor of Taize, which has allowed my travel opportunities and built me a network of friends from all sorts of fascinating religious backgrounds.

 Me with one of many of my good friends and travel companions outside of Taize, France in 2011.

And I suppose that will do it.  The regularly scheduled sharing will likely commence tomorrow.  I look forward to it.  Thanks for reading everybody.  See you soon.