"Train Leaves Here This Morning"

Jeffrey Lebowski made it pretty cool to hate The Eagles in 1998's Coen Brothers classic The Big Lebowski, but that didn't stop the California country rock band from selling out massive concerts up until they disbanded earlier this year (their disbandment caused only by founder Glenn Frey's sudden death, which means this time it's likely for good). Love them or hate them, today The Eagles are considered one of, if not the, biggest U.S. bands of the 1970s (maybe ever). By many, however, they are dismissed as inauthentic sellouts to stadium rock.

After a successful stint backing up Linda Ronstadt, Glenn Frey and Don Henley decided to venture out and start their own country rock band, The Eagles. They were immediately successful, building on what The Byrds, Buffallo Springfield, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and others had started before: smooth country-based ballads with pleasant harmonies. The genre didn't have the grit and sweat (or authenticity) of outlaw country of Johnny Cash or Waylon Jennings, nor the goofy polish of Nashville establishment acts like George Jones. These weren't cowboy campfire songs and the musicians weren't from The South, rather, the music was light and breezy like waves gently crashing on the desert. That style would go on to influence the sound of light 1970s AM rock (a sound expertly mocked in Documentary Now's Light & Breezy: The Story of the Blue Jean Committee, which took direct aim at The Eagles' inauthenticity).

The Eagles, 1972 (Henley, Leadon, Frey, Meisner)

The knock against The Eagles is that they were too polished. Even for California country music. A few years after their 1972 debut, they added rock guitarist Joe Walsh in a move to further themselves from an acoustic country sound. People forget that in 1974, although they were successful, The Eagles were often still opening for bigger acts like The Allman Brothers (to be fair, bills were typically stacked with several big acts in those days). They were big, but they weren't the biggest yet. Adding Joe Walsh, who rose to success with The James Gang and handful of successful solo albums, was a pretty big get. It propelled The Eagles to the top with 1976's massive hit Hotel California, one of the biggest rock albums ever.

Joe Walsh replaced Eagles' founding guitarist Bernie Leadon who had grown tired of the grind of studios and touring, and some say, was against Frey and Henley's move away from light country rock. Of all of The Eagles hit songs, my favorite Eagles song was always Bernie Leadon's "Train Leaves Here This Morning" from their debut album. For a long time I thought it was an obscure, forgotten nugget buried on an album with big hits, but when I went to arrange my version, I discovered the song has quite a bit of life among country bands. It's something of a standard. The song originally appeared on a Dillard & Clark album, one of Leadon's previous bands he played in. He brought the song with him to The Eagles and since then it's become something of a signature tune for him, eventually playing it when he rejoined The Eagles for some of their recent tours.

I got a little ambitious with the tune. I wanted to slow it down, and give it some space to breath. That left it really empty in places, my voice alone couldn't carry it, so I added some totally improvised harmonies which I discovered is a huge part of the song. Since I've moved recently, the new room I've been recording in is pretty open and echoey at the moment, so the bass is a little muddy (probably a good time to record some Phil Spectre material) but it seems to have covered some of my harmony deficiencies.

"Midnight Blues"

Shortly after the Allman Brothers reunited in 1990 they were invited to MTV's all acoustic Unplugged program. An acoustic show might seem unremarkable today, but after a decade dominated by electronic synthesizers and hair bands' guitar amplifier's gain turned to 11, the idea of an all-acoustic show was refreshing, if not revolutionary. The show felt impromptu (in the case of the Joe Walsh and Dr. John pairing, it actually was) but the Allman Brothers took it as seriously as their reunion. This was a chance to show a nationally televised audience that they weren't a dinosaur band. It was also an opportunity to show casual fans that they weren't just a guitar band that jammed for hours.



They performed lovely versions of acoustic-based classics Gregg Allman's "Midnight Rider" and "Melissa", and introduced their latest album's title track, Dickey Betts' "Seven Turns". But they also dusted off some old blues songs, Robert Johnson's "Come On Into My Kitchen" and the traditional "Going Down That Road Feeling Bad". The performance was so successful that they added an acoustic set to the middle of their live shows for the next few years.

Blind Willie McTell

One of the songs Dickey Betts brought to the band for their expanded touring acoustic set was an old Blind Willie McTell song, "Blues 'Round Midnight". The story goes that he had remembered it wrong, to the point it was almost a completely different tune. Enter "Midnight Blues" which appeared on the Allman Brothers' next live album, An Evening With.

I recorded most of this song last Summer. I wanted to put a sax solo on it, but my sax chops have a ways to go to catch up to my 13 year-old self. The cigar box guitar fits in enough, I didn't want to over stuff the song.

"Keep On Growing"

Derek & the Dominos lone studio album, Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs, was not a commercial or critical success upon its release in 1970. Producer Tom Dowd found himself at a loss regarding the lukewarm reception the album received, he was certain he had just poured sweat and tears into an amazing collection of songs. The album's initial thud at the sales counter is pretty hard to believe today considering it is now so universally beloved and considered a high point of Eric Clapton's career, featuring his most famous song, "Layla". But, like Orson Welles' Citizen Kane or Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night, many of history's great artistic achievements take a while to sink in with the public and receive the acclaim they deserve.

It took me a while to come around Layla as well. I have never been a huge Eric Clapton fan - his stinging Fender Stratocaster tone tires my ears. But you would think that the addition of Duane Allman, and what was essentially Delaney & Bonnie & Friends' touring band, would put this one in the win column immediately for me. But it didn't.

The story of Layla has been recounted many times. Eric Clapton was in a bad place in the early 1970s. After years being hailed as a "Guitar God" (or the Guitar GOD) while playing with John Mayall, The Yardbirds, Cream, and (briefly) Blind Faith, Clapton decided to retreat to the side of the stage. Meanwhile, the criminally underrated Delaney & Bonnie & Friends were playing rootsy folk, blues, and country music with a stellar band that included Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon, and Carl Radle. At the suggestion of Eric Clapton's good friend, George Harrison, Delaney & Bonnie opened for Blind Faith during its brief tour before quickly disbanding. Enamored with the down to earth music Delaney & Bonnie were making, Clapton decided retreat from the spotlight and take the lead guitar chair with them on their next tour as a sideman (one that had been briefly sat in by Harrison, Dave Mason, and eventually, occasionally Duane Allman).

Clapton, Bonnie & Delaney Bramlett, Harrison

Delaney & Bonnie were always a critics and musicians' darling, but never a big seller. After the tour and a season of playing with them, Clapton used their bandmates for his first solo album (Joe Cocker also went on tour with essentially the same band - they were really good). Meanwhile, Clapton became famously enamored with best bud George Harrison's wife. The helplessness he felt for the love of his best friend's wife found itself into the song writing for his next album, which would not bear the guitarist's name, rather the band's new stage name in an attempt to give Clapton some anonymity. After a legendary meeting at an Allman Brothers concert, Duane Allman was invited to participate on the album as production was already underway.

Layla LP gatefold collage

The original and covered music on Layla is full of screams, cries, and pleas for a love that can't, or shouldn't, be. The energy is almost always hitting the ceiling - "Anyday", "Why Does Love Have To Be So Sad?", "Bell Bottom Blues", "Have You Ever Loved A Woman", "It's Too Late", and of course, "Layla", is almost too exhausting to listen to from start to finish. There are plenty of concept albums that sport a singular theme, but Layla almost feels over-indulgent (anyone who has seen the album's interior photo collage can infer "over-indulgence" was the theme in the studio as well). I think that's why it never spoke to me too strongly, and much of it still doesn't (I still find "Why Does Love Have To Be So Sad" simple and childish, which it is kind of intended to be I suppose), but I've come to appreciate it much more in recent years. A degree of credit for my turn goes to the Tedeschi Trucks Band who have covered "Anyday" and "Keep On Growing" expertly (as well as a good amount of Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen material). I was surprised to find myself covering this song, but sometimes a project finds you. The lyrics are almost nonsense, but the music is so bouncy and hopeful, it is easily the most upbeat song on the album. This is also the final track to my second "album", The Front Porch.

Derek & the Dominos didn't tour extensively. They performed only twice with Duane Allman whose time in the fold ended up being only a brief dalliance: though tempted to continue playing with one of his heroes, he quickly returned to his own band that was just beginning to catch fire. Eric Clapton's life would unravel in a downward spiral over the next few years before a late-1970s resurrection. The rest of the group, whose names are known primarily due to Layla, essentially drifted after a brief reunion with Joe Cocker. Only Whitlock, who has recently returned to performing music, seemed to survive the industry intact - Gordon went mad and killed his mother, Radle drank himself to an early grave. Duane Allman died a year later in a motorcycle accident.  

Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is heralded as a masterpiece.

"When I Paint My Masterpiece"

Although The Allman Brothers Band is my favorite band and their music has largely inspired this project, it is the music of The Band that has inspired my approach. After the brothers Allman, The Band has always been a close second to me. Although their time together was slightly shorter (what other band can go 45 years strong?), their impact certainly isn't. Their rootsy approach to folk and blues inspired everyone from Eric Clapton and The Beatles to the very musicians that inspired them. The Staples Singers, whose rich vocal arrangements inspired The Band's group vocal dynamic, covered "The Weight" soon after The Band's Music From Big Pink debuted, and joined them in their "final" concert film in 1976, The Last Waltz.

The Band, Madison Square Garden, 1993.

That wouldn't be the very end for The Band - they regrouped as a touring unit without guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson in the 1980s until Richard Manuel's 1986 suicide. They regrouped to greater success again in the 1990s when they toured and released 3 albums until bassist & vocalist Rick Danko's death in 1999. But it was their early loose demos that they recorded in the basement of their communal Woodstock, NY, home, "Big Pink", that inspired my approach to the back porch feel to this acoustic project. After years of backing up Bob Dylan on the road, the group retreated to Woodstock after Dylan took time off to recover from a motorcycle accident. It was there that The Band found its sound, ironically, after years of being booed as Dylan's electric band, in loose, rootsy acoustic arrangements. Those demos would eventually be released as Bob Dylan & The Band: The Basement Tapes, at a time when The Band's recording output slowed down considerably, and are an absolute treasure.



It was only a matter of time until I recorded one of my favorite songs of theirs, Bob Dylan's "When I Paint My Masterpiece". The song first appeared on Cahoots, The Band's 4th studio album. Many would go on to cover it, but my favorite version is The Band's 1993 performance at Bob Dylan's 30th Anniversary Concert. It is loose, goofy, and the first time many had seen the spirit of The Band in 20 years. With accordion and mandolin, it is also the most straight forward adaptation of a song I have done.

Joseph Tenuta

My grandfather, Joseph Tenuta, was a musician and accordion teacher. He passed away long before I was born, but my mother still had two of his student accordions (a LoDuca Bros made in Milwaukee, WI, no less), one of which I lugged home with me last year. Having played more piano recently, it didn't take too long to figure out how to play a very simple accordion part on "Masterpiece". I recorded a demo of the song last year, but I am glad I tucked it away and waited until I was ready to add the mandolin and accordion parts. I certainly didn't reinvent the wheel, but a song has already been perfected, what else can one do?

"I Walked on Gilded Splinters"

I can play a lot of things: guitar, mandolin, piano, bass, a little saxophone. One thing I am not is a drummer (many would say "singer" as well). So choosing to tackle Dr. John's rhythm-heavy "I Walked on Gilded Splinters" with stomp buckets and a cajon was a bit of a challenge.

Dr. John

Dr. John first recorded the voodoo song for his 1968 album, Gris-Gris. It's full of spooky atmosphere, with hissing and background singers seeming to appear from the ether, or at the very least, from the far corners of the recording studio. Dr. John recorded the song in the same studio Cher was recording an album in LA. Oddly enough, she covered the tune which is full of voodoo studio production and a tone-deaf Cher vocal. But she may have planted the idea to speed up the song, which a blues man from Georgia cutting his first album would also do - Johnny Jenkins.

Johnny Jenkins had played the chitlin' circuit for years as Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers. For a time he employed a backup singer named Otis Redding. Jenkins manager, Phil Walden, would concentrate on Otis once his career exploded until Otis tragically died in a plane crash in Lake Monona (a block from my where I grew up and learned to skip stones). Walden quickly found a new project: Duane Allman.

As Allman put together his new band, Walden built Capricorn Records around them, as a place for his collection of southern musicians to record without having to leave for New York or LA (or Memphis or Alabama). One of the first albums Capricorn released was Johnny Jenkins' Ton-Ton Macoute. It is something of a concept album, full of voodoo inspired intensity, which Jenkins was reportedly not happy with. The songs themselves are a bit of a grab bag of unused material, including a couple of cuts from Duane Allman's first pass at a solo album. But somehow it all comes together and works beautifully, it is one of my favorite albums.

 The album kicks off with Butch Trucks' heavy, funky beat. It's a train that slowly gains steam until background singers and Duane Allman's dobro kick in. Johnny Jenkins' cover of "I Walked on Gilded Splinters" is heavy and funky. Others have since covered the song - Humble Pie, Widespread Panic, Paul Weller, even the Allman Brothers - but Jenkins' is the definitive version for me (The Allman Brothers would probably agree since their version is clearly based on Jenkins'). Not only have others covered it, but Butch Trucks' funky drum opening has been heavily sampled, most famously by Beck on "Loser" (whose dobro lick sounds an awful lot like Gregg Allman's "Midnight Rider"). Trucks has been quoted as wishing he received writing credit for his drum parts on songs, so hearing your drums on others' popular songs can't make him too happy and is probably why "Gilded Splinters" is part of his Freight Train Band's regular sets. Gregg Allman himself would rework his own epic "Whipping Post" into an acoustic version that sounds an awful lot like Jenkins' "Gilded Splinters".

My biggest challenge was translated his rhythms using simple tools. Our home just happened to recently add a cowbell, which helped, and I was able for the first time create some complementary rhythms that played off of each other. It was a challenge, but it all kind of came together, including dueling resonators in dueling tunings (G for the tricone, E for the spider with a capo at G).

"Medicated Goo"

Considering the Allman Brothers are my favorite band and can be credited with me picking up a guitar in the first place, it is only natural that their material (and related material) have dominated this project thus far. Of the 17 songs I have finished, 5 can be considered Allman Brothers songs: "Ain't Wasting Time No More", "Dreams", "Blue Sky", "Little Martha", "Statesboro Blues" (though an old blues cover, it is largely identified with the Brothers). 4 have been regularly covered by the Allman Brothers or related bands: "Into the Mystic", "In A Silent Way", "Preachin' Blues", "Feel So Bad". Another 4 have been performed by The Allman Brothers (or related bands) on special occasions or included a band member on the original recording: "Games People Play", "Memphis Soul Stew", "Soul Serenade", "Fat Mama". That leaves only 4 songs that have nothing to do with the Allman Brothers: "You Got the Silver", "Flying", "Albatross", and now, "Medicated Goo".

Traffic, Mr. Fantasy

I fist heard Traffic in early middle school when "Dear, Mr. Fantasy" came on the radio. I dug it, I looked them up, and picked up Traffic's first album pretty soon afterwards. I always marvel at all of the great music made in the late 1960's and how cool it must have been to have new amazing songs and albums released nearly every week, songs that would become classics but without knowing it at the time. No wonder so many people who grew up with that music in that period were so disappointed by the late 1970's - you just think that kind of quality is going to go on forever. Discovering all of this as a middle schooler was nearly as exciting - I'm still discovering great music 25 years later.

But Traffic is a unique group that doesn't get nearly enough credit. Growing up in the 1980s, I knew who Steve Winwood was from his bland, yet fun, hits like "Roll With It, Baby" and that he was the voice of Spencer Davis Group's hit, "Gimme Some Loving" (a band the Allman Brothers would cover with their first track of their first album). I read that he was in the super group Blind Faith with Eric Clapton, and had heard about Traffic, but didn't really know much about them - they were already something of a footnote in most rock & roll histories. Which is a shame, because they are one of the most interesting and dynamic bands to come out of that period, easily one of my favorites.

I picked up their second album, and dug it even more - the combination of Steve Winwood's bright, odd, psychedelic rock and Dave Mason's bouncy folk was perfect. But perfect musical marriages don't always last, and Dave Mason was in and out of the band, as Traffic unformed and reformed during the early 1970s. Eventually, as the 1970s rolled on, Traffic embraced more fusion based rock as Jim Capaldi's influence increased. Since then, Traffic reformed sparingly, once in the 1990s with Gregg Allman's old sax player stepping in for the deceased Chris Wood. But with the death of drummer/singer Jim Capaldi, only Dave Mason and Steve Winwood remain. Dave Mason has taken the stage with superfans Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks' bands, naturally great music finds each other. I got to see Dave Mason sit in with Gov't Mule in Milwaukee in 2005, and he joined TTB for their Joe Cocker tribute last summer at LOCK'N Fest since Cocker made his Traffic song, "Feelin' Alright", a huge hit for himself.

My middle school computer teacher recognized my interest in music and actually made me a mix tape that included a few cuts from Traffic's Welcome to the Canteen. It's now one of my favorite live albums, highlighted for me by the silly "Medicated Goo" that opens the album, so I decided to take a stab at it myself. I first recorded the song in the same key Traffic performed it in, key of D, but it was too high for my limited vocals to stay in pitch. After finishing it in D, I redid it in C. My pitch is more accurate, but it is a little more mellow, which suits my style better.

"In A Slient Way / It's About That Time"

Dickey Betts & Duane Allman

The Allman Brothers' music is as varied as their influences, picking apart all of the pieces is like peeling an onion - just when you think you've peeled all of the pieces away, there is another layer to appreciate. The Blues is definitely front and center, the first song they rehearsed was Muddy Waters' "Trouble No More", and At Fillmore East contained another 3 covers of old blues tunes (Blind Willie McTell's "Statesboro Blues", Elmore James' "Done Somebody Wrong", Willie Cobb's "You Don't Love Me"). Country music influences can be heard through out their catalog ("Midnight Rider", "Blue Sky", "Ramblin' Man"). Gregg Allman was heavily influenced by soul crooners like Little Milton, Ray Charles, and Percy Sledge, which can be heard on cuts like "Please Call Home". Gregg Allman's folk influences from singers & song writers like Bob Dylan and his good friend Jackson Browne are less obvious until you look at his solo work which were stripped of twin lead guitars.

John Coltrane & Miles Davis

But as much as the Allman Brothers are hailed as a guitar jam band, one of the biggest influences on Duane Allman and Dickey Betts' interplay was jazz, specifically Miles Davis and John Coltrane on Kind of Blue. The structural influence can be heard early on in the 3/4 pulse of Gregg Allman's "Dreams" which has a patience and space that you don't hear in a lot of rock 'n roll. While Dickey didn't play on the studio version of "Dreams", you can hear the interplay on just about everything after that, but never more than on Dickey's "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed". You could easily replace Duane and Dickey's Les Pauls for horns (something the Allman Brothers have done with Brandford Marsalis, Randy Brecker, Bill Evans and others). Many have tried to guess the band's direction had Duane not passed - There are tapes of the band working up a Contrane--influenced take on "My Favorite Things" months before Duane Allman died.

The Miles Davis influence on the Allman Brothers is even clearer when you listen to Miles' electric period. Miles was always pushing the boundaries of jazz, and never had they been pushed as far as he did on 1969's In A Silent Way. Adding John McLaughlin's electric guitar alongside Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Joe Zawinul, the experimental keyboardist who wrote the title track, stirred debate of what jazz could be. "In A Silent Way" opens with McLaughlin picking on Zawinul's melody, which doesn't sound too far removed from Duane Allman's "Little Martha" since both are in open E. The similarities end quickly, since where "In A Silent Way" is full of ethereal air and space, "Little Martha" plucks on sweetly.

The Allman Brothers brought this influence full circle when Derek Trucks, ever the jazznik, began teasing "In A Silent Way" during Allman Brothers' sets around 2006/2007. Eventually the Allman Brothers worked up full versions of not only "In A Silent Way", but "Spanish Key" from Miles' 1970 Bitches Brew as well. Miles' electric material didn't feel out of place in Allman Brothers sets alongside their own jazzy instrumentals like "Kind of Bird" and "Les Brers in A Minor". The word "eclectic" gets thrown around a lot, but The Allman Brothers tastes were as varied as any band out there.

I got ambitious and decided to take a stab at an acoustic version of "In A Silent Way / It's About That Time" after plucking on it on my dobro. It didn't sound wrong, and the slide even echoed the soprano sax and trumpet swells. I didn't want to straight up copy the song, especially the 12 minutes of "It's About That Time" which I condensed into 3 minutes, taking my favorite parts. One of my favorite parts about this project of playing all of the parts is getting to deconstruct a song, really learning how everything fits together. Even if the end product isn't a total success, I learn a lot along the way. The time-keeping is deceptively simple on "It's About That Time", and there is about 12 minutes of what seems like formless, random jamming. But it's not formless at all. It's several skilled players playing off of each, which was not easy to adapt.