Gregg Allman has always been a gifted interpreter of the blues. As a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, and in his own celebrated solo career, Allman has taken on songs of such blues and R&B greats as Willie Dixon and Elmore James and made them his own with his soulful delivery and a smoky, weathered voice that is considered to be one of the most distinctive in the history of American music.
Although Allman has maintained a constant presence on the road over the past decade—touring both as a solo artist and as a member of the Allman Brothers Band—the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer has shied away from the studio since the 2002 death of longtime friend and producer Tom Dowd, who had been responsible for much of Allman’s recorded career to that point. He has put out nothing but an anthology and compilation and retrospective albums in the years since his rather obscure 1997 solo effort, Searching for Simplicity, and the Allman Brothers’ 2003 release, Hittin' the Note.
Well, Gregg Allman fans everywhere rejoice as the legendary blues-rock musician is back with a brand new album. Set for release on January 18, Low Country Blues, named for the coastal Georgia region he calls home, is Allman’s seventh solo recording and first in more than 13 years. A big fat hit of blues and R&B, the new album includes a wide range of covers from artists like Muddy Waters ("I Can’t Be Satisfied"), Skip James ("Devil Got My Woman"), B.B. King ("Please Accept My Love"), Bobby "Blue" Bland ("Blind Man"), Magic Sam ("My Love is Your Love"), and Sleepy John Estes ("Floating Bridge"), among others. The album, which was produced by T-Bone Burnett (Elvis Costello, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, and more recently, the highly successful pairing of Elton John and Leon Russell), also features the Allman original, "Just Another Rider," a rather reflective, existential number co-written with Allman Brothers/Gov’t Mule guitarist Warren Haynes. "I’ve got my hand over my heart," Allman says of the new album, "and if it’s a hit there, it’s a hit."
Allman was lured back into the studio when his manager suggested he [Allman] make a pit stop in Memphis, Tennessee, while out on tour in 2009 to meet with producer/guitarist/songwriter Burnett, himself a ten-time Grammy Award winner. Allman was not at all keen on doing so, however. "I said, 'Oh man, I don’t wanna start meeting a string of dudes, all of 'em trying to outdo the other one,'" he recalls. But stop in Memphis he did, and what Gregg Allman found there lit a fire under him.
About meeting Burnett, Allman says, "The first sentence out of his mouth was something like 'Tommy Dowd was The Man, wasn’t he? I’ve patterned a lot of my stuff after that gentleman.'" Allman and Burnett quickly bonded, chatting about favorite records and mutual friends, and reminiscing about WLAC-AM, the groundbreaking Nashville radio station that blasted out blues and R&B records to a large audience across the Southeast and Southwestern US during the 1950s and '60s with its 50,000-watt clear channel signal. With his guard down, Allman warmed to the idea of working with Burnett. "He told me some guy gave him a hard drive, it has 10,000 obscure blues songs," Allman says. "He says, 'I'm gonna pick out twenty of 'em and send 'em to ya and you tell me what you think.' He said, 'They're old, like Billie Holiday old, and when you listen to 'em, I want you to think about us gettin' in there and about bringin' 'em up to today.'"
Burnett’s proposition was like catnip to Allman. With T-Bone at the helm, he entered a Los Angeles studio in January 2010 along with guitarist Doyle Bramhall III, bassist Dennis Crouch, and drummer Jay Bellerose to record what would become Low Country Blues. The lineup also included a brass section arranged and conducted by trumpeter Darrell Leonard, whose illustrious resume extends back to his work with Delaney & Bonnie & Friends (featuring Gregg’s late brother Duane). Sitting in on piano was an old friend, The Night Tripper himself, Mac 'Dr. John' Rebennack, with whom Allman co-wrote "Let This Be a Lesson to Ya'" on The Gregg Allman Band's 1977 classic album, Playin' Up a Storm.
This powerhouse band, which also features Gregg on acoustic guitar and Hammond B-3 organ, "cooks up an earthy and atmospheric musical stew infused with gritty R&B muscle, spooky Southern psychedelic, and greasy deep soul grooves." The stripped-down collection of numbers on Low Country Blues takes Allman back to his Macon, Georgia, roots where he and brother Duane first set out on their adventure to becoming the Allman Brothers Band.
Although originally slated to drop in mid-2010, the release of Low Country Blues was delayed when Allman, who suffered from chronic Hepatitis C, received word that he was a candidate for a liver transplant. He entered the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, in June 2010, where he successfully underwent the difficult surgery. An inveterate road warrior, Allman spent months rehabbing, both physically and artistically, getting his body and voice back in shape to take Low Country Blues, this self-assured, spirited collection of songs, to his many fans. Knowing that he had one of the most defining albums of his recorded career in the can was some pretty powerful medicine.
Gregg Allman will play a couple of solo dates in January, and will take up residency in New York’s Beacon Theatre with the Allman Brothers for the month of March. Check out his website for further concert information.
