One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band (36 page)

ALLMAN:
Disco went out and good old blues came back around. If you notice, the blues always seem to come back eventually, because that’s the basis for good, honest rock and roll.

Jonny Podell, who had booked the band since the beginning and was recently back on his feet after his own bouts with drug and alcohol addiction, saw an opportunity.

PODELL:
I was representing the Dickey Betts Band, ICM was booking the Gregg Allman Band, and I thought, “Wait a second; I know everyone and have everyone’s trust and respect and this had been the greatest band in America.” I got everyone together and came up with a manager that I thought everyone could agree to: Danny Goldberg.

DANNY GOLDBERG,
manager, 1989–91:
Johnny Podell called me up and said, “You are the guy to help get the Allman Brothers back together again.” He thought Dickey would trust me because I was managing the music career of his friend Don Johnson, who was at the apex of his
Miami Vice
fame, and Gregg would like me because I knew some people in the movie business.

PODELL:
Gregg always had that little love of Hollywood. I knew it would be appealing. I had my own admitted agenda—I knew we could do great business and it seemed crazy not to do a twentieth-anniversary tour.

Jaimoe was back behind his kit when the group reformed.

JAIMOE:
I knew that the best route to express myself musically was through the Allman Brothers Band, the best door to reach the people I need to reach is through the Allman Brothers Band, and the best door to make the money and live the way I want to live is through the Allman Brothers Band. I’m no dummy about any of that.

GOLDBERG:
Obviously, the key to the whole thing was Gregg and Dickey and whether they could exist together, so I met with each of them before I even spoke to Butch or Jaimoe. They both had been touring solo and had not been doing remotely as well as they could together, so they had financial incentives to do it and it became clear pretty quickly that they were ready and able to work together again and the band came together pretty quickly after a few meetings.

In June 1989, the band took to the road for a twentieth-anniversary tour, featuring guitarist Warren Haynes and pianist Johnny Neel, both from the Betts Band, and bassist Allen Woody, who was hired after open auditions held at Trucks’s Florida studio.

The Allman Brothers Band, 1990 (from left) Dickey Betts, Warren Haynes, Gregg Allman, Butch Trucks, Allen Woody, Jaimoe, Johnny Neel.

BETTS:
The Who were touring, and the Stones were getting ready to hit the road. Epic wanted us to get back together because everyone else was doing it—but it wasn’t that simple. We had to go slow, to see if the music was up to snuff and whether we really wanted to do it.

ALLMAN:
We knew we had to tour before we recorded, to make sure it was there.

BETTS:
The release of
Dreams
[a 4-CD box set summing up the band’s career] really worked out well for us, because we were in a Catch-22. We did not want to record without touring first, but it was hard to tour without a record to support and generate some interest. The box set took care of that for us, and allowed us to go out on a twentieth-anniversary tour.

PODELL:
I approached that with the beginner’s mind: the possibilities are endless. I was hopeful, because there was a tremendous legacy to build on, but there were also drug problems and personality conflicts that I knew were going to be challenges. They had a great band together but who knew how long it would last?

CAPLAN:
I wasn’t thinking short-term, but who would have thought it would turn into the longest-lasting incarnation of the band? We all knew it was volatile and not to look too far down the road.

TRUCKS:
We weren’t sure we’d even get through the first tour. We all had agreed that if the band wasn’t solid and we weren’t a good representation and couldn’t live up to our legacy, then we weren’t going to keep doing it. But we started playing good music and doing those old, classic songs proud. Then I figured maybe we could get a three-to-five-year run in.

GOLDBERG:
The music was good and they were making money from the start. And one of the greatest things about working with them was they had this great crew that was thrilled to be back on the road with them. This guy Red Dog came up to me and said, “Thank you for giving me my life back. I was dead and now I’m alive again.”

JOHNNY NEEL,
keyboards, 1989–91:
I did one tour with Gregg’s band and then he told me that the Allman Brothers were re-forming and he wanted me to go with them. He was kind of emphatic about it. He really wanted me to be in the band, but I’m not sure about everyone else.

TRUCKS:
We had open auditions for bass at my studio in Tallahassee. Allen Woody just came in and kicked butt.

ALLMAN:
I hated having to have open auditions after all those years, but it became clear fast that Allen was the guy.

ALLEN WOODY,
bassist, 1989–97:
I had listened to the band for fifteen years and thought I knew what made it tick, but I had no idea what my role would be. The day I auditioned there were ten bass players. I played last, because I wanted to see if I could pick up anything I was doing wrong. What I figured out was that the other bassists honed in on one or the other of the drummers and tried to catch a pocket with him, but to make the rhythm section work, it has to be every man for himself.

HAYNES:
Everyone else who auditioned walked in with one bass and plugged into the rig on stage. Woody brought a boatload of instruments and his own SVT [amp] rig. When he walked in and put all these basses on stands and plugged in that rig, some people thought that it was kind of over the top. Everyone was scratching his head about all those basses because the Allman Brothers were generally a group where someone played one bass all night, but Woody was bound and determined to bring his personality with him and part of that was, “I’m over the top. I’m a gear freak instrument collector and I have all these great basses to choose from.” And in hindsight, him having his SVT there was probably a plus, because it gave a hint of his tone and approach, which were both totally unique.

Woody was hired, but once the group hit the road, the original members quickly began to worry about his playing.

BETTS:
Allen was a little shaky on his feet when he started with us.

TRUCKS:
The first month or so on the road, Allen was struggling and we were starting to have doubts. He had some rough nights. Jaimoe finally sat him down and said, “Remember how you played when you auditioned for this band? Well, you better start playing like that again.” And he did. I think once he got the job he was a little nervous about being in the Allman Brothers and someone had to get it through to him to relax and play. There’s no room for doubt up there.

JAIMOE:
He was confused, because he had Gregg telling him one thing and Dickey telling him something else—and not in as nice a fashion as Gregg. Between trying to please Dickey and please himself, he was going crazy.

He was a much better bass player than what he was playing in the Allman Brothers Band and I just told him that: “You played your ass off in auditions and rehearsals and you’re not doing it on the gigs. Just go ahead and play—don’t be bothered by this, that, and the other. This is your gig.” We’d go to these jams and he was just killing it and I’d say, “That’s how you have to play
on your gig
!”

HAYNES:
Woody was going crazy because everyone was telling him what to play and giving him different directions. Dickey wanted him to come from the Berry Oakley tradition of the bass being part of the guitar line, while Gregg favors a more in-the-pocket R and B approach. Johnny Neel played a lot and was always telling Woody what to play to stay out of his way. And I was guilty myself of telling him what I thought he should be doing.

JAIMOE:
There’s no formula to this. You listen to the songs and play what’s right, and when it comes time to jam, you get a little more hyper. It doesn’t mean you don’t play the way you feel. It’s just that you have to make adjustments and play to the song.

NEEL:
It’s hard when one guy says one thing and another says something else. I wouldn’t want to be in that spot. Playing piano, I could fade in and out, pick my spots and just do my thing. Being the bass player is probably the hardest job in any band and in the Allman Brothers it’s even harder, because of the tremendous, unique legacy of Berry Oakley and how important that was to Dickey, especially. Berry had such a distinct style. You either got it or you didn’t. There wasn’t no in-between.

JAIMOE:
Betts was a dictator, man. He was always trying to tell the bass player what and how to play, and that’s not something that you do, unless it really, really needs to be done. You’re supposed to be a good musician and figure that out. Allen was a good musician.

BETTS:
There was an immense amount of material for him to learn and he was going through a learning process, but then he settled down and found his home.

HAYNES:
Woody and I had this talk and I remember saying, “Look, you’re the man. They hired you for a reason. Forget all of us. Follow your gut and go for it.” And once he did that, everyone loved him.

WOODY:
It was a lot to take in. The third gig I played with the Allman Brothers I was scared shitless and started feeling a little lost so I turned to look back and saw Jaimoe walking around his drums, adjusting cymbal stands in the middle of a song in front of twenty thousand people.

NEEL:
Rolling down the highway with two drummers, two guitar players, and a bass player is a good feeling. That two-drummer thing Butch and Jaimoe create is incredible. It was like riding a big old stallion.

Johnny Neel, 1990.

WOODY:
Butch and Jaimoe listen to each other all night and they never contradict what the other guy is playing. They really complement each other and I realized I couldn’t reinforce either of them too much; I had to go somewhere down the middle, catching the groove they create together. You have to hear them as one drummer. Typically, Butch is the timekeeper and Jaimoe sits there waiting for a hole to erupt.

MATT ABTS,
Gov’t Mule drummer:
Butch is a great, very unique drummer. I’ve heard countless drummers sit in with the Allman Brothers, including myself, and no one can replicate exactly what he does. That is testament to his creativity and being an equal part of the ABB chemistry. Butch in a different context might not be the same, but inside the ABB, he is indispensable.

Jaimoe is like an encyclopedia of drumming going back to the jazz era. He just has such a history of the drums and you can hear it in his playing. He is the consummate listener with huge ears to play around what Butch does. What they have going on together is very, very unique.

HAYNES:
The reason that Woody brought all those basses to the audition is he was always looking to express different sides of his personality. Eventually I realized he was really a guitar player and guitar players do that: we switch sounds a lot, pick a different instrument and approach to match the song, whereas bass players, especially in the old school, stayed consistent. While this may have seemed odd at first, I think it had a lot to do with his style fitting in with the Allman Brothers—because Berry Oakley was also a guitarist and his style was very aggressive, not focused on playing in the pocket.

Woody was psyched once he joined the band to utilize a wide array of sounds—and some of these sounds maybe weren’t welcomed with open arms. Woody always talked about how Berry liked to roughen up the edges of whatever was being done, to turn country or blues songs into rock and roll.

NEEL:
You have to bounce around a little bit and figure out who to listen to when you’re just a guy they hired to play and not a full member of a band. It’s a funny place to be and it could be hard to read anyone’s mood on any given day. I think anyone would say that in any job where you’re a junior staff dealing with four executive vice presidents. You never knew what was going to happen. There’s a lot of history between them boys and that’s about all I got to say about that.