One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band (43 page)

WEST:
Woody comes strolling through the lobby and I send him onto the bus. I was at the back of the bus when Dickey comes around the corner and stops Woody at the door, which is standing wide open. Dickey reaches out, touches Woody’s shoulder, and grabs his hand to shake in a seeming gesture of friendship.

While standing very close, making direct eye contact and holding tight to Woody’s hand, with his other hand he reaches into his back pocket, opens a knife, and holds it behind his back as he keeps Woody there while he’s talking to him. Apparently it goes well enough and Dickey closes the knife and slips it back into his pocket. It was a very scary thing to witness.

JAIMOE:
After Woody stood up to Dickey, Dickey was deeply intimidated by him and became determined to get him out of the band. We all knew that getting Woody out without Warren was going to be impossible.

WEST:
Woody always played too loud and there was off-and-on complaining about that throughout his tenure, and it was used as an excuse, but everyone knew what was really happening.

In interviews at the time both Betts and Allman referred to the band getting too loud—a persistent Allman complaint often directed at Betts as well. Woody and Haynes remained with the ABB for a pair of private parties over the winter and for the thirteen-show Beacon run in March 1997. During these shows, however, it became clear to band insiders that a break was imminent. Shortly after, Haynes and Woody announced they were leaving to focus on Gov’t Mule, the power trio they had formed in 1994 with drummer Matt Abts.

BUTCH TRUCKS:
It became obvious that Woody and Dickey could not be in the same band together, and we knew that Warren was sticking with Woody. I will always regret that I went and met with Warren at his apartment in New York and told him what was going down. I said, “If I was you, I would focus on Gov’t Mule and resign from the Allman Brothers because Dickey is not going to work with Allen anymore.” That was the point where we should have said, “Fuck it, enough of this guy. It’s time to try it without him.”

HAYNES:
I don’t know how much he knew that Woody and I had been contemplating leaving the Allman Brothers for a long while at that point, but one of the things I remember Butch saying is he wished he had built himself a back door. He was basically saying, “I wish I had a Gov’t Mule” and I think that’s part of what led to him forming Frogwings [a band with Derek Trucks, Jimmy Herring, and Oteil Burbridge].

BUTCH TRUCKS:
Gregg wasn’t there to help; he was still in such bad shape that I couldn’t even have a real talk with him about things like that and Jaimoe just wanted to play music, so it was me and only me having to make all these difficult decisions. I wish I had not had that talk, but I have a wife and kids and I was doing everything I could to hold the damn thing together.

QUIÑONES:
Warren and Woody had already started having conflicts with scheduling and whatnot with the Mule, and after that shit went down, I think they just collectively decided it was time to focus on the Mule.

MATT ABTS:
It got really intense with Woody and Dickey … It got to the point where Dickey was maybe going to fire Allen and no one knew what was going to happen. It was very comforting to them that they had Gov’t Mule to turn their attention to, and very exciting to me that they were willing to say, “OK, we’re out of there.” We had a record out that we thought had wings and they were like, “We don’t need these guys. We can fly.” Regardless of the situation, splitting the Allman Brothers was a ballsy thing to do.

HAYNES:
There was so much negativity in the Allman Brothers camp and so much positivity in the Gov’t Mule camp that it became more and more untenable to stick with the status quo.

ABTS:
They had been talking for a while about how stagnant the Allmans were and how they were growing frustrated.

HAYNES:
The Allman Brothers weren’t rehearsing, we couldn’t work up new material, people weren’t talking to each other … and Gov’t Mule was at the opposite end of everything. We were bursting with ideas, dying to work out songs, to rehearse, perform, record as much as possible. Things had escalated in the Allman Brothers to a point where we knew it was time to make a change, which we had been talking about for at least a year, maybe two, but had been procrastinating.

It’s not an easy decision to leave an institution like the Allman Brothers behind. On one hand, yes, it can fall apart at any moment and we’re going to be wondering what’s next—which in our case was cool because we were building a back door. On the other hand, if it was something that could be salvaged and get back on the right track and continue to make great, legendary, timeless music, then you want to be a part of that—especially if it could coexist with what you’re doing. That’s where we were for a couple of years but as things changed and the negativity got more intense in the Allman Brothers camp, we said, “We have a lot of faith in what we’re doing and now is the time to give it one hundred percent.”

Guitarist Jack Pearson, who had played in Gregg’s solo band and filled in for Betts for those nine shows in ’93, was hired to take Haynes’s place. While that was an easy, natural fit, the Aquarium Rescue Unit’s Oteil Burbridge was such an outside choice to replace Woody that even he was surprised to get the call.

BUTCH TRUCKS:
Dickey asked me if I thought Derek was ready and I said no. I really had not played with him yet and while I knew his slide playing was more than ready, I was not sure about the whole package.

OTEIL BURBRIDGE,
ABB
bassist since 1997:
I got a call to go down to Dickey’s house in Florida to play with him for a few days. I went out and bought all their records, but I barely knew where to start. I listened to everything to get a feel, knew that I could learn it all and figured I’d just pick up the songs as we went, which was, of course, a big mistake. If I had been savvier and smarter, I would have figured out which tunes Dickey wrote and learned all of those parts.

Jack [Pearson] was also there at Dickey’s house. He played an acoustic blues and when he finished, Dickey just got up and walked out of the room. He came back and handed him one of Duane’s glass slides [an original Duane Coricidian bottle]. Just like that, he was in.

PEARSON:
I played a Blind Willie Johnson song—on Duane’s Dobro, the one he recorded “Little Martha” on. Dickey and I had played a lot of electric guitar together, and then he said, “I want to hear how you can play slide,” and went and got me the Dobro. We had a good time. Obviously, receiving Duane’s slide was a very special moment.

ALLMAN:
After he played with him, Dickey said, “Either we hire him or I ask him for lessons.” That’s [how] we all felt.

TRUCKS:
Jack is a great rhythm player. From the get-go, he played great comps behind Dickey’s solos and innately understood when to play with us [the drums], when to play with the organ, and when to play counterpoint to Dickey or the bass line. That happened immediately, and with every gig, he established his solo voice more and more. He concentrated on learning and even improving the song first and establishing his identity second, which I think is appropriate.

BURBRIDGE:
Jack had the gig, but I handled the whole thing poorly. I had my six-string, which Dickey didn’t like, and I had not learned enough songs properly, arrogantly thinking I could just pick them up. So Dickey would for instance say, “Let’s play ‘Jessica,’” and I’d go, “OK. Show me how that goes.” And we did that for a few songs and he was rightfully annoyed and he said, “Don’t you know any of these songs? How did you grow up in Birmingham (where I lived) and not learn some of these?” And I was like, “I’m from D.C.!”

Dickey was taken aback, and was thinking that he could get a guy who had these songs in his fingers. I lost the sure gig and Dickey wanted to bring in other guys and have us all audition. I hadn’t even touched a four-string in ten years, and I hadn’t played with a pick in nearly as long. But in between playing with Dickey and this audition, I listened more and more to the albums, focusing on Berry’s parts, and also on Lamar Williams and Allen Woody’s, for the material from their era, and realized that to nail those parts, I had to play what they were playing.

God bless Joe Dan Petty [
Dickey’s guitar tech and a longtime crew member who was also the bassist in the band Grinderswitch
]. He took me to buy a Mexican Fender Jazz bass that I used in the tryouts; it was $185! He not only altered the course of my life by reintroducing me to the four string—I didn’t even own one at the time—but he showed me some crucial fingerings that Berry used, for instance on “Leave My Blues at Home.” Unless you finger it that way, it will never feel the same. What a gift.

WEST:
Everyone knew that Oteil was a hell of a player. They had done the HORDE tour and seen him up close and he was playing all over Atlanta, but there was some concern if he was the right fit. They flew him and two other bassists down to Sarasota. I was driving them all to the tryouts and Oteil was pretty nervous. Joe Dan knew that Oteil had the chops and the spirit and he wanted him to get the gig and just took him under his wing to help him any way he could.

BURBRIDGE:
Playing with this band is a real challenge, because you have two drummers, plus a percussionist, as well as two guitarists and Gregg’s organ. There’s so much going on in the music that you really have to work to find something to lock down on.

PEARSON:
It was pretty easy for me to fit in and settle down, having played with the band before and worked with Gregg a bunch. Basically, I knew all the songs and understood the dynamics.

BURBRIDGE:
I was so nervous, I could barely sleep or eat, but everyone was really helpful. Tom Dowd helped me figure out how to lock in, and when to follow whom. I found that the key was to treat the drummers as one entity because they gel so well. Joe Dan also provided insight into how Dickey felt about the role of bass guitar in this band, how Berry felt about his role and approach, and a bunch of other things. Jaimoe was a great help, too, for instance, making the connection for me between Miles Davis’s “All Blues” and “Dreams.” But really everyone in and connected to the band has helped me to understand the music. Butch, Gregg, Dickey, Marc, Warren, Jack Pearson, Jimmy Herring, Chuck Leavell, Ace Man Tom Dowd.… And others like Joe Dan, Red Dog, Bert Holman, Kirk West, Chank, Babuna, and many others.

Jack Pearson, 1998.

The more of the story you learn from the cats who were actually there, the better off you are. Living history is the best. They told me things like not to panic if Dickey came and got right in my face, which he likes to do. Usually, he’s just saying, “Time to come with me.”

PEARSON:
They really let me play whatever I wanted from the get-go, which is so wonderful and rare. Usually a musician has to choose between playing the big pop gig and the small, express-yourself gig. This is a very rare situation where it’s both at once.

BURBRIDGE:
There was no doubt that they could have hired someone else to replicate the classic sound perfectly. I, of course, had the obligation to learn the history and replicate the right feel and sometimes the precise sounds, but bringing in a guy like me or Marc Quiñones—guys coming from very different places, with no rooting in Southern rock—shows that they also wanted to go somewhere different. We didn’t even own any ABB records! Regardless of musical background, these pulses and grooves are something we have in common and if we’re listening we can make music together naturally. You have to open your ears and your heart to the music.

As Pearson and Burbridge settled in, the band adopted a slightly quieter, more in-the-pocket style.

PEARSON:
We actually worked on getting the parts closer to the originals at our first rehearsals. They had changed through the years and I thought Duane’s harmonies were great, so I wanted to play those. It was cool and a lot of fun getting the original sound back—Butch, Red Dog, and Joe Dan all talked about this and Dickey seemed to enjoy it.

JAIMOE:
Oteil drove me crazy for a while. Like Woody and Rook, he had a hard time figuring out the role of the bass in this band. He may be a better musician than I am in some terms, but there’s some things that he don’t know and like everyone else after Berry, he had to figure out how to play in a way that made Gregg and Dickey both happy. It didn’t seem that hard for Lamar, but everyone else has struggled to a degree. The thing is, Gregg is not wrong about what he’s saying and Dickey is not wrong. You should be able to do both; it’s like playing in the studio and the gig—two different approaches.

BURBRIDGE:
You give them each what they want in their songs. Of course both of them wanted opposite things on different days so it’s like surfing. Each wave is different and you take them as they come. You’re required to stretch out as a bassist with these people, but it’s got to be straightforward, too, like a big king-size bed that’s comfortable for everyone to lie down on.