What I am going to do over the net few months is write about some of the music that has been very important to me over the years. There are a few albums that I have listened to more than others throughout my life and those particular releases to me make up my Hall of Fame. Here is one entry as a....
Charter Member
I started listening to this when I was a senior in high school. I first heard the haunting version that Gregg gave "Midnight Rider" on the radio. As I was perusing the local art gallery known as "Co-op Tapes and Records' in Moline, I came upon the whole album. Immediately buying it after hearing only one song (but knowing it was an Allman Brother), I know this as one of the most painful, gutwrencing albums ever.
Remember 1972-3 was not a good stretch for anyone connected with the band. I think this is the recording he said what he had to say by himself.
After the gritty soul of "Midnight Rider", "Queen of Hearts" is a slow steady southern blues/jazz torch number with a sweet guitar from Tommy Talton, a real nice middle 8 from "Fathead" Newman and a tasty run on keyboards from Gregg himself. Dimly lit smoky bar, late at night and the stage teeming in blues.
"Please Call Home" was one of my favorite ABB tunes anyway and he nails this to the wall. Great arrangement of a great song. "Don't Mess Up A Good Thing" was written by St. Louisan Oliver Sain. Gregg has some major ties to St. Louis because he married a woman from here. This is the only up tempo song on the record, almost a gospel shuffle and the only song that has any happiness to it.
"These Days" was written by Jackson Browne and apparently the story goes like this...they had known each other for awhile and Gregg heard Jackson play this live and immediately asked if he could "borrow" it. Jackson said sure and now says this is his favorite version of the song. This cat's in pain, ain't no doubt. Nice pedal steel and keyboard work here. This was the first version of this song I had heard. ..."please don't confront me with my failures...I'm aware of them"... "Multi Colored Lady" is the saddest of the sad. He's riding a bus and meets a sad woman and well, you know...he tries to cheer her up and fails but after a while, she smiles. This was big with me when I was riding the buses (and hitch hiking) myself for awhile.
"All My Friends" is THE definative statement about his life at that time. ..."someday we'll find we should have relied on time...". Gregg closes the album out with a respectful take on "Will The Circle Be Unbroken", a song to this day makes me cry.
This is a sad album for sad times. During some rough stretches (like driving back from St. Louis to the Quad Cities with 103 degree fever and having a cop stop me then let me go because I look "horrible"), yeah stuff like that. We all need an album or two to release all the sad, bad juju and this is truly one to do that. But, to me its a true classic, one that I listened to more than the others and a Charter member of the Randy Raley All Time Album Hall of Fame
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