Blues-Rock, Progressive: A Style Analysis of the Allman Brothers Band
This
paper was excerpted from my 2008 MA Thesis of the same title. What is
written below was delivered as a talk at the Greater NY Chapter meeting
of the American Musicological Society in January, 2009.
The Allman Brothers Band was formed in March of 1969. Each of the six
musicians in the original lineup of the group – Duane Allman, slide,
lead and rhythm guitar, Gregg Allman, lead vocals, piano, keyboard and
Hammond organ, Dickey Betts, lead, rhythm guitar and vocal, Berry
Oakley, bass and vocal, Butch Trucks, drum set and tympani, and Jaimoe,
drum set and hand percussion – brought with them a diverse musical
heritage which allowed the band to develop their own unique style of
rock music. The influences of the British invasion, the London electric
blues scene, American country, soul, rhythm and blues, folk, jazz,
Delta and urban blues are all present in the Allman Brothers Band’s
fully developed style. Critics and rock historians have also credited
the group with developing a new genre of rock, “Southern Rock.”
While there has been some attention paid to the infamous history of the
Allman Brothers Band, there has been little scholarship that has
focused specifically on the development and musical contributions of
the group. Through an examination of their musical style, a connection
to the prevailing conventions of the time period can be formulated.
Placing the group within the contexts of musical customs, sub-contexts,
musical style, idiolect and musical composition and performances will
determine what are the musical traits that signify the Allman Brothers
Band. By the time they formed in March of 1969, the group was poised to
incorporate various elements of all of the musical trends that had
preceded them and forge their own distinct style.
From 1963 to 1968 all of the members of the original Allman Brothers
Band were in groups that performed in styles that reflected the popular
music trends of the day. Of all the group’s members, Duane Allman had
achieved the most prior acclaim through his work as a session guitarist
for Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Allman’s success as a
session player led him to a management and recording contract with
Capricorn Records. Preparations for a solo album would eventually cause
Duane to play with all of the future members of the Allman Brothers
Band. In March of 1969 an informal jam session took place that included
Allman, Jaimoe, Oakley, Betts and Trucks. At the conclusion of the jam
Duane barred the open doorway and said, “Anybody in this room not gonna
play in my band, you’re gonna have to fight your way outta here.” With
most of the group now in place, Duane called his younger brother Gregg
in Los Angeles and persuaded him to move back from the west coast to
become the group’s lead vocalist and organist.
The Allman Brothers Band released four albums from 1969 until 1972:
their eponymous debut (1969), Idlewild South (1970), At Fillmore East
(1971) and Eat A Peach (1972). In total the band released 30 songs, 18
of which were original compositions. Significantly, of these 30 songs
six were actually instrumentals, five of them original, and many of the
remaining tracks included extended instrumental sections. Although the
band had amassed a sizeable amount of material in their recorded
repertoire, they tended to perform the same songs in concert, which
were selected from a much more discriminating list.
In October of 1971 tragedy struck the band: Duane Allman was killed
following a motorcycle crash in Macon, Georgia, just one month shy of
his twenty-fifth birthday. Nearly a year after Allman’s death, Berry
Oakley was also killed after crashing his motorcycle. The Allman
Brothers Band went through a series of personnel changes during the
1970s before finally dissolving as a group in 1982. The surviving four
members reformed in 1989 and the group has been a successful recording
and touring act up through the present day, although Dickey Betts is no
longer a member of the band.
The diverse musical backgrounds of the individual band members would
partially account for the group’s varied harmonic approaches. However,
the fundamental harmonic core of the Allmans’ style is the blues, and
it is the malleability of the blues, both harmonically and formally,
which allows for its ability to be rendered in many different ways, yet
retain its central character as a genre.
In his 2004 article “Making Sense of Rock’s Tonal Systems,” Walter
Everett identifies six tonal systems with nine separate classifications
for rock music. For blues-based rock music, Everett describes the tonal
system as follows: “minor-pentatonic-inflected major-mode systems.
Common-practice harmonic and voice-leading behaviors not always
emphasized at the surface, but may be articulated at deeper levels
and/or in the accompaniment.” The music of the Allman Brothers also
conforms to another of Everett’s systems, “Major-mode systems, or modal
systems, with mixture from modal scale degrees. Common-practice
harmonic and voice-leading behaviors would be common but not
necessary.”
It is important to emphasize that the Allman Brothers Band was not just
a blues-rock group. Although their original music embodies the spirit
of the blues, it certainly does not adhere strictly to its formal
rules. Their music also contains elements of jazz and classical music
that were not especially common to rock, at least in America at that
time. Butch Trucks called the musical blending that took place an
“honest, sincere melding of all those different backgrounds with people
that could really play.” The creative combination of music styles
coalesce in five original recordings by the group; “Whipping Post” from
their first album, “Blue Sky” from Eat a Peach, “Dreams,” from The
Allman Brothers Band, “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” released on
Idlewild South, and “Hot ’Lanta” from At Fillmore East.
The emphasis on riffs is a central element of rock and pop music, and
indeed, the practice of building songs around a signature riff would
become a defining feature of much blues-based rock, the work of the
Allman Brothers being no exception. Several of the songs arranged by
the band include a guitar or bass riff that is a significant component
of the identity of the song. The song that best exemplifies this is
“Whipping Post,” perhaps the song most closely associated with the
Allman Brothers Band. Berry Oakley is credited as the originator of the
famous, thundering bass riff that opens the track.
A trademark sound of the band was the dual guitar leads of Allman and
Betts, influenced from the sound of Western swing bands. Allman and
Betts relied primarily on guitar lines that were harmonized in thirds.
“Blue Sky,” written by Betts and released on Eat A Peach demonstrates
the band at its creative peak and exemplifies the simpatico that was
shared between the two guitarists. Harmonized guitar runs separate the
verses, the movement from the verse to the chorus as well as the
transitions between the solos. The song is a showcase for the guitar
work of Allman and Betts and is perhaps the best example of the musical
direction the band was headed in, had it not been for the premature
death of its leader.
The word jazz is often used in connection with the music of the Allman
Brothers Band because of their improvisational abilities and their
fondness for instrumental music. Their music is perhaps best described
as blues-rock influenced by several elements of jazz, much in the same
way that the music of Miles Davis and other jazz musicians in the later
1960s were influenced by rock. In short, the Allmans’ are a rock band
that can swing.
The jazz influence that had the greatest effect on Duane Allman, and
consequently the entire band, was modal jazz and the open harmonic
spaces that a soloist could occupy. Although the band would often use
one or two chord harmonic patterns to solo over, the song “Dreams” is
clearly connected to the modal jazz that Miles Davis helped pioneer.
“Dreams,” is in 6/8 time and the form is contrasting verse – chorus,
incorporating two similar codas. At its essence, the song is an
extended meditation using two chords, D7sus4 and D, heard over a
repeating bass line. The verse is a prolongation of the tonic (16
measures), while the harmonic progression for the chorus is comprised
of a descending stepwise progression (spanning a third) that is
sequenced up a perfect fourth.
There seems to be a direct correlation between the relationship of the
Allman Brothers to jazz and the time signature of 6/8. “Dreams”
combines a slow, pondering 6/8 tempo with a modal approach while “Hot
’Lanta,” combines several of the distinct music elements that
characterize the Allman Brothers Band: the “sideways” approach to the
blues, harmonized guitar lines, it is an instrumental and has a
swinging 6/8 feel.
“Hot ’Lanta” is the only original song recorded by the band that is
credited to everyone in the group. There is an eight-measure
introduction on the tonic A minor, and the main body of the song is a
sixteen-measure blues. However, it is not a standard blues chord
progression.
The arrangement of “Hot ’Lanta” also indicates a more advanced harmonic
approach than many of the rock bands that were contemporaries of the
Allmans. At measures nine, thirteen, twenty-three and twenty-seven, the
bass line does not play the root of the chord (A and D respectively),
but begins on the third of each chord. Although the organ holds the
tonic note of each chord, the placement of the organ within the sound
levels of the other instruments allows the bass to be heard more
prominently. Therefore, the use of the first inversion chords gives the
arrangement a distinctively lighter sound overall.
None of the members of the Allman Brothers Band make any references to
having been influenced by classical music, but the effects of several
common practice period elements are obvious in their work. Particularly
apparent in their instrumental writing and arranging are the uses of
modified antecedent and consequent phrases as well as their
understanding of tonic – dominant relationships. “In Memory of
Elizabeth Reed,” released on Idlewild South, demonstrates Betts’
advanced writing coupled with the band’s attention to harmonic detail.
The tonal architecture of this song is complex, yet its overall
harmonic structure adheres to traditional tonic – dominant – tonic
expectations. There is a long introduction that includes antecedent and
consequent phrases (based on the three phrase question-question-answer
model of the blues), which moves in a relatively slow harmonic rhythm
from the tonic (A minor) to the dominant (E dominant seventh). The
principle theme increases the speed of the harmonic rhythm, and moves
from the tonic to a minor mediant chord, then back to the tonic. There
is a brief codetta that outlines the V of V chord (B major), which then
concludes with a half cadence in the tonic key before the solo sections
begin. The harmonic language of “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” is
certainly influenced by jazz as it uses minor ninth chords and the
melody is built off of chord extensions making frequent use of sevenths
and ninths.
The precise arrangement, complex form, opposing melodic themes and
overarching harmonic movement from tonic to dominant to tonic aligns
“In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” with characteristics more commonly
attributed to progressive rock bands and the electric jazz-fusion
movements than to “Southern Rock.” Harmonically the song operates on
two different tonal systems as described by Everett, “minor-mode
systems with common-practice harmonic and voice-leading behaviors (and)
triad-doubled or power chord minor-pentatonic systems unique to rock
styles.” However, the highly skilled string arrangements present a
well-rehearsed band, and not a less formal, loosely structured
improvisational approach that a record such as Kind Of Blue achieved.
The type of compositional craft that is heard on “In Memory of
Elizabeth Reed” was simply not found in most 1970s American rock music.
In describing the music on the 1972 Yes album Close to the Edge (a
landmark progressive rock album), Mike Tiano wrote, “Instrumental
sections may have abounded, but they weren’t just random jams; they
were deliberately conceived and integral to the totality of the desired
effect.” This quote could also describe the music of the Allman
Brothers Band from the same time period.
Through the direct and indirect synthesis of many musical styles, the
Allman Brothers Band were able to develop an individual musical
identity that is clearly distinct from other rock bands of their era.
The group did not allow their respect for the music that inspired them
to handcuff them into becoming a band that relied on recycled and often
clichéd blues forms and themes. Instead, the combination of reverence
for their musical past with an adventurous spirit allowed the Allman
Brothers Band to expand the tonal and harmonic language of the
blues-rock genre beyond what was began in the 1950s and 1960s. The
extremely high level of musicianship within the Allman Brothers Band
also allowed them to expand further upon the lengthy improvisational
jams that rock groups such as the Grateful Dead and Cream pioneered in
the mid 1960s.
The use of harmonized guitar lines, unknown in rock music prior to the
Allman Brothers formation, helped to define rock and pop music of the
1970s and was used to great effect by bands such as Steely Dan and the
Eagles. The Allman Brothers Band consistent return to instrumental
compositions, centered on the electric guitar, paved the way for
guitarists such as Jeff Beck and others to establish careers as almost
exclusively instrumental performer-composers.
In 1995, the original members of the Allman Brothers Band were inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. The accompanying essay
on the museum’s website, citing the reasons for their induction,
states:
"As the principal architects of Southern rock, the Allman Brothers Band
forged this new musical offshoot from elements of blues, jazz, soul, R&B
and rock and roll. Along with the Grateful Dead and Cream, they help[ed]
advance rock as a medium for improvisation. Their kind of jamming required
a level of technical virtuosity and musical literacy that was relatively new to
rock & roll, which had theretofore largely been a song-oriented medium."
Although they are credited with pioneering the genre of “Southern
Rock,” many of the attributes that were associated with the genre were
established by bands that emerged after the success of the Allman
Brothers. Just as many early rock bands modeled themselves after the
instrumentation and musical style of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones,
emerging rock groups from the Southern United States patterned their
instrumentation on that of the Allman Brothers Band. Groups such as
Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band, the Charlie Daniels Band and
others proudly flaunted their Southern heritage, including rebel-flag
waving. By the time music critics had coined the term “Southern Rock,”
the Allman Brothers Band had already completely developed their own
musical style. Many of the bands that followed the Allman Brothers
developed their individual musical style because of the “Southern Rock”
label.
In his 1999 essay, “Popular Music, Unpopular Musicology,” John Covach
states that in order for musicologists to be interested in popular
music, popular music studies must engage in “issues that already exist
in the current discourse, or because [the issues raised] extend or are
closely related to issues within the current discourse.” He goes on
to conclude, “The study of popular music opens up new repertories and
introduces fresh perspectives on current issues in musicology; thus, it
expands our understanding of the history of music and enriches our
relationship to music itself.” The music that the Allman Brothers Band
created during the period between 1969 and 1972 does just that. As I
have demonstrated in this paper, their music reveals an intimate
kinship with rock and urban blues, as well as disclosing hidden
progressive tendencies. The poly-stylistic approach cultivated by the
Allman Brothers Band, coupled with their instrumental virtuosity,
built upon the advances of many previous rock groups while
simultaneously creating a completely original style of their own.
Christopher M. Reali
2008
