Thinking
it was perhaps wise to change the subject, I remarked that there was a
similarity between the Brothers and the Grateful Dead in some respects, and he agreed
but said there was never any intention of copying them. He loved the Dead, and
respected Garcia a lot.
“We always have an interval during the
sets now,” said Gregg, starting on another tack. We do that mostly for the
drummers. Jamoe [Jai Johanny Johanson] has got a bad back and he plays all the time and it’s a strain for
him on stage. He’s ridiculous man, he never ever stops playing anywhere. On the
bus, in a bar, everywhere he goes he keeps tapping away. Now he wears a brace
around his back.
“He’s the most different, strange and
lovable boy I’ve ever met in my life, and I’ve met a lot of people.
“So we take a break for a smoke and a
drink. Usually we put the mellower stuff in the first half of the show and
start kicking later on. It’s the best way.”
I mentioned that Gregg tucked himself
away from view.
“I’ve always been a pacifist,” he
said. “I sing a lot of songs. It’s a good job I do. Y’know I never played a
Hammond before I got into this band. When I got the damn thing I didn’t know
what the hell to do with it. I looked at the pedals and got hip to taking them
off... and I still don’t know what to do with them.
“Remember I was the last in this band.
Duane called me and said he was putting a band together and going into the
studio. I was on a strange, starving trip out in LA at the time, and I told him
I needed some time to get to play the organ. He said you don’t have to play an
organ, just look great, and that’s what it was. And I had to sing.
“I remember seeing Traffic in
Jacksonville once and saw Steve Winwood. That cat is incredible, man. He can do
everything. He wrote ‘Gimme Some Lovin’’ when he was fifteen-years-old.
“Wow. I love that cat next to Ray
Charles. You know, my brother always had a very high regard for Cat Stevens.
There’s three people who have never made a song I didn’t like – Traffic, Cat
Stevens and Van Morrison.
“I wish to hell I could work with
Winwood but I’ve never met the cat.”
I asked whether Gregg could offer his
own explanation for the band’s current immense popularity. He didn’t seem to be
able to. “It could be that Betts has finally started writing. Had that song
‘Ramblin’ Man’ for ages and he comes up to me and plays it for me and says he’s
thinking of doing a country album and sticking it on that. Hell, that song
cooked. Anything cooks if you get the right people.
“Also, the kind of organisation we
have had together is such that if anybody has an idea we all listen to it and
that’s good.
“You know, I have tapes here in the
house of songs that Duane made and they’ve never been recorded or performed on
stage ever. And some of those are so good.”
Again he stopped, seemingly unwilling
to talk further on this subject, so I asked whether the band saw a great deal
of each other off-stage and whether the stories about them frequently turning
up at local clubs for a blow together were true.
“I can go for two months without
seeing Richard Betts or Butch Trucks, but I see a lot of Chuck Leavell and the
other two,” he said candidly, almost ignoring the real question.
So I asked whether the band was closer
when they were struggling than they were today.
“It had nothing to do with
struggling,” said Gregg. “It had to do with working our asses off for so long
together. It was the programmed sets that we didn’t enjoy.
“I’ve always enjoyed playing every
concert we’ve ever done unless it was out in the rain and we might have got
electrocuted. In 1970 we worked 256 dates and neither one of us made 1,600
dollars.
“I remember we did three nights at
Ungano’s in New York with an English band called Fat Mattress, and one of them
came up and wanted to jam with us, and Duane looked at this cat and told him to
get the hell out of it.
“But I don’t wanna say much about
other bands. Everybody’s got their own little scene man. Alice [Cooper] is a
nice guy but I’d walk out of one of his shows. Iggy’s a fine cat but on stage
he’s another person. Everybody’s to their own hit though.”
So I asked who Gregg would choose to
go and watch. His answer surprised me.
“The
Moody Blues,” he said without any hesitation whatsoever. “They blew my head off
the last time they played in Chicago. It was the first stereo show I’d seen and
the cat that played that Mellotron knocked me out.
“Taj Mahal is another. We had to
follow that cat one night and there were heel marks all over the stage. There
was Howard Johnson once and man, he came up with a rusty old dobro and blew us
off that stage before we knew it. Little Richard too, he blew us off stage.”
But Gregg listed Chuck Berry as his
first major influence.
“I was 12 years old and the first
guitar I ever got was in 1960. Duane got one a little later. It was in Florida,
where the white cats surfed and the black cats made music.
“Y’know, I was going to be a dentist,
fixing teeth?” He opened his mouth wide and pointed to a back tooth and
grinned.
The success had changed the band? “Not
a damn bit,” he said suddenly.
“Off the set, maybe, but on the set
we’re the same as we’ve always been. I’ve never thought about the bread. In
fact, I feel a little guilty about the bread at times.”
It was at Watkins Glen earlier this
year that the Allmans – and the Grateful Dead – attracted an audience of
600,000, the largest gathering of rock fans ever.
“I was kinda sick with the heat that
day,” said Gregg. “And I was petrified, ’cos we had to go in a helicopter and
I’d rather travel by camel than a helicopter. The high point of that scene was
The Band. They got the right name: THE Band, ‘cos that’s what they are.”
I wondered whether Gregg enjoyed being
on the road.
“My last few tours have been pretty
eventful. It’s very strange going back on the road after being at home for a
while. The throat needs some action so I’ll maybe sit here and bellow for a
while before setting out.
“Alternatively, I’ll stay up whole
days before the first gig which means I’m going on stage not having slept for
48 hours. I work best when I’m totally beat.”
I mentioned Eric Clapton, and Gregg
recalled the sessions when Duane played on the Layla album. “I wish he’d come over here and
play with me. Gawd, I’d love to play with that cat. If you come across him tell
him that. He’s been a recluse too long, and if the boogie is in the boy it’s
got to come out.”
And Hendrix? “Now there was one of a
kind. I think everybody in the world should have been into Hendrix. There never
has been and never will be one like him. That first album... wow, nobody’s ever
cut an album like that.”
The Brothers have just been awarded
various Playboy awards, including a posthumous one
for Duane as the musician of the year. They’re also the top vocal group, an
award which Gregg shrugs off easily.
“Listen, I can’t get any of those
asses to sing. Print that. It could be a great vocal band. They all sing but
they don’t want to. Duane could sing good, too. “I have some tapes of him you
wouldn’t believe. I’ve written songs for the band with vocals that have been
turned down.
“Listen,” he said. “Turn that recorder
off and I’ll play you something....”
Then Gregg shouldered the acoustic Gibson
and began to play. I wish now I’d left the recorder running.
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