This set attempts to set Duane Allman's career in perspective by gathering an extremely varied set of performances, many of them session jobs where Duane basically functioned as just one of the studio cats backing up an established star on his or her next hit single, or an aspiring artist being given the big production on maiden voyage. It's clear now that Duane Allman was one of the true innovators of the electric guitar to rise in the Sixties; arguably on a par with Hendrix, he was just beginning to sort out the universe of sound in a highly distinctive and moving way when he crashed his bike into a truck in late '71 and died quick and ungloriously, more like a statistic than some romanticized image of a "bluesman."

What we have here, then, is three things—a memorial tribute, a predictable surefire dollars and cents hot entry in the winter disk biz sweepstakes, and a thoughtful attempt to present Duane Allman's career in some kind of cohesive context, working from and hopefully passing to the listener a perspective in which his contributions are understood as something larger than just another hotshot guitarist with a cooking band.

Long before the Allman Brothers Band proper there was a group called Hourglass, which was fronted by Duane and Gregg Allman, included other members of the later band, and made its way from the Sunset Strip psychenitery circuit to Liberty/Imperial records, for whom they made two albums around '67, '68. They don't like those albums now and have denounced them in print, but as so often when musicians are judging past work they're far too harsh—the Hourglass albums had some fine, strong music (like "Power of Love") amidst some dreck, and I believe UA will be reissuing them soon as part of their Legendary Masters Series. In the meantime, here's an unreleased demo tape of that band doing seven minutes of "B.B. King Medley." It's prototypical '68 white blues jamming, the usual shit, but done up fine. Duane never lost his gritty edge—there is the same rawness here that you can hear in the last Allman albums that Duane played on.

Cut way across to Wilson Pickett's hit cover of "Hey Jude," which was a pinnacle both for Pickett and Duane. For something that Pickett initially balked at recording because he thought it was some kind of "fag song" (or so rumor has it), this cuts the Beatles original by light years. Duane is as much the star as Wilson; such perfect control, the builds and crescendoes are breathtaking, not a note or a growl wasted. A true pop soul classic, and maybe the best thing on this album.

Not far from there to Clarence Carter's "The Road of Love," another session date and an object lesson in seething, vindictive funk. Blues as good hate, implied in the sound and delivery more than the words.

"Goin' Down Slow" is something Duane diddled off in the studio for a solo album that was never released. A self-indulgence, but a worthy one. Only white boy who ever did it better was Eric Burdon. The liners say, "His singing is passable, and the burning guitar thoroughly redeems the track." And Duane adds, referring to his slight mortification at having his vocal talents be a running joke among the Allman band, "My voice is a scapegoat." I think the singing's more interesting in this context than the guitar work. The latter is expectably exquisite, but closing side one with eight minutes of this after starting it out with seven minutes of B.B.-isms may be asking a bit much of the non-connoisseur of protracted blues buzz. The singing is weak, shower stuff—starts out almost strong but fails to sustain, lotsa flat notes, but it's all really easy to take. He knows he ain't Ray Charles, so there's none of the posturing you usually get from this kind of thing.

Side two is where the record begins to get into trouble. I don't think "The Weight" was Aretha in her strongest period. She never wore white rock covers too well (with a couple of exceptions), but Duane comports himself with proper reserve. You have to watch for him to catch him, in fact. Oh well, it makes magnificent muzak. Which might also be said of King Curtis' version of "Games People Play." Sure, Curtis was a truly superlative hornman with a tone that could tug a tear quicker'n you could slurp a reed into working order. But in spite of all the reverent writeups bestowed on him by white rock critics after he died, Curtis was always basically and foremost a sessionman. A hack, but a genius hack, and nothing wrong with that. The Coltrane of Plas Johnson territory, he could fit in anywhere and enhanced everything he did with technical elegance and deep reservoirs of soul. But that soul could as easily crop up in the middle of, say, a Peter Gunn soundtrack if he'd ever been asked to play on one as Johnson was, as on his own decks. It's partial testament to the brilliance of Duane Allman that he could hack all over town with the same uniform finesse and feel as Curtis, yet hold some extra power and loquacity in reserve for his own voyages. He's as subdued here as he was on "The Weight."

And speaking of hacks, John Hammond sure has a way of hanging in there in the face of a decade or more of obvious obsolescence. Speaking again of postures. But what the fuck, he's a good ole boy, has a good time at his schooled grunt and so do we. On "Shake For Me," the Hammond cut herein, Duane is again the perfect nearly faceless friend, shining softly when he should. It's only right to be gentle with a John Hammond, after all.

Boz Scaggs is another dude on the scene who obviously identifies strongly with all this black music, and is mostly dead earnest in his regurgitations of a lifetime spent sitting at the feet of the tall tan daddies, listening. He's gotten fairly soft of late, but he could be a killer back when he was disciplined by his status as Top Gun No. 2 in the original strong Steve Miller Band. Right after he left them he made an album for Atlantic that's still the peak of his solo career, and "Loan Me a Dime" is his own 13-minute neo-Ray Charles down & out epic opus from that album. These guys always seem to forget that brevity was at the core of the classic blues they cop—I don't think Charles' The Genius Sings the Blues album, which is one of the most soul-wrenching pieces of vinyl ever pressed and a definite must for anybody into the Allmans, had a single cut that reached the four-minute mark. Well-meaners like Boz get all spaced out on this stuff, and end up with boogity-moan muzak. "Loan Me a Dime" does build into a real churning jam, Duane upfront most of the way and taking accelerant pokes at the other musicians; but somehow it doesn't quite get it, the mind wanders, and even Duane comes off here as slightly below the apex of his powers.

Which also brings up the point that since it gets pretty hard to be objective when a titan dies, some folks auditing this stuff oughta check their enthusiasm a mite before they get totally swept away. Even John Coltrane had off nights, as Impulse's latest offerings attest, and so did Duane Allman. This isn't really one of them, but it does use up more space than it's really worth, especially since some of the most stunning pinnacles of his career occurred when he was lunging out in 20- and 40-minute solo flight with the Allmans. There is no greater testament to his genius than the fact that, amid the proliferation of self-indulgent hour-long Sunset Strip boogies, Duane Allman was almost the only white rock instrumentalist of his era who could solo just as long as he damn-well pleased and still make every note count.

Johnny Jenkins was one of the artists picked up by Capricorn after the Allmans' success made them a power in the biz. He made one album round the turn of the decade and then receded. This replay ("Rollin' Stone") only confirms my initial impression when that album was released—that he deserved to recede. Gritty, unexceptional Gulf Coast blues in the tradition. Jenkins was supposed, if memory serves, to be some kinda guitar honcho hisself, so Duane don't step out all that much. Neither does Jenkins. A dozer.

Side two is really the supersessionman phase of this anthology, and by the time Jenkins trails off and you hit bottom, you may be left feeling titillated yet never quite satisfied. Grits ain't groceries, and even though the record is offered as much as historical document as powerhouse retroride, you question the usefulness of this approach when it comes to the average listener's wants and needs, no matter how valid the whole idea may be.

Side three amplifies and continues these trends, but much more effectively for the most part. First, just like on the double Clapton look-back-quick number, you get the obligatory Delaney & Bonnie good-time Extended Family jamboree. Delaney & Bonnie were always mostly just groovy sharpies with a knack for showing up Just Where at exactly the right time. They never meant shit themselves, but they did have a lot of sometime fun while it lasted. And occasionally their fun even reached the listener, like here: "Livin' on the Open Road" is still a real rebel rouser.

Johnny Jenkins shows up again, oozing bogoils from the guts o' all them holler logs they got down thereabouts, all over Dylan this time ("Down along the Cove"—where else?). It's OK, and Duane is real sharp on this cut, high and honed and stealing the light right away for a change. Wish he'd done likewise and salvaged the cut included here by Cowboy.

Now's when, after two and a half rather uneven sides, we begin to hit pay dirt. First is the world premiere of Duane and Clapton working over Walter Jacobs' "Mean Old World." Must have been a warm-up for the Layla session, but it sounds to me more like some of those old Clapton-Jimmy Page duets: pleasant and friendly and definitely non-electrifying.

Though there's electrostun to spare right next door, where "Layla" is laid out yet again, and good as it is (never gets old, true) I think it's ridiculous that after Derek and the Dominoes' double set and The History of Eric Clapton and last summer's at-last single release all over the radio, the editors of this volume didn't exercise their marbles and present us with one of the other masterpieces from that album, like "Bell Bottom Blues" or "I Looked Away." Just for a bracing change of diet, because filet mignon three times a day ain't groceries either, even if it do sell more albums.

Finally—all the way over on side four—we get to the Allman Brothers and the real ammo unloading. Even here though, where by rights they should jump on that jet offtake and crank this crate up to a level of seething danger commensurate with a careening chopper, they yet and still punk out just the slightest deflating degree. The Allman Brothers Band are experts at tearing heads off, and with Duane in the driver's seat they took that talent to truly fearsome levels. The definitive document in this regard is The Allman Brothers Live At Fillmore East, where they take off from their primal blues brickwork to soar up with a rush so steady and methodical in its ascent it's fiendish, climaxing with the true white light/white heat transmutation of "Whipping Post" 's 20 fire-and-brimstone minutes. "Whipping Post" ain't here, nor is even a fraction of Duane's even more amazing galactic touchdown in Eat A Peach's 40-minute flight off Donovan's "First There Is a Mountain." By the time Capricorn caught that one, he was breaking into realms where the mastery of both guitar and spirit was so moltenly unified that he began to sound at times like John Coltrane. And I don't mean just copping a few shrieks off Kulu Se Mama, either.

The closest we come to that here is not the inclusion of their set-opening warm-up rave-up "Statesboro Blues," but "Dreams," off their first album, where Duane gets into some majestic sequences that feel like they could go on forever. But it would be criminal to overlook what a great song "Dreams" is. As is "Don't Keep Me Wondering," present in an alternate take to the one previously released. It's not really that much better or worse or different at all, but the hard core fans will be happy and, of course, hear and say different.

The whole shebang ends on an appropriately meditative note with Duane's brief, simple, moving acoustic solo, "Little Martha." Like the old Mike Bloomfield between amp-ups (remember that little slice of poetry at the very end of the first Electric Flag album?), Duane Allman could take you straight from lava torrents to the cool, cool shade. It took me awhile to really hear him, and I don't really think this album will do much for the ears just beginning the same process, but once you pick up on the strength, breadth and profundity of what the man was up to, you can't help but feel a sort of belated, half-vicarious sorrow yourself. Duane Allman had so much to give that all the cliches lose their banality—his passing was a loss to American music in a way that more "chic" deaths never can be. (RS 127)

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