Recently I paid a visit to the final resting place of Duane Allman & Berry Oakley in Rose Hill Cemetery, here in Macon Georgia.
It seems fitting, then, that I should post an entry about some of their music.
In death Duane is the much more celebrated of the two. He even has his own discography page over at Wikipedia.
Be that as it may, I have to admit that my favorite Allman Brothers Band album is the wonderful Brothers and Sisters. Sacrilege, perhaps, but then again with Chuck Leavell ticking the keys, and some great song writing by Dickey Betts, (whose contributions as a songwriter and great guitarist have been disgracefully ignored, IMHO), it really is a great album.
My second favorite Allman Brothers album is probably Eat a Peach, with the fantastic but flawed, (ya gotta be in jam-listening mood to sit through it all), Mountain Jam.
Oddly enough, my favorite Duane Allman album is Layla, where he jams with Eric Clapton.
Duane and Berry were taken from at way too young an age; we can only guess whether they would have tamed their demons and continued to create cool music, or after their spectacular starts, flamed out like Michael Bloomfield, and died young anyway.
Duane and Berry |