The Allman Brothers Band: Live at the Fillmore East (2LP) [MERCURY]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set in a gatefold jacket keeps the original four-side layout, with a whole side apiece for "You Don't Love Me" and "Whipping Post." It was the band's breakthrough and their first platinum album, and in 2004 it joined the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Gatefold jacket

About the album

By 1970 the Allman Brothers Band were playing more than 300 dates a year, rolling from town to town in a Ford Econoline van and later a Winnebago they nicknamed the Wind Bag. The studio records were building slowly, but the live shows were already the talk of the circuit, so producer Tom Dowd set up a remote recording rig at Bill Graham's Fillmore East in New York in March 1971.

Two nights made the album. Duane Allman and Dickey Betts trade slide and lead guitar over the double drums of Butch Trucks and Jaimoe, Berry Oakley's bass roams freely, and Gregg Allman sings the blues from somewhere deep down. "Statesboro Blues" kicks things off with Duane's bottleneck slide, "Done Somebody Wrong" and "Stormy Monday" simmer, and "Hot 'Lanta" and the instrumental "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" stretch into jazz territory without ever losing the groove.

Not long before, Duane had jammed through the night with Eric Clapton and ended up playing on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, which tells you something about the company he kept. The band never cared for the jam band label, preferring to call themselves a band that jams, a distinction that matters a great deal to them and rather less to anyone 15 minutes into Side D.

Also at Kops: more The Allman Brothers Band on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Capricorn / Mercury (cat# 823 273-1), a reissue of the 1971 live album.