Low Country Blues

It’s been 38 years since I last bought a Gregg Allman album. Back in ‘73, when I purchased his solo debut, ‘Laid Back’, Gregg Allman was riding a wave of popularity, coming from the album, ‘Brothers And Sisters’, as a member of The Allman Brothers Band.

Back then, the single, “Ramblin’ Man” was all over the radio, along with, “Jessica”, one of the greatest guitar Rock instrumentals, ever. Actually, both of those tunes were largely attributable to Dickey Betts, the band’s new guitarist, but in the wake of the deaths of both Duane Allman and Berry Oakley, there was still a lot of love in the room for Gregg.

In ’73, he was still a poster boy for what had been dubbed, Southern Rock, that quasi genre which nobody takes seriously anymore. All my friends were fans of The Allman Brothers back then but none seemed to share my near obsession with that first solo album. I remember hearing Gregg’s spooky reworking of, “Midnight Rider”, a song he’d already done with The Allman Brothers Band and resolving to buy the album at the first opportunity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yojZ-Ksr8AE

There would be times in my future when that album would be something akin to a close friend. It was a cathartic exercise for Gregg Allman, filled with loneliness and empathy in songs like “Queen Of Hearts” and “Multi-Colored Lady”, and in the wake of his brother’s recent death, his versions of songs like, “All My Friends”, Jackson Browne’s, “These Days” and an elegiac, “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”, resonated as being particularly bruised and heartfelt.

Sounds weird, but it seemed there was something beautiful in all that sadness. There was a hint of levity, with a rock-house version of the Bobby McClure and Fontella Bass song, “Don’t Mess Up A Good Thing”, but mostly, the mood of the album was in keeping with it’s title.

Wailing, electric slide guitars may epitomise The Allman Brothers Band sound, but also among its trump cards has always been Gregg Allman’s vocals. From the very outset, on songs like, “Whipping Post”, Gregg Allman has proven his skills as a credible white Blues singer. On ‘Low Country Blues’, his first solo album in 14 years, Gregg Allman is still in fine voice, and completely at home.

Yesterday morning, I was reading the latest evaluation of Rock Music’s present state of health. The diagnosis was that Rock music is, finally, dead. It’s an assertion people have been intermittently voicing since the day Elvis quit recording for Sun.

Gregg Allman’s new album then, is a small but shining beacon on Rock’s apparently, terminal horizon. Most of the songs on ‘Low Country Blues’ are versions of vintage Blues songs from the likes of Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Amos Milburn and ‘Magic’ Sam Maghett. Employing the production bona fides of T-Bone Burnett, ‘Low Country Blues’ revisits these songs of the old masters in a manner that is both faithful and real. After repeated listens, little nuances begin to emerge. It’s the difference between the many shades of Blues, from the rural acoustic style of the Skip James standard, “Devil Got My Woman”, to the elastic groove of Muddy Waters’ classic, “I Can’t Be Satisfied”, to the unmistakable Chicago riffing of Magic Sam on, “My Love Is Your Love”. (ie. Sam Maghett’s “magic” can largely be attributed to his first hit, “All Your Love”. On just about everything he recorded thereafter, he continually reinvented that song’s famous riff.)

The music on ‘Low Country Blues’, performed by guests including the likes of Mac Rebennack (Dr. John), and Doyle Bramhall II, is mature, unobtrusively precise, and reassuringly honest. And rolling above it, Gregg Allman broods, growls, testifies, and swings, over the album’s dozen songs. One original composition, “Just Another Rider”, sits comfortably in the middle, between songs by Bobby Bland and B.B. King. I imagine this album would sound great in a small bar or pool hall. It sure as hell sounds good through the headphones right now, with a thimble of Irish whiskey.

So, allay that handful of dirt you’re about to throw over Rock’s coffin.

I think there’s still a faint pulse.

Down In The Flood

“Crash on the levee, mama,

Water’s gonna overflow,

Swamp’s gonna rise,

No boat’s gonna row…”

I’ve gotta say, it’s all quite surreal.

When the attention of the whole world is suddenly focused on your town, and you’re not hosting the Olympic Games, it can’t ever be good. The eyes of the world happen to be on Brisbane right now. And no, we’re not hosting the Olympics.

The city of Brisbane is under siege, bracing itself against floodwaters that continue to rise by the minute. Like most everyone else, I’m watching it all go under, on live TV.

Surreal, is, indeed, the right word.

You see, today, the sun is shining and the breezes are blowing, after many days of, sometimes, torrential rain. This morning, I walked to the store and apart from the usual post-downpour detritus on the footpath, it looked like any other day in Queensland.

Just a few kilometres away, however, neighbouring suburbs are completely under water. The dirty, though otherwise glorious, Brisbane River, is swollen, and flowing at speed. Pontoons, boats and barges have broken their moorings and been swept away, some, crashing into bridges along their route.

Even a floating restaurant broke free and drifted downstream. That the restaurant was named Drift is, merely, sad irony. It traveled under the force of the flow to a point easily visible from our office on Coronation Drive, near the recently constructed, Go-Between Bridge (named in honour of the city’s favourite cult-Rock band). Once it collided with the bridge, the floating restaurant crumbled to pieces as if it were made of matchsticks and balsa wood. We didn’t witness it first hand, of course. We couldn’t reach the office. A little further downstream, a walking-bridge also broke up and washed away.

Something like sixty suburbs are affected, being either under threat, or just under. To this point, mine not in their number. I can go outside, look around and see nothing of the tragedy unfolding all around me. And that’s why it seems so surreal.

We’ve been advised to stay off the roads unless we need to travel. Many roads are obviously cut by pockets of deep water and traffic lights, in many areas, are simply not operating. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the regiments of rubbernecks who are compelled to venture out anyway, to put their lives in possible danger and impede the efforts of emergency services, just to catch that “once in a lifetime” event on their iPhone cameras. Then, at the very bottom of the food chain, are the few, but inevitable, looters, who see nothing wrong in preying on the misery of others. They’re actually less popular than the water, right now.

Do I know anyone affected by this extraordinary act of nature? Sure I do. A friend and former radio colleague named Vanessa appeared on the TV news after being evacuated from her house. She remarked on how the community was pulling together and helping each other out. A tragedy may flush out the odd rat but, even more, it will also draw out the fundamental goodness in people. Many stories of heartbreak and true heroism are yet to emerge from all this.

A forecast peak of 5.5 metres is expected around 4 a.m. tomorrow, but Brisbane is simply the latest casualty of these floods, which now cover seventy-five percent of this very, very large state. The impact is also being felt further south, with the floods extending into northern New South Wales and even parts of Victoria.

People used to document events such as this one in song, like Charley Patton did with “High Water Everywhere”, about the great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Barbecue Bob recorded two songs about the event with, “Mississippi Hard Water Blues” and later, “Mississippi Low Levee Blues”. Another one about that same historic time was Memphis Minnie’s classic, “When The Levee Breaks”, released in 1929. Many years later, Randy Newman was even moved to write a tune about it called, “Louisiana 1927” and, completing the circle, was Bob Dylan, who paid homage to the original with, “High Water (For Charley Patton)”.  I wonder if anyone will write songs about this flood.

One of the greatest flood songs I know of is Bob Dylan’s, “Down In The Flood” (aka “Crash On The Levee”) but the song that comes into my head most often as I watch the ongoing TV coverage is, “Buckets Of Rain”. It’s not even about a flood, really. But the first few lines seem to sum it up for me right now.

“Buckets of rain,

Buckets of tears,

Got all them buckets,

Comin’ out of my ears.

Buckets of moonbeams, in my hand…”

In times such as this, people will look for comfort wherever they can find it.  I still look for it in music.

To all my friends in low places, my thoughts go out to you.