Skydog by Randy Poe

Author:Randy Poe [Poe, Randy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO004000 BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Composers & Musicians; MUS035000 MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Rock
ISBN: 9781617134876
Publisher: Backbeat Books
Published: 2013-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

While in New York during the Dorn-produced sessions, the Allman Brothers played the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park. The New York trip also gave Duane the chance to help Delaney & Bonnie finish the album they had begun working on in April at Criteria. Allman’s work on the Miami recordings had been impressive, but his finest slide playing with D&B would come during a session at Decca Studios in Manhattan. The only holdover from the backing musicians in Miami (by this time even Bobby Whitlock was gone), Allman unleashed a slashing slide solo on the Delaney-penned rave-up “Living on the Open Road.” It could have been Duane’s theme song.

The Schaefer Music Festival had started in June and would continue through most of August. Acts of virtually every musical genre were on the bill. Along with the Allman Brothers, the performers included Ray Charles, Peggy Lee, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Jethro Tull, Iron Butterfly (with Larry Rheinhart, formerly of the Second Coming, on guitar), Ike & Tina Turner, the Four Seasons, the Supremes, Buddy Rich, Little Richard, and many more—including Delaney & Bonnie & Friends on a bill with Seals & Crofts.

Delaney & Bonnie’s show took place on August 5, and Duane was there. That night, sitting in his apartment overlooking Central Park, jazz flutist Herbie Mann was so taken by what he was hearing that he made his way to the stage—flute in hand—and joined in. Mann and Allman immediately took to each other musically, improvising solos that stirred the crowd into demanding a number of encores.

After the show, Herbie cornered Duane. “I told him I’d love to have him play on my next album. He said, ‘Sure!’ Now some people will call him a rock & roll guitarist, but basically he was a Southern blues improviser,” Mann recalled years later. “He was a wonderful player, and he had the kind of feeling that I wanted on my records.” (Mann was always open to using innovative guitarists, including Sonny Sharrock—inventor of the “machine gun” guitar solo—who appeared on a number of Mann’s recordings.)

It would be almost a year before Duane would be able to make good on his promise to play on an album with Herbie Mann. The road was calling, and there were other sessions to do. But after years of listening to Miles and Trane, Duane looked forward to the opportunity to make a record with a genuine jazz musician.

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