Photographer Jim Marshall always told me that it was because he said "Alright, smile or no drugs."

Next thing I knew, I was in the studio instead of Tom Dowd, who was out of town, to produce and engineer a band from the south called the Allman Brothers. I liked the name Allman Brothers. All men are brothers. Charlie Manson had the same sort of ring to it, man’s son, although that’s where the comparison ends. I had known Duane Allman from his session work on some of Aretha’s stuff while I was mixing the Cream albums. He did a solo on Aretha’s "If I Had A Nickel and You Had A Dime" that was tremendous, but it was mixed out in the end. Here he was again with his own band and I was to produce them. The Allmans were staying at the Chelsea Hotel on 14th Street. I had spent a few of those years chasing groupies up and down the halls of the Chelsea. A lot of guys did.

They brought their gear in and set up two sets of drums, two guitars, a bass, an organ and a vocal pilot mike. I always liked to do a pilot vocal. If you get it you use it. If you don’t get it you don’t use it. Somewhere in the room there’s a pilot vocal mike, like a ghost.

It turned out that they were really easy to work with, God’s gift to a tired engineer who had gotten used to doing take after take for hours with the Rascals. We got everything set up and did one take of the first tune, "Don’t Want You No More." It was an instrumental intro to a blues song called "Not My Cross To Bear." Both songs were great and I was impressed. Duane came back into the control room after the take. "How did you like that?" I said. "You’re the producer," Duane replied. "How did you like it?" "I thought it was fucking brilliant." "Well you’re the producer. If you like it we got it."

There was no chance to do any fancy engineering, but the two bass drums worked really well together, as did the organ and the two guitars. I was really happy with it. At the end of the first night’s recording, we had about half the album in the can. In fact, if I had pushed it we would have had the whole album in one night. I recorded Aerosmith’s debut album almost as quickly four years later.

Incidentally, I decided this was going to be the first album done on earphones. I was so impressed with the engineering on "Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band" and I was striving to get us caught up. I thought we were ten or fifteen years behind that. The music to the media was perfect, as it was on subsequent Beatles albums.

Of course atlantic ultimately ended up with the best anyhow, the first three abb lps (thru fillmore), via their deal with capricorn, which then left to go to warners. The only reason duane ended up on capricorn was because phil and jerry wexler (both capricorns) wanted to start a new r n b singles label ala stax (they worked together in the otis redding years). Duane was doing session work in muscle shoals (long after hourglass and allman joys had disbanded at least in rock n roll time). After hearing duane’s playing on wilson pickett’s "hey jude" phil bought his contract from rick hall (fame studios).

Duane came to macon and originally cut a number of tracks as a power trio (ala jimi hendrix) several of which appear on the anthology albums (happily married man, no money down) and many of which form the backgound for johnny jenkins "ton ton macoute", which was produced by johnny sandlin and features all of the abb along with eddie hinton and pete carr among others and is a kick ass must have lp for any duane fan. Johnny jenkins version of dr johns walk on guilded splinters is also on the anthology lp and was sampled by beck on "loser.".

If that aint enough trivia for you, johnny jenkins and the pinetoppers were from macon and featured a sometimes lead singer named otis redding. Phil booked for frat parties when he was a teenager in macon in the late 50’s. Jenkins was a major influence on jimi hendrix who mimicked johnny’s dress and style of playing. They met in macon where hendrix would come to visit his relatives.

Anyhow, I’m not familiar w. the Ahmet-Jerry-Walden/Capricorn connection from an insider’s Praeger-like viewpoint. At the time, I was a very junior publicist at Atlantic (that I was employable at all after my Elektra mischief-itude was thanks to Jon Landau, who recommended me to Jerry; Jon and I had sort of managed the MC5 together when Sinclair was in jail). Anyhow, one day my boss, the late and awfully sweet Bob Rolontz, asked me to do him and the company a favor and go see this band that was playing at Ungano’s, a favorite (tho unlikely) refuge for pariah bands in the early 70’s (which is where it was located as well! West 70th street, I think). Rolontz explained that a deal with Capricorn was in the offing and we had to be nice to their artists, even this obviously doomed bunch of Southern (!) white (!) hippies(!!). "I know this is definitely NOT your kind of music," Rolontz said, but we’ve got to show a presence there, even if it’s just you (said with a wing and a giggle)". "And they’re never going to get anywhere, but it’s politics." So I went, and was lifted off the earth by what I heard.

Next day, back at Atlantic, I was buzzing about this GREAT new band that’s OURS!! I was told not to waste my enthusiasm on them, but to go out and promote something really important, Like Emerson, Field and Stream, whatever that mediocrity was called. "This Southern guitar band will never make it, not a chance." Well, that’s MY Atlantic/Allmans story, I’m sure Bud knows the details, I’m just giving you the buzz, which was at that point sub-sonic at Atlantic’s offices over a drug store in Columbus Circle.

And while I’m being sleazy, did you know that the Epic publicity dept. had to RE-TOUCH a press-kit foto of Gregg because his sequoia-sized organ, clearly extending halfway to his knee and threatening to burst thru his Levis, absolutely dominated the shot. The girls at Epic were kvelling, the boys were stricken with awe and envy, and the offending member was air-brushed to a less overwhelming size. If you can get hold of one of the pre-castration shots, it must be worth a fortune. I suppose about a thousand or so were sent out before it became an "embarrassing issue." That Cher!!

Best,
Danny

he said if i could get them a record deal i would be manager and have part of the publishing…i flew back the morning after the show ..called ahmet from the airport..he said "come on over" played him one song…"spoonful" ..half way through he said "you’ve got a deal"…has a record deal ever been made faster ????…

i called jdl and expected a jubilant "incredible""…instead there was a long silence and then those unforgettable words …"isn’t that the label (atlantic) with all those ……." ????

i was dumbstruck and said they are on their way to being a great rock label….he said he’d check it out and get back to me …he didn’t…i called ..and called …even called the groups mother ..in florida as i recall…then nothing …

many months later i was up at atlantic ..and jerry wexler is playing "my"album…i stopped ..he looked at me and said "that was your group wasn’t it ??? " i said yes ..and he said "you’ve been fucked"…they decided to go behind my back ..went to buddy killen who had dial records (joe tex)(distrib by atlantic) and cut me out …to his great credit and honor(there once was a large degree of honor in the music business) jerry said "you brought them to us so its your call ..we’re planning to sign them but if you say no we’ll pass"

i called jerry the next day and said sign them …but do me a favor and put it out on dial …so i fucked them back but good ..they were released on dial …they were known originally as the skating rink band, "the allman joy’s"..as casey stengal said "you could look it up"….

bud prager