100 Awesome Musical Things Part 1 - Statesboro Blues - From the Vault 2012

In 2012, I started writing a series over on Livejournal called '100 Awesome Things...' based on a suggestion by someone over there.

My chosen theme was 100 Awesome Musical Things To Be Found On YouTube.

I didn't reach 100 while I was there, despite starting some time ago, so I'll post the archive set and 

then keep going - I WILL finish this!

The Allman Brothers Band, "Statesboro Blues", Live at Fillmore East, 1971.

It's a cover of a Blind Willie McTell song and was heavily influenced by the Taj Mahal version a few years earlier (Trivia: This version was on the sampler album The Rock Machine Turns You On). Duane Allman was a greatly influential guitarist and this is probably considered the definitive version of the song (not including the original maybe). Sometimes last week, I had been researching something for my novel as to which Old Blues Classic my fictional band would cover in a particular scene. It came down to either "Smokestack Lightning" by Howlin' Wolf or McTell's "Statesboro Blues". I thought about it, rediscovered this Allman Brothers cover and realised that there is no way that another guitarist in almost the same year would set himself up against Duane at his best. My fictional boy JD Twain is a fantastic guitarist. He's certainly the equal of Clapton and Gallagher and Allman, but this is Duane at the very, very top of his game and there's no touching that.

Then by quirk of fate, on Friday there was a great documentary was on BBC Four the other day about Southern Rock concentrating of course on the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Naturally, this song was featured prominently. This week isn't the first time I'd heard it of course, but maybe it's the first time I listened. The Allman Brothers have always been in the periphery of my rock and roll consciousness. I respected them but that was as far as it went. For whatever reason, it's gotten to me now. Maybe I was just waiting til I was ready for it.

As Charlie Daniels (of The Devil Went Down To Georgia fame) said on the documentary: 'I don't care what color you are, or what creed you are, if you hear Duane Allman play the opening bars of Statesboro Blues - and maybe that's not your music, maybe you like Beethoven ...  if you listen to that and that don't move you, then you don't need to be listening to music. You need to be doing something else. Go play golf or something. If that don't touch you, there's something wrong with your heart.'