Sunday, November 15, 2009
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Gregg Allman's Fall 2009/Winter 2010 Tour
Gregg Allman: Fall 2009/Winter 2010 Tour After closing out the current and final leg of The Allman Brothers Band year-long 40th Anniversary celebratory U.S. tour, Gregg Allmanwill head back out on the road for an array of solo dates this winter. The iconic singer, songwriter, keyboardist, and guitarist begins his traditional fall tour November 11 in Salamanca, NY, followed by a select run of shows that will include a New Year's Eve show in Rhode Island. Joining Gregg on the tour will be Bruce Katz (keyboard), Jerry Jemmott (bass), Steve Potts (drums), Scott Sharrard (guitar), Jay Collins (sax) and Floyd Miles (percussion). “The Brothers had a great run this summer. I'm gonna stretch these solo shows out a bit, try some new material and just do what I do,” says Gregg. Gregg Allman Tour Dates |
Gregg Allman Sings with Tim McGraw on Jay Leno's Show
Tim McGraw gets help from Greg Allman
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 – Tim McGraw has sung with non-country singers like Nelly, and now he's done it with a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer. McGraw was joined by Greg Allman for a performance on The Jay Leno Show on Tuesday, Oct. 27. The two performed McGraw's new single Southern Voice (from his new album with the same title) in which he name-checks the Allman Brothers Band in the lyrics:
"Smooth as the hickory wind
That blows from Memphis
Down to Appalachicola
It's hi ya'll did ya eat well
Come on in I'm
Sure glad to know ya
Don't let this old gold cross
An' this Allman Brothers t-shirt throw ya
It's cicadas making noise
With the southern voice."
That blows from Memphis
Down to Appalachicola
It's hi ya'll did ya eat well
Come on in I'm
Sure glad to know ya
Don't let this old gold cross
An' this Allman Brothers t-shirt throw ya
It's cicadas making noise
With the southern voice."
'Florida Rocks Again!' Radio program, Internet podcast features 1960s acts from Northwest Florida
'Florida Rocks Again!'
Radio program, Internet podcast features 1960s acts from Northwest Florida
The Sandpipers, a Pensacola girl group from the 1960s, performs with the Allman Joys as its backing band in March 1966. Greg Allman plays the keyboards and Duane Allman is the second male from the left behind the Sandpipers. The Allman Joys would later become the Allman Brothers. The most recent edition of “Florida Rocks Again!.” Episode No. 41 features Pensacola bands and artist from the 1960s - including the Sandpipers. (News Journal file photo)
'Florida Rocks Again!' Talk about paying your dues. Long before Duane and Gregg Allman found fame with the Allman Brothers, they were playing second fiddle to three school girls from Pensacola. The brothers band, the Allman Joys, rambled into Pensacola for a two-week gig at the Sahara club in Warrington in the mid-1960s. But the club owner wanted the Sandpipers, a teen girl group from Pensacola, to play the club as well. "He had the Allman Joys back us up," said former Sandpiper Charlyne Kilpatrick, now 58 and an escrow officer for a local law firm. "They were told to practice with us. They just got here and were told we'd be in after school." The music scene of that time has gotten new life thanks to "Florida Rocks Again!" a radio program and Internet podcast. The 41st episode of the program features music from 25 rock and rhythm and blues acts from Northwest Florida in the 1960s. The program sheds light on one of the high-water marks in Pensacola's musical history, when every neighborhood had a band or two practicing in the garage, and every weekend teenagers packed places like Fireman's Hall or the National Guard Armory in Pensacola to dance to the latest sounds. Bands featured in the program include The Phatons, The Dickens, 13th Hourglass, the Laymen, Johnny Dynamite, the Kords, James & Bobby Purify, Gwen McCrae and the Sandpipers. "Back in the '60s, no matter the neighborhood, there was always a band practicing with the garage door open," said Pensacola attorney Tommy Ratchford, vocalist for the 13th Hourglass and Soul Seven during the decade. "And every weekend, there was a dance. But people didn't dance to records. They danced to bands." "Florida Rocks Again!" debuted in 2003, but this is the first episode dedicated to music from the Panhandle. "The music from the Pensacola area is right up there with any from across the state," said Jeff Lemlich, a Deltona resident, who is one of the show's producers. "I think it was one of the great undiscovered scenes in the country at that time." Soul music Some local acts, such as the Purifys and Gwen McCrae, scored minor hits. Most of the groups never made an impact outside of Northwest Florida and faded into obscurity. Their music lingers in dusty used record stores, where Lemlich picked up many of the 45 rpm records used for the show. Ratchford, 60 remembers the recording session for the 13th Hourglass' version of the Spencer Davis Group's "Keep On Running," which the Pensacola band recorded in a converted home studio in Memphis in the summer of 1967. Besides the 13th Hourglass, local acts the Dickens and Johnny Dynamite were at the same studio to record songs. "We all had to stay in the slums, because we had a black guy (Dynamite) with us and most places wouldn't permit us to stay there," Ratchford said. "It was quite an experience." Ratchford and some of his band members also provided backing vocals to the Dynamite track "Fruit From Another Man's Tree." "You had three white guys pretending to be black chicks," Ratchford said. "At the end, you hear us 'Fruit, fruit, fruit, fruit.' " But music was becoming more integrated in the 1960s. Many credit "Papa" Don Schroeder, who produced James and Bobby Purify, for introducing many white Pensacolians to music made by black artists. "We were trying to turn white people on to what we loved — soul music," said Schroeder, 68. "I wanted to get black people and white people together. That's what it was all about." Ratchford said Schoeder's musical reach was all encompassing — he was a disc jockey, producers, club owner and promoter. "Papa Don made the '60s the '60s in Pensacola," Ratchford said. "It wouldn't have been the '60s without him." Ratchford now sings vocals with the Laymen, who continue to perform locally. "Those were the best days of my life," Ratchford said. "I had no responsibility, I was making money ... How could life be any better?" The Sandpipers Kilpatrick also has warm memories of her pop-rock past, singing with her sister, Debbie Kilpatrick, and their friend, Sally Hirst. The trio formed in 1965 when they were all members of Warrington Junior High's Glee Club. The Allman Joys might have been perturbed at being asked to back the young girls, but they soon became fans as well. The Allmans invited the trio to New York City, where the Sandpipers played at the legendary Greenwich Village club Trudy Heller's. "We were doing two and three shows a night in New York, but then we had to come home and go to school," Kilpatrick said. "I failed algebra because of this. Sally did too." The trio disbanded shortly after another group calling itself the Sandpipers scored a hit with "Guantanamera" in late 1966. The Pensacola Sandpipers performed a reunion show in 2003 — without, of course, the Allman Brothers, who are now in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Duane Allman died in 1971. What was Kilpatrick's take on the Allmans? "They were skinny and ugly," she said.
November 1, 2009
Radio program, Internet podcast features 1960s acts from Northwest Florida
Troy Moon
tmoon@pnj.com
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