There is a story behind classic live album cover art

Today’s post is sort of continuing a series of observations about so-called “reactors” to 1970s and 1980s pop music by young YouTube channel owners who draw viewers by “reacting” to first listens of tunes that those of us who are much older long-ago heard and enjoyed. 

I’ll admit that the posts by these young YouTube reactors are intriguing, because the vast majority of songs they listen to have been requested by their viewers (including subscribers). Some of these viewers even pay the channel owners to belong to a higher level of the channel’s platform (the benefits of which I don’t fully appreciate because I’m not such a patron). 

I’ve been finding a lot of “reactions” to three songs from the Allman Brothers Band classic live album, Live at Fillmore East, the cover of which is depicted in the photo leading off this post. The songs are Statesboro Blues, Whipping Post and In Memory of Elizabeth Reed. 

All three of these are wonderful tracks on the Fillmore album, although my favorite is the instrumental Elizabeth Reed.

But none of this is what this post is about. This post is about what I only recently learned that explains why the band members are laughing in the cover art. I’d always wondered about it but never bothered to take a moment to explore. 

Until just the other day. 

Fillmore East was recorded in March 1971, and the following month, photographer Jim Marshall woke up the band early one morning in Macon, Ga., where they were based, to gather them for a photo shoot for the album cover. 

They met in a city alley, and road crews gathered and stacked the equipment travel cases as you see in the picture. (Supposedly, Marshall himself stenciled the lettering on the case in the upper left hand corner of the cover.) 

The band members were grouchy at first because of being awakened so early by Marshall. But fortuitously, Duane Allman (the second band member from the left in the photo) saw a drug dealer he knew in the alley and ran over to score something then scurried back to the group trying to hide the score in his hands. And when he settled down to sit, he kept the purchased goods hidden behind his hands in the manner shown in the pictures. 

His bandmates thought this was hilarious, and Marshall took advantage of the relaxed mood to snap several shots, settling on the one you see on the cover. 

The album’s backside has the road crew gathered for a picture at the same spot, but they had no similar funny moment to get them to flash smiles.

Duane would be dead in a matter of seven months, the result of injuries from a motorcycle accident in Macon. Sadly and ironically, band bassist Berry Oakley (standing, far right) would die in the same manner about a year after Duane passed. 

Both Duane and Berry were buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, the same cemetery where the band saw the Elizabeth Reed tombstone that inspired the aforementioned instrumental jam tune. In fact, Gregg Allman and drummer Butch Trucks, who lived into the new millennium, are also buried there alongside Duane and Berry.

Only Dickey Betts, the guitarist who composed Elizabeth Reed, is not buried there. He died in 2024, and his remains were cremated and ashes given to his wife. 

One original band member, drummer Jaimoe, survives. 

The Eagles' Randy Meisner's story is a sad one

The previous post at this blog discussed how young music “reactors” on YouTube create channels that attract viewers to watch these reactors hear, ostensibly for the first time, various popular songs from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

It's a curious concept, one I felt drawn to in a strong way. After all, they were talking about songs I heard on the radio when I was growing up. 

Some of these “reactors” are music professionals — voice instructors, members of symphonies, classical music experts. Their reactions have made a big impression on me, and I find their observations are the most legitimate. 

The bulk of the other reactors, I gather, are simply people who might have listened to contemporary music growing up, “growing up” years that were in the 1990s or 2000s. And today, they are being challenged to give older music a listen and a chance to make an impression.   

One popular artist picked by the reactors to check out is country singer and legend George Jones, the subject of the previous post. After I activated the George Jones post, it occurred to me that another performance that has left many “reactors” in awe is a 1976 live concert performance of the Eagles’ Take It to the Limit, whose lead vocal was handled by band bassist and co-founder Randy Meisner.

Every reactor was stunned by how Meisner handled the song’s lead vocal. Several said they didn’t understand why Meisner didn’t do more lead vocals because they thought he had the best voice in the band.

The answer is that Meisner disdained the limelight, wrote way too few songs himself (the Eagles had a tightly observed practice that whoever wrote the song would handle lead vocals. And as it turned out, Don Henley and Glenn Frey did almost all the songwriting for the band).

I agree that Meisner’s Take It to the Limit performance in that 1976 live concert video is absolutely stellar. Sadly, as I learned only in recent years, it was his refusal to sing that song for an encore at a show during the band’s 1977 tour that resulted in his exit from the band.

By 1977, Meisner grew very frightened of not being able to hit the climactic high falsetto notes in the song’s final refrains. And his band treated that as a line in the sand that they couldn’t allow him to cross. 

Curiously, Meisner, who also had co-founded the country-pop band Poco in 1968 before joining the Eagles, left Poco after the band’s first album, Pickin’ Up the Pieces, because he was angry he wasn’t  invited to participate on the album’s mix playback sessions. The band responded by wiping away Meisner’s lead vocal on the title track and having the band’s drummer, George Granthan, re-record it. The band also used a dog to replace Meisner’s image on the illustrated album cover art. His bass work and backup vocals were kept on the recordings.      

Meisner attempted a solo career and assembled or joined a few ensembles in the ensuing years, but his time with the Eagles was clearly the high point of his musical career. He died on July 26, 2023, at age 77 due to complications associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. 

The image of Meisner at the top of this post is in the public domain and from his Wikipedia entry.

Finally catching up to a haunting George Jones tune

I was an avid follower of contemporary music for many years, certainly from early teens until my kids got to be young adults. 

I even worked as a DJ on my college radio station and for several years reviewed new record album releases for The Indianapolis Star. I grew to like pop, rock, blues, jazz, New Age and even classical music. But country music was not one of my faves except for a brief period in the early 1980s, and that’s a separate story not worth getting into here. 

For three months of summer 1974, I worked as a local news gatherer for WGLB AM-FM radio, which then was based in Port Washington, Wis. WGLB had a mostly country music format. The exceptions to the country format occurred in late afternoon and early evening. At 6 p.m., the AM station signed off, and the FM band would play pop music before signing off at midnight. 

I worked there mostly during daytime hours, so I heard almost nothing but country music. I’m sure it was there that I first heard the voice of George Jones, one of country’s biggest stars. His voice struck me the wrong way; the nasal tones underscored the stereotype I’d become familiar with about the genre from the little bit with which I was familiar. 

Fast-forward to 2026, when I stumbled across a George Jones song, He Stopped Loving Her Today, being reviewed by one of what seems like scores of very young YouTube personalities who are making a thing out of posting video reactions to what they claim are first-time listens to popular music from the 1960s, '70s, and '80s that they all say they had never heard before. 

First off, Jones was not the first artist I’d come across on one of these YouTube “reaction” videos. I’d looked in on multiple Pink Floyd videos (Comfortably Numb, On the Turning Away, Shine On You Crazy Diamond and Wish You Were Here are very popular among these reactors), and quite a few others videos too many to mention individually here. 

YouTube knows what viewers are watching, so if you watch one music “reactor” video, they’ll line up several others — either of the same song or other songs by the artist — for you to click on when you’re done with the one you’re watching. Suffice it to say I finally landed on a reactor’s video reaction to a George Jones song.

Jones’ He Stopped Loving Her Today was released in 1980, so I’m sure I heard it during that brief period in the early 1980s when I was paying attention to country. But the key here is ... I did not pay attention to the lyrics or its story at the time. I summarily dismissed it because, at the time, his nasal vocal tone turned me off.

But when I recently came across the tune from a “reactor” video on YouTube, I decided to stop and give it a listen. A serious listen. Boy, how 40+ years can make a difference. 

Jones sings the song tenderly, and I listened to its story closely, a tear-jerker that Jones relates in the third person. By the time I reached the critical lines near the end, I was a bit confused. I listened to the ending again, and I ascertained my suspicion. And it made sense. 

The reactor I chose for the watch/listen had the same momentary confusion at the same point I did. He then said he had heard beforehand that He Stopped Loving Her Today is widely considered the greatest country song ever. And I think the reason is that the composer(s) (it wasn’t Jones) wanted the climax to be subtle. And boy, it sure is.  

I then watched/listened to about a dozen other “reactors” who chose this song, too, to see how well they could figure out the ending. Only one or two did not get it or responded indifferently. Most stopped the song in horror or dismay during the same critical lines near the end as the light bulb went on. And they gasped in disbelief because, as many of them say, they did not see this coming. (I’m not getting into too much detail as a kind of spoiler courtesy; who knows, perhaps some readers of this post haven’t heard the song.) 

But I will join the crowd who think this might be the best ever country song. It’s sad, cleverly narrated and powerful.

Note: The photos in this post were pulled from George Jones’ Wikipedia entry, which states both images are now in the public domain.