Posts
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.
