T-Bone Burnett seems to spend all of his time these days producing albums for old rocksters. Usually it's a reflective album looking back on their musical influences, and almost always it's underwhelming. Burnett likes to strip down the artist and the music to their bare necessities and let the purity of the artist come out. For the most part this works, but more than often there is a missing energy from the production that leaves the album, though not bad, a bit flat. This album is a great example of this scenario. We have this very stripped down bluesy Gregg Allman. His voice is the focus, and despite his age he can still belt out a blues song. All of that is good, but there is something to the production that leaves the album flat. The energy is missing completely. Everything about it feels like it is stuck in tar and you get dragged down with it as we plod through all twelve tracks.
One other comment. I was reading a reviewer who talked about Gregg Allman's disappointing solo career and all I could think was here is a guy who was brother to the greatest blues guitarist of all time. His brother died at a very young age leaving Gregg to spend the rest of his life trying to find anyone who could come close to matching what his brother did and never finding it. Go back and listen to the Allman Brothers and you'll quickly see that what made Gregg Allman such a great blues singer was that he was teamed with his brother Duane.
If you want some pretty rootsy, slow paced blues on in the background while you make chili then throw this one on.
Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 2 out of 5 stars for Not Bad.
Hear, hear. Who is that reviewer to say that Gregg Allman is a disappointment? A disappointment to whom exactly? To Gregg Allman? To his parents? To me? To other musicians? Oh, please, that reviewer has no clue whether any of those things are true. To the reviewer himself? Why do I care about that? If you don't have something nice to say about Gregg Allman, just don't say anything at all--that's what I say. It was right in first grade, and it's right now. If enough of us don't say anything at all about Gregg Allman, Gregg Allman will cease to be an article of discussion at all. The more that reviewer keeps railing on Gregg Allman, the more I'm just going to think the reviewer is a jerk and standing up for Gregg Allman and keeping him in rotation just an act of defiance against bullying.
ReplyDeleteYour point about Duane is very well taken, although I'm sure that Gregg's various lifestyle problems also affected his music. In any event, we don't need a new album to hear old-school music from Gregg Allman. Just go listen to the first two Allman Brothers albums, or "Live at the Fillmore West." Even if he never did anything else, he made those three albums, and they should count for a lot.
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